Genuine question. It seems like a topic that isn’t discussed in-depth often anywhere I can find online.
To be clear, I’m talking about technocracy as in policies are driven by those with the relevant skills (instead of popularity, skills in campaigning, etc.).
So no, I don’t necessarily want a mechanical engineer for president. I do want a team of economists to not tank the economy with tariffs, though.
And I do want a social scientist to have a hand in evaluating policy ideas by experts. A psychologist might have novel insights into how to improve educational policy, but the social scientist would help with the execution side so it doesn’t flop or go off the rails.
The more I look at successful organizations like J-PAL, which trains government personnel how to conduct randomized controlled trials on programs (among other things), the more it seems like we should at least have government officials who have some evidence base and sound reasoning for their policies. J-PAL is the reason why several governments scaled back pilots that didn’t work and instead allocated funds to scale programs that did work.
By definition, most political problem don’t have a clear/unique good solution. You want to build more housing ? But how do you do-it ? Even on pretty technical topic like fire-safety, where do you set the balance between blocking various industries with heavy procedure and ignoring all safety practices for the sake of efficiency ?. Look at topic like tobacco and drugs ? Do you want to ban them because it’s unhealthy ? Or allow them on the name of personal freedom ? Depending who look at the questions, it’s going to change a lot.