Public Administration Review· 2026Q1
Artificial Intelligence, Bureaucratic Discretion, and Democratic Administration
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- Q1SCImago
- 2026year
Short summary
Replacing civil service personnel with AI risks undermining core democratic values like accountability, fairness, and individual consideration, as algorithms diffuse responsibility and struggle with anomalous cases.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Key points
- AI adoption in public service risks undermining democratic values such as accountability, fairness, and individual consideration.
- Algorithms diffuse responsibility, struggle with anomalous cases, and attenuate citizens' claims to individualized consideration.
- The shift of bureaucratic discretion to AI poses a constitutional question about which decisions can be automated versus those requiring human judgment.
- A 'centaur model,' where AI supports human officials, is proposed to balance efficiency with democratic governance.
AI-generated from the title and abstract; the full text is not read.
Abstract
ABSTRACT Since the start of the COVID ‐19 pandemic, many countries have been using artificial intelligence ( AI ) to replace civil service personnel. We argue that this practice undermines core democratic values. Using the public values framework, we identify four clusters of values that are threatened when bureaucratic discretion is transferred to algorithms: accountability, fairness and equity, individual consideration, and reason‐giving. Each of these values is incompatible with how algorithms render decisions. Because algorithms produce outputs based on statistical regularities, they diffuse responsibility across multiple parties, fail to make accurate predictions about anomalous cases, and attenuate citizens' claims to individualized consideration. Thus, this article frames AI adoption as a constitutional question about which decisions can be automated, and which should remain under human control because they implicate democratic values. We propose a centaur model in which AI supports rather than replaces human officials, which can preserve efficiency while protecting democratic governance.
The authors' abstract, as published at the source. Public Administration Review, 2026 · DOI ↗
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Field: Safety Research
Safety ResearchSocial Sciences