The Expertocracy Problem
The systematic privileging of technical expertise while relegating other epistemic contributions to symbolic consultation.
Different stakeholder groups possess forms of knowledge that are non-substitutable, experiential evidence from affected communities, feasibility assessments from practitioners, long-term systemic perspectives from researchers, electoral legitimacy from democratic representatives. The expertocracy problem occurs when governance processes treat technical expertise as the only form of knowledge that counts, reducing other perspectives to tokenistic participation.
This produces legitimacy deficits: governance decisions that may be technically sound but democratically ungrounded.