The Scientific—Technological Revolution and the Role of Specialist Elites in Policy-making in Czechoslovakia

Abstract

The role of experts or specialist elites in the making of policy in socialist states is a question which has received a good deal of attention since these states were established. It is also a question which has become increasingly important in the past decade, for scholars and policy-makers in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, as well as observers in the West, have argued that the continued economic development of these societies will depend on the efficient utilization of specialized knowledge. In the pages to follow, I discuss some of these expectations concerning the proper function of expertise and those who possess it in policy-making. I then evaluate the role which specialists have played in Czechoslovakia and the factors which have influenced that role during various periods, with particular emphasis on the making of demographic policy. Finally, I discuss the outlook for specialist influence on policy-making in Czechoslovakia in the 1980s and the implications of this outlook for the political system.KeywordsPolitical ElitePopulation PolicyParty LeaderEast European CountryReform PeriodThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.