The concept of technocracy is widely used but escapes a well-formed definition. While it certainly refers to epistocratic decision-making devices, its relationship to the public sphere is often ignored. Yet, as others have suggested, a widespread ‘technocratic mentality’ is integral to technocracy. Consequently, I argue that technocracy can only be fully understood by accounting for a potential technocratic bias within the public sphere itself. Specifically, I argue (1) that a technocratic bias is present even in participatory conceptions of democratic decision-making due to the maintenance of an untenable, if only functional distinction between spheres of means and ends. (2) Moreover, by looking at the Dewey-Lippmann debate, I argue that even without a functional distinction of spheres, the bias persists if cognitive competence is seen as a necessary condition for valid political judgments. (3) Lastly, I argue for an Arendtian corrective to a Deweyan understanding of public decision-making, that renounces any conception of epistemic problem-solving in favor of a conception of democratic deliberation as perspectivist world-building. Accordingly, technocracy needs to be understood not only as rule by expertise but rather as a vicious circle arising out of the inability to look at the world politically.
