What is Technocratic Government?

In Pakistan, every two or four years, there is talk of a technocratic government. Usually, this happens before an election. But what exactly is a technocratic government? Does it have a place in the Constitution of Pakistan? And does such a system exist in other parts of the world? We will explore all these questions and more.

What is Technocratic Government?

Technocratic government is a government that involves successful people and experts in their respective fields, this system is completely contrary to democracy because the votes of the people do not elect those who govern in it, but on the basis of personal choice or dislike of an individual or institution. In other words, we can say that in a technocrat, decision-makers are selected on the basis of specialized knowledge and personal performance in a particular field rather than political affiliations, parliamentary skills, or popularity.

There are two forms of technocracy. In one, the entire government consists of experts, while in the other form, one part or sector of the government is technocrats, such as employing technocrats in the bureaucracy. For example, a former bureaucrat was made the Chief Election Commissioner in Pakistan. The inclusion of technocrats in the government has also probably been the compulsion of the governments, especially in the last 20 years, the finance ministry has been mostly with technocrats like Shaukat Aziz, Abdul Hafeez Sheikh, Shaukat Tareen. Recently, after Asad Umar was in the Imran Khan government, Abdul Hafeez Sheikh and Shaukat Tareen were made finance ministers, and Dr. Zafar Mirza and Dr Faisal Sultan became health ministers. Industrialist Abdul Razzaq Dawood was given the Ministry of Commerce. During the PPP regime, Shaukat Tareen, Salman Bashir, and Dr. Ashfaq Ahmed were part of the government.

Proponents of technocracy call it meritocracy, in which qualified persons are appointed to every important position, which prevents conflict of interest and makes long-term and long-term policies. While anti-technocratic democrats do not like it because it is not the real aspirations of the people, the direct choice of the people. This system is also considered an insult to democracy.

Historical Overview of Technocracy

The term technocracy was first coined in 1919 by William Henry Smith, an American engineer. According to him, technocracy is a system in which bureaucracy, scientists, and engineers make people’s governance effective. This was followed by a movement called the Technocrat Movement in the United States and Canada in the 1930s. The ideology of this movement was similar to that of the Communists, but the founders of this movement tried to keep it separate from all forms of politics and the Communist Revolution.

The main objective of this movement was that the working hours in a week would be only 16 hours. The responsibility to work will not apply to every individual. Only those above 25 years of age will work and retire after 20 years, i.e., at the age of 45. Those who do not work will have their health, training, housing, and food cared for. Money will not exist; instead, an energy certificate or energy certificate will be used as an economic system. 

The cost and compensation will be calculated according to the energy used to produce or make anything. In order to establish this system, it was considered necessary that the democratic system of people’s representatives should be abolished. Supporters of technocracy say that there will be no politicians and businessmen ruling in this system, but scientists, doctors, and engineers will do this work. The supporters of these technocrats, who raised their voices against the recession in the United States, were dismissed as misguided or ignorant.

Nevertheless, many of the questions raised by this group of scientists and intellectuals in the dream of an unprecedented world that was decorated in the 1930s and 1940s are still relevant or relative. There was a time in this movement when the number of its members exceeded 5 lakh. According to him, development and innovation created social problems such as large-scale unemployment, environmental degradation, overpopulation, and inequality.

The Technocracy Movement and Its Influence on Modern Day Political Ideas

The founders of this movement included American engineer Howard Scott and American geologist Marine King Hubert Marion King Hubbert. According to Howard Scott, the owner of the Charismatic Personality, it was a mistake to run this new world with the methods before the Industrial Revolution. He said that democracy has brought many incompetent people to power who have made wrong decisions, leading to social destruction. When the activists of the technocracy movement met, they saluted each other like soldiers. It is clear here that according to the leaders of this movement, it was a completely non-political movement. British science fiction writer H.G. Wells Herbert George Wells was also among the fans of the movement.

There was also a regular symbol of this movement called ‘Monad’. When the movement spread from the United States to Canada for five years, the leader of this movement in Canada was Dr. Joshua Haldeman, who moved to South Africa in 1941 in frustration. But his grandson today wants to form a technocratic government on Mars, not on Earth. Born in 1971, the man’s name is Elon Musk. Who owns American technology company Tesla, space company SpaceX, and social media platform Twitter. Elon Musk said in a TV interview that it will not be a representative on Mars but a direct democracy, in which people will be included in the government according to their abilities and abilities, and people will not vote for candidates but directly on an issue. This will reduce corruption because representative democracy has more than direct democracy. It’s vicious.

This totalitarian idea of the world peaked in the 1930s, but in the 1940s, the ‘New Deal’ policy introduced by US President Roosevelt began to bear fruit, and jobs began to be created again.

Where to find technocratic government in the world?

Now, the question arises whether there has ever been a technocratic government in the world. Let me tell you that the governments of the Soviet Union were considered to be technocratic governments because the Executive Committee of the Communist Party, such as the Politburo, was called Politburo, in 1986 about 100 percent of its members were technocrats, even if only 86 percent of the engineers were in it. Even in China’s ruling Communist Party, the majority are usually engineers.

According to the survey conducted in cities with a population of more than one million in China, 80 percent of the people involved in local governments have technical education. According to experts, the main reason for China’s development is these technicians, who have enabled China to build mega projects such as the Three Gorgeous Dam, the High-Speed Railway System, and the National Trunk Highway System. On the other hand, economists or financial technocrats have also played an important role in making China the world’s economic superpower.

That was the case with communist countries. Technocratic governments have often existed in Italy if we look at European democracies. A few years ago, many unelected technocrats were included in the cabinet of Mario Monti, who became Prime Minister in 2011. Similarly, in 2011, the reins of the Greek government were handed over to Lucas Papademos, an economist Lucas Papademos, not only.

Some Other Countries:

• In 2009, the interim government in the Czech Republic was handed over to economist John Fisher Jan Fischer.
• In Bulgaria in 2013, Plamen Orshanskiy Became Prime Minister. He was not a member of any party nor was elected from any region, yet the Assembly elected him prime minister.
• Surprisingly, in 2013, there was a time when the heads of government of 24 of the 27 countries of the European Union were technocrats in some way or another.
• On the other hand, in 2013, an interim government of technocrats was also formed to end political instability in the African country of Tunisia.
• Let us also tell you here that in recent years, Singapore’s system of government is considered the best example of the technocratic system, where the government is formed with the best combination of politicians and technocrats.
• If we look at Pakistan’s neighboring country, Bangladesh, there have been caretaker governments of technocrats from 1991 to 2008. But Hasina has amended the constitution and completed the story of the formation of a caretaker government, which does not see any remote possibility of a technocrat government in Bangladesh at the moment.

Has Pakistan ever had a caretaker government?

Pakistan has had a technocratic government in the past. This happened before the constitution of 1973. Field Marshal Ayub Khan formed the government during his presidency from 1958 to 1969. He created a new constitution which replaced the federal parliamentary system with a presidential system. Ayub Khan became president through a referendum in 1960 and was elected again in 1965 through regular elections. His cabinet consisted of 12 members, including four generals and eight unelected individuals. Ayub Khan was also the defense minister. General Azam Khan, General Wajid Burki, and General KM Sheikh were part of his cabinet, along with economist Muhammad Shoaib, former judge and educationist Maulvi Muhammad Ibrahim, industrialist Abul Qasim Khan, and bureaucrats FM Khan and Habib-ur-Rehman. Hafeez-ur-Rehman, Manzoor Qadir, and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto were also part of the first cabinet.

Ayub Khan Era:

Among the 18 members who were included in Ayub Khan’s second cabinet, not only people from the first cabinet but the new members who were added to it were Abdul Saboor Khan, Khwaja Shahab Uddin, and Ghulam Farooq technocrats. On the other hand, prominent journalists Altaf Hussain, Qazi Anwarul Haq, Shams-ul-Zaha, Chaudhry Akbar Ali Khan, and Sharif Uddin Pirzada, who were part of Ayub Khan’s advisory board, also had no political background. So, we can say that out of the 30 members of President Ayub Khan’s cabinet, 15 were professionals, eight were bureaucrats, four were military officers, 2 were landlords, and one was an industrialist.

Political critics say that the country’s political and economic unrest started during Ayub Khan’s tenure. Rather, it was Ayub Khan who imposed 22 families on Pakistan. On the other hand, most economic and defense experts consider Ayub Khan’s era to be the golden era of Pakistan. According to them, it was the same period in which special importance was given to the energy sector. Big dams, including Mangla Dam, and nuclear power plants, were built. Defense capabilities were enhanced. The Navy was equipped with submarines and other weapons under a modern combat strategy. At the beginning of the space program, an organization like SPARCO was established – not only this but from 1960 to 1968, the country’s annual average growth rate remained close to 7 percent.

Technocratic Government in Pakistan: An Overview

On the other hand, under the 1973 constitution, all the caretaker governments have been formed in Pakistan. Among them, politicians were nominal, and most technocrats were included. It is also important to mention here that there is no provision for any kind of technocratic government in the Constitution of Pakistan. The prime minister can have only five special assistants. Apart from this, he has to take all the cabinet MPs. On the other hand, the Prime Minister can have as many advisers as he wants – these advisers are allowed to consult, but they do not have the authority to be involved in decision-making, so they cannot even sit in cabinet meetings.

The biggest argument in favor of technocratic government is that this government is formed by bringing together qualified people in their respective fields, which can make the dream of good governance a reality. A country like Pakistan, with no resource shortage, can join the world’s developed countries due to good governance. Can the technocrat system be successful in Pakistan?