Event overview
Epistocracy and Oracular Power: applying an ignorance framework to the new authoritarianism
Unfortunately this event has to be cancelled.
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Our final seminar of the Spring series welcomes Linsey McGoey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex.
The resurgence of ‘strongman/strongwoman’ leaders in many nations is raising deep concern about threats to democratic systems of governance. But the emphasis on ‘strong’ rule sometimes displaces attention to a separate, technocratic line of attack on democratic governance: the rise of libertarian political theorists who champion ‘epistocracy,’ or ‘rule by knowers,’ as an explicitly anti-democratic ‘solution’ to so-called voter ignorance.
In this paper, I analyse the various problems with epistocracy through the development of a concept I have termed ‘oracular power,’ defined as the capacity to forge consensus on where the boundaries between ignorance and knowledge lie (McGoey 2019). I also develop a four-fold schema for theorizing oracular power across both secularized and religious contexts, building on anthropological, sociological and political theories of oracular credibility and status in different societies.
Linsey McGoey is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex and Director of the Centre for Research in Economic Sociology and Innovation (CRESI). She is the author of No Such Thing as a Free Gift (Verso), and The Unknowers: How Strategic Ignorance Rules the World (Bloomsbury). Her research theorizes the role of ignorance in both cementing and challenging power relations across different realms, and has played a core role in building the new field of ‘ignorance studies.’
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Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 29 Mar 2023 | 4:00pm - 6:00pm |
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