Epistemic Democracy and Technopolitics: Four Models of Deliberation

In this article I examine the structure of four deliberative models: epistemic democracy, epistocracy, dystopic algocracy, and utopian algocracy. Epistocracy and algocracy (which in its two versions is an extremization of epistocracy) represent a challenge to the alleged epistemic superiority of democracy: epistocracy for its emphasis on the role of experts; algocracy for its emphasis on technique as a cognitively and ethically superior tool. In the concluding remarks I will advance the thesis that these challenges can only be answered by emphasizing the value of citizens’ political participation, which can also represent both an increase in their cognitive abilities and a value for public ethics.