8 ms·

Now if we want to get into dirty details, no bureaucrat is ever elected. You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel

by soco 2y ago

Now if we want to get into dirty details, no bureaucrat is ever elected. You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. Or is this in the UK different?

vidarh 2y ago
Yes, but that is not the point. The point is it was a favorite attack point used by Brexit supporters. A whole lot of the accusations against the EU applied just as much - sometimes much more - to the UK itself.
- notahacker 2y ago
  We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature... (in fairness, those people tend to hate the Civil Service in the UK too. And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords)
  - dmurray 2y ago
    How few people need to vote to appoint someone before they're considered "unelected'"? The 805 Lords? The 538 of the US electoral college? The 121 Cardinals of the Conclave? The 101 of the American Senate? The 27 EU Commissioners?
    - kmeisthax 2y ago
      Too many layers of indirection? An indirect democracy is you voting for a representative who votes for policies. The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. Each layer of indirection adds a new way for popular policies to be subverted. Hell, even in the US, the single layer of indirection is already sufficient to kill things like right to repair.
      - tpm 2y ago
        > The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. The EU Commission is the executive, not legislative branch. Though it does hold the initiative to create proposals, they have to be approved by the Council, which is where the real power lies. The Council consists of members of national governments. Also there is a directly elected, but much less powerful, European Parliament, that has to approve the legislative too.
  - graemep 2y ago
    > We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature... I do not think they are the same people. The majority of votes were to leave the EU, the majority of people want to get rid of hereditary peerages. > And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
    - notahacker 2y ago
      > I do not think they are the same people. You obviously haven't read the Telegraph or listened to many Conservative MPs recently. I don't blame you tbf! > The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords. Those are life peers. Hereditary peers are, as the name suggests, people who get their access to the House of Lords by accident of birth rather than Prime Minister. But since Blair cut a deal to get rid of all but 92 of them, they have elected the 92, from a franchise consisting exclusively of people who had hereditary titles that had previously entitled them to a seat.
- kergonath 2y ago
  Indeed. That pattern was obvious even before the referendum. The UK is know for its strong civil servant body that can keep the ship afloat when the old chaps in the government have no clue which way is up. And its first past the post system. It is admirable on a lot of levels but certainly not any more democratic than the EU.
- data_maan 2y ago
  This!
maeln 2y ago
> You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. It does make sense in a lot of cases. For example, in a city, only the mayor and its advisers are elected, and they do not have any control over the administration of the city. But the administration cannot refuse to work with a specific mayor. If they do, they would need to be moved elsewhere, or simply be fired for not doing their job. On the other hand, they are also bound by the law, so they also act as a counter power to crazy mayor who wants to do illegal stuff. Meaning, if the mayor ask the administration to do something illegal, they can absolutely say no with no fear of repercussion for their job. It also makes sense for other counter-power office, where having the currently elected representatives being able to choose who control the office would go against its whole purpose.
- lucianbr 2y ago
  > You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people? I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. May be lots of layers of indirection, like the need to pass or change a law, but still. Who defines and administers the exam you mentioned? Other public representatives? Can they decide to pass their relatives?
  - rsynnott 2y ago
    > Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? Yes, that's how the civil service works in most countries, more or less. The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.) > I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. The elected representatives pass laws. The civil service implements them. Separately, at least in many countries, not sure about France, you have the concept of power devolved to the minister, where the legislature passes a law allowing the minister to make orders in certain restricted areas, a bit like a scope-limited version of US presidential executive orders. This occasionally has amusing repercussions if the original devolution legislation was insufficient or unconstitutional; for instance in Ireland nearly all drugs (morphine, heroin, cannabis and possibly cocaine remained illegal) were accidentally legalised for a day, when the supreme count found that the legislation used to enable the Minister for Justice to ban drugs was insufficient, thus legalising everything which had been banned since it was passed.
andrepd 2y ago
The EU is governed by the European Commission, which is not elected. Say what you will about reactionary British conservatives, the fact remains that the EU is not a particularly democratic organisation.
- arethuza 2y ago
  The members of the Commission are appointed by the governments of the member states which are elected?
  - gpderetta 2y ago
    Not in all EU members; in parliamentary republics (as opposed to presidential republics) governments are not typically elected. That's also the case in the UK.
- data_maan 2y ago
  How is that true, if the body that nominates the European Commission _is_ elected?? By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected. (If you go for the direct election argument, the UK fares pretty badly BTW.)
  - mike_hearn 2y ago
    The body that nominates the Commission isn't elected. In theory the Commission is mostly made up of civil servants who answer to commissioners, who are themselves nominated by each country's own government or civil service. Each commissioner has one area of responsibility only, and they answer to the head of the Commission who is their boss. So someone in the UK votes for a politician, who votes for a party leader, who appoints some ministers, and those ministers may or may not have much of a say in whoever gets nominated to be a commissioner - one of many. But there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect and the person your vote ends up influencing doesn't do anything important to your country or needs. In practice it doesn't actually work that way. In practice, the head of the Commission has veto power over the nominations. They aren't supposed to according to the treaties but the treaties are ignored. This means that in reality it's the head of the Commission who picks the Commissioners, because they can just reject anyone who isn't sufficiently aligned with their own agenda. So that leaves the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Once again there is theory and practice. In theory, it's a decision of the heads of each state that they take together to select some candidates, and the Parliament then gets to vote for their preferred candidate. In practice ... nobody knows how the head is picked. Ursula von der Leyen was recently re-appointed despite being plagued by scandals and having a long career of failing upwards. Parliament was sidelined by giving them a voting list with only one candidate on it (her). Seek out an explanation of how she got this job and you won't find one because: 1. The heads of state don't talk about how they decide as a group. Is it a vote? Some sort of horse trading? Do they take it in turns? Are they even all able to take part? Nobody knows. 2. There's no record of which country voted for who, or why. 3. The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear. 4. Because no head of state has any control over who gets onto the candidate list, they never talk on the campaign trail about how they will "vote" (assuming that's how it works) for who runs the EU. In other words, the process is entirely secret. The potential for corruption is unlimited. So when critics say the EU Commission is a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, they are right and those who argue otherwise here on HN are wrong. People who got their jobs via a process so opaque and indirect that how it functions can't be explained, not even in principle, cannot claim to be democratically selected.
ben_w 2y ago
> Or is this in the UK different? A bit; mostly as you say, but also it's a kingdom and has the House of Lords whose seats are partially heritable, partially religious appointments from the state religion with the monarch at the top, in addition to those appointed by the elected government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal
- graemep 2y ago
  > partially religious appointments from the state religion There are also, in practice, a number of other religious appointments made to provide other religious groups with representation. > in addition to those appointed by the elected government. Those are the most problematic IMO. Businesspeople (because the rich do not have enough influence on politics and cannot get their voice heard?), and former politicians. I think how it works is nicely summarised by the fact that at least one of the founders of an ecommerce website (lastminute.com) is a peer but no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is.
  - dmurray 2y ago
    > no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is. Alexandra Freeman [0] or Lionel Tarassenko [1] might fit your criteria as technocratic appointments to the peerage - just how "like" TBL do they have to be? Sir Timothy seems like the kind of character who could reasonably be appointed, too, if that's what he really wanted. I agree with your point that it's dominated by businessmen and aristocrats, but maybe not quite as badly as you think. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Freeman_of_Steventon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Fr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Tarassenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Tarassenko
    - graemep 2y ago
      Tarassenko does. Freeman, has spent most of her career as a science in science communication (director and producer of BBC documentaries, then a "communications" role at Cambridge). I like TBL as an example partly because of his interest in the broader consequences of technology, and the contrast with people who have made money from the technology her inventented being peers.
medo-bear 2y ago
Yeah but the EU ones are very powerful
verisimi 2y ago
That's still democracy! Right?
rswail 2y ago
In the UK (and other places like NZ/AU), public servants are permanent. They're not elected in any way. So they are employees of their departments and don't change when a minister changes. Ministers are almost always a member of Parliament and appointed by the Prime Minister, so they can change at any time. Usually a government will have some changes at the top of departments (the "Permanent Secretary") and high level executives, but that's also a "change of government to another party" event.
- asveikau 2y ago
  In the US we colloquially call that "career staff". The people at the top are usually political employees, but rank and file will typically stay from one administration to the next. A big part of the "project 2025" idea was to reduce career employees and make everybody effectively a political appointee.
rswail 2y ago
If you can, watch the (very) old TV series called "Yes Minister" from UK television (it's from the 70s/80s). Sir Humphrey Appelby often explains to the Minister Jim Hacker how the Minister sets "policy" and it is the "humble public servants" that carry out that policy, having attended to the details that are required when dealing with the heavy business of government across departments, while leaving the Minister to concentrate on the "big picture", and doing his job, which is: 1. Defend the Ministry in Parliament 2. Make sure that the Ministry's budget is defended in Cabinet

by soco 2y ago

vidarh 2y ago

Yes, but that is not the point. The point is it was a favorite attack point used by Brexit supporters. A whole lot of the accusations against the EU applied just as much - sometimes much more - to the UK itself.

notahacker 2y ago
We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature... (in fairness, those people tend to hate the Civil Service in the UK too. And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords)
- dmurray 2y ago
  How few people need to vote to appoint someone before they're considered "unelected'"? The 805 Lords? The 538 of the US electoral college? The 121 Cardinals of the Conclave? The 101 of the American Senate? The 27 EU Commissioners?
  - kmeisthax 2y ago
    Too many layers of indirection? An indirect democracy is you voting for a representative who votes for policies. The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. Each layer of indirection adds a new way for popular policies to be subverted. Hell, even in the US, the single layer of indirection is already sufficient to kill things like right to repair.
    - tpm 2y ago
      > The EU is a doubly-indirect democracy: you vote for local politicians who appoint commissioners who vote for policies. The EU Commission is the executive, not legislative branch. Though it does hold the initiative to create proposals, they have to be approved by the Council, which is where the real power lies. The Council consists of members of national governments. Also there is a directly elected, but much less powerful, European Parliament, that has to approve the legislative too.
- graemep 2y ago
  > We have people who frothed at the mouth over the role played by unelected bureaucrats now frothing at the mouth at proposals to remove the last hereditary Lords from our legislature... I do not think they are the same people. The majority of votes were to leave the EU, the majority of people want to get rid of hereditary peerages. > And they're elected hereditary Lords, albeit via a franchise consisting entirely of other hereditary Lords The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords.
  - notahacker 2y ago
    > I do not think they are the same people. You obviously haven't read the Telegraph or listened to many Conservative MPs recently. I don't blame you tbf! > The appointment is formally made by the monarch, in practice by the Prime Minister, with some recommendations coming from a commission that is not part of the house of lords. Those are life peers. Hereditary peers are, as the name suggests, people who get their access to the House of Lords by accident of birth rather than Prime Minister. But since Blair cut a deal to get rid of all but 92 of them, they have elected the 92, from a franchise consisting exclusively of people who had hereditary titles that had previously entitled them to a seat.
kergonath 2y ago
Indeed. That pattern was obvious even before the referendum. The UK is know for its strong civil servant body that can keep the ship afloat when the old chaps in the government have no clue which way is up. And its first past the post system. It is admirable on a lot of levels but certainly not any more democratic than the EU.
data_maan 2y ago
This!

maeln 2y ago

> You elect the representatives, and they nominate in turn whoever bureaucrats they feel comfy to work with. This is not always the case, although I guess it depends how you define bureaucrats. As an example, in France, most of the administration is not nominated. You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. It does make sense in a lot of cases. For example, in a city, only the mayor and its advisers are elected, and they do not have any control over the administration of the city. But the administration cannot refuse to work with a specific mayor. If they do, they would need to be moved elsewhere, or simply be fired for not doing their job. On the other hand, they are also bound by the law, so they also act as a counter power to crazy mayor who wants to do illegal stuff. Meaning, if the mayor ask the administration to do something illegal, they can absolutely say no with no fear of repercussion for their job. It also makes sense for other counter-power office, where having the currently elected representatives being able to choose who control the office would go against its whole purpose.

lucianbr 2y ago
> You become a public worker through exam, and the representative usually have no power over your nomination, raises, etc. Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? At this point would they not be a sovereign group distinct from France, untouchable by the french people? I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. May be lots of layers of indirection, like the need to pass or change a law, but still. Who defines and administers the exam you mentioned? Other public representatives? Can they decide to pass their relatives?
- rsynnott 2y ago
  > Who else would have power over "nomination, raises etc" of anyone, if not elected representatives? Other public workers? Yes, that's how the civil service works in most countries, more or less. The US is an outlier in that the executive appoints about 4,000 civil servants; most places don't work like that (even in the US; _most_ civil servants (about 2.8 million of them, federal) are hired, promoted, disciplined etc by other civil servants; the president doesn't sit in on every interview or anything.) > I guess the elected representatives have indirect power over everything in the end, if France is still a democracy. The elected representatives pass laws. The civil service implements them. Separately, at least in many countries, not sure about France, you have the concept of power devolved to the minister, where the legislature passes a law allowing the minister to make orders in certain restricted areas, a bit like a scope-limited version of US presidential executive orders. This occasionally has amusing repercussions if the original devolution legislation was insufficient or unconstitutional; for instance in Ireland nearly all drugs (morphine, heroin, cannabis and possibly cocaine remained illegal) were accidentally legalised for a day, when the supreme count found that the legislation used to enable the Minister for Justice to ban drugs was insufficient, thus legalising everything which had been banned since it was passed.

andrepd 2y ago

The EU is governed by the European Commission, which is not elected. Say what you will about reactionary British conservatives, the fact remains that the EU is not a particularly democratic organisation.

arethuza 2y ago
The members of the Commission are appointed by the governments of the member states which are elected?
- gpderetta 2y ago
  Not in all EU members; in parliamentary republics (as opposed to presidential republics) governments are not typically elected. That's also the case in the UK.
data_maan 2y ago
How is that true, if the body that nominates the European Commission _is_ elected?? By the same argument you could say UK or US or any other solidly democratic is not democratic, because some commission or organisation is not directly, by the people, elected. (If you go for the direct election argument, the UK fares pretty badly BTW.)
- mike_hearn 2y ago
  The body that nominates the Commission isn't elected. In theory the Commission is mostly made up of civil servants who answer to commissioners, who are themselves nominated by each country's own government or civil service. Each commissioner has one area of responsibility only, and they answer to the head of the Commission who is their boss. So someone in the UK votes for a politician, who votes for a party leader, who appoints some ministers, and those ministers may or may not have much of a say in whoever gets nominated to be a commissioner - one of many. But there is at least a path there, even if long and indirect and the person your vote ends up influencing doesn't do anything important to your country or needs. In practice it doesn't actually work that way. In practice, the head of the Commission has veto power over the nominations. They aren't supposed to according to the treaties but the treaties are ignored. This means that in reality it's the head of the Commission who picks the Commissioners, because they can just reject anyone who isn't sufficiently aligned with their own agenda. So that leaves the question of how the head of the Commission is picked. Once again there is theory and practice. In theory, it's a decision of the heads of each state that they take together to select some candidates, and the Parliament then gets to vote for their preferred candidate. In practice ... nobody knows how the head is picked. Ursula von der Leyen was recently re-appointed despite being plagued by scandals and having a long career of failing upwards. Parliament was sidelined by giving them a voting list with only one candidate on it (her). Seek out an explanation of how she got this job and you won't find one because: 1. The heads of state don't talk about how they decide as a group. Is it a vote? Some sort of horse trading? Do they take it in turns? Are they even all able to take part? Nobody knows. 2. There's no record of which country voted for who, or why. 3. The process by which someone even becomes a candidate is unclear. 4. Because no head of state has any control over who gets onto the candidate list, they never talk on the campaign trail about how they will "vote" (assuming that's how it works) for who runs the EU. In other words, the process is entirely secret. The potential for corruption is unlimited. So when critics say the EU Commission is a bunch of unelected bureaucrats, they are right and those who argue otherwise here on HN are wrong. People who got their jobs via a process so opaque and indirect that how it functions can't be explained, not even in principle, cannot claim to be democratically selected.

ben_w 2y ago

> Or is this in the UK different? A bit; mostly as you say, but also it's a kingdom and has the House of Lords whose seats are partially heritable, partially religious appointments from the state religion with the monarch at the top, in addition to those appointed by the elected government. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Spiritual https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_Temporal

graemep 2y ago
> partially religious appointments from the state religion There are also, in practice, a number of other religious appointments made to provide other religious groups with representation. > in addition to those appointed by the elected government. Those are the most problematic IMO. Businesspeople (because the rich do not have enough influence on politics and cannot get their voice heard?), and former politicians. I think how it works is nicely summarised by the fact that at least one of the founders of an ecommerce website (lastminute.com) is a peer but no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is.
- dmurray 2y ago
  > no-one like (for example) Tim Berners-Lee is. Alexandra Freeman [0] or Lionel Tarassenko [1] might fit your criteria as technocratic appointments to the peerage - just how "like" TBL do they have to be? Sir Timothy seems like the kind of character who could reasonably be appointed, too, if that's what he really wanted. I agree with your point that it's dominated by businessmen and aristocrats, but maybe not quite as badly as you think. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Freeman_of_Steventon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandra_Freeman,_Baroness_Fr... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Tarassenko https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lionel_Tarassenko
  - graemep 2y ago
    Tarassenko does. Freeman, has spent most of her career as a science in science communication (director and producer of BBC documentaries, then a "communications" role at Cambridge). I like TBL as an example partly because of his interest in the broader consequences of technology, and the contrast with people who have made money from the technology her inventented being peers.

medo-bear 2y ago

Yeah but the EU ones are very powerful

verisimi 2y ago

That's still democracy! Right?

rswail 2y ago

In the UK (and other places like NZ/AU), public servants are permanent. They're not elected in any way. So they are employees of their departments and don't change when a minister changes. Ministers are almost always a member of Parliament and appointed by the Prime Minister, so they can change at any time. Usually a government will have some changes at the top of departments (the "Permanent Secretary") and high level executives, but that's also a "change of government to another party" event.

asveikau 2y ago
In the US we colloquially call that "career staff". The people at the top are usually political employees, but rank and file will typically stay from one administration to the next. A big part of the "project 2025" idea was to reduce career employees and make everybody effectively a political appointee.

rswail 2y ago

If you can, watch the (very) old TV series called "Yes Minister" from UK television (it's from the 70s/80s). Sir Humphrey Appelby often explains to the Minister Jim Hacker how the Minister sets "policy" and it is the "humble public servants" that carry out that policy, having attended to the details that are required when dealing with the heavy business of government across departments, while leaving the Minister to concentrate on the "big picture", and doing his job, which is: 1. Defend the Ministry in Parliament 2. Make sure that the Ministry's budget is defended in Cabinet