Modern democratic societies suffer from a deep polarization that makes legislative compromise near-impossible. In response, governments have increasingly outsourced controversial policy decisions to independent regulatory agencies, central banks, and constitutional courts. This shift represents a dangerous retreat from politics, replacing democratic deliberation with administrative decrees.
The Technocratic Cop-Out
By delegating decisions to "expert" bodies, politicians avoid the political cost of contentious choices. If a policy fails, they can blame the independent regulator; if it succeeds, they can claim the credit. But this technocratic governance hollows out the democratic process, leaving citizens with the feeling that voting has no impact on the decisions that affect their lives, which fuels the populist backlash against experts and institutions.
The Judicialization of Politics
When political disputes are framed as constitutional rights questions, compromise becomes impossible. A legislative debate allows for trade-offs and middle grounds; a court case results in a binary winner-take-all outcome. To restore our democratic consensus, we must bring these disputes back into the legislature, accepting that politics is a messy process of compromise rather than a series of administrative optimization problems.
