Absorbing technocracy: party competition and ideological polarisation in times of crisis

Do crises polarise technocratic attitudes along ideological and partisan lines? Does technocracy serve as an anti-incumbency weapon for the opposition? This article addresses these questions with a unique eight-wave individual-level panel survey of Spanish voters, covering January 2020 to January 2024, and a difference-in-differences empirical design. Although technocratic attitudes initially rose across the board, they soon diverged along political lines: right-wing respondents, opposed to the incumbent left-wing coalition, became markedly more technocratic, while left-wing respondents reverted closer to pre-pandemic levels. The ideological gap widened by roughly 70% and remained at that level four years later. Polarisation was strongest where the opposition was best placed to shape opinion: among politically informed citizens, in opposition-led regions and close to regional elections. The shift appears driven by disapproval of the prime minister’s handling of the pandemic rather than by ideological radicalisation. Technocracy was thus absorbed into existing dynamics of party competition.