Neoliberalism and Rule by Experts

Abstract

This chapter explores neoliberalism not as a specific kind of expertise but as a form of critical technopolitical reflection on the way that the authority of truth and the legitimate exercise of political power both ground and limit each other. Focusing on the work of the political scientist Vincent Ostrom, it examines how American neoliberalism emerged as a critique of expert rule established during the Progressive Era and the New Deal and as an argument in favor of an alternative model of administration that is embedded in a “polycentric” democratic polity. It proposes that Ostrom’s work suggests a reappraisal of the critique of technical expertise and democracy that has been advanced in recent social theory.