Imaginaries of better administration: Renegotiating the relationship between citizens and digital public power

Abstract

This article investigates future visions of digital public administration as they appear within a particular regulatory process that aims to enable automated decision-making (ADM) in public administration in Finland. By drawing on science and technology studies, public administration studies, and socio-legal studies we analyze law in the making and identify four imaginaries of public digital administration: understandable administration, self-monitoring administration, adaptive administration, and responsible administration. We argue that digital administration is seen from the perspective of public authorities serving their current needs of legitimizing existing automation practices. While technology is pictured as unproblematic, the citizen perspective is missing. We conclude that the absence of an in-depth understanding of the diverse needs of citizens raises the question whether the relationship between public power and citizens is becoming a one-way street despite of the public administration ideals that express values of citizen engagement.

Resh(AI)ping Good Administration: Addressing the Mass Effects of Public Sector Digitalisation

“…Much like in every other area of socio-economic activity, the "COVID-19 digital shift" and the mainstreaming of advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have prompted discussion of how the public sector could harness the advantages of digital technologies and datadriven insights. AI brings the abstract promise of a more efficient, adaptable, personalisable, and fairer public administration (Esko and Koulu 2023;Coglianese and Lai 2022;Sunstein 2022). Around the world, States are thus experimenting with AI technology, seeking more streamlined and efficient digital government and public services (OECD.AI 2023; Joint Research Centre AI Watch 2022)-in no small part as a driver for rationalisation or savings-generation in the organisation of their public administrations.…”