Why aren’t politicians and government department leaders ran by the relevant experts?

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I get that it’s because you need to be elected etc, but why isn’t this a common practise for experts to run and be put in these positions? For example the minister of health should be something along the lines of a doctor or many years of experience in the business of the relevant health service

In: Economics

10 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

First of all because most experts dont have an interest in going for a political carrer and just want to do work in the field they are an expert in. Second of all those positions are usually paid less than experts get anyway and I dont know anyone that would want to pay politicians even more, so there is little incetive to switch into such a position. Thirdly while it might be beneficial to know how working as a doctor is, working as a doctor and working as minister of health require two diffrent skill sets that arent realy overlaping. So just because someone is a great doctor doesnt mean they would be a greath minister of health. You knowing how to treat someone having the flu doesnt make you an expert in the logistics of distributing flu shots or how to finance flu shots for people that cant afford them or even how to get national attention to the problem. It is literaly impossible to be an expert in every field that a minister has to cover, thats why they use consultants (inhouse and external) that are experts in their specific topics and after bringing them all together for a relevant topic they develope a policy/law that fits the direction the minister wants the policy/law to have.
And in the end its people that vote for those people if people would refuse to vote for someone that isnt an expert/only vote the expert than only experts would get elected.

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