The emergence of “technocracy" in Greek ministerial elites: Evidence from 1989 to 2021

This chapter examines the socio-professional profile of technocratic ministers in Greece during the period 1989–2021. We draw upon a unique dataset of technocratic ministers that includes variables on the technocrats’ demographic characteristics, education, professional experience, and participation in civil society organizations. Latent class analysis is applied to establish a typology of the technocratic ministers. Our analysis illustrates that the number of technocrats increases in Greek cabinets during crises and that technocratic ministers come mainly from the wider public sector and much less from the market and civil society. We distinguish two types of technocratic ministers: the “movers,” who build their expertise in various positions in the public sector, private companies, and international organizations, and the “institutionally established” technocrats, who build their expertise through long-standing investment in a particular institution. Because movers are preferred by PMs as technocratic ministers, we argue that the capacity to operationalize expertise in different policy-related domains is a valuable resource for a technocrat to be appointed in a governmental position