Highlights

Abstract

Keywords

۱٫ Introduction

۲٫ Bureaucracy

۳٫ Digital technologies and bureaucratic transformation

۴٫ The arrival of artificial intelligence

۵٫ The “demise of bureaucracy”

۶٫ The bureaucratic machine

۷٫ Conclusion: what might we expect from the future?

References

Abstract

Bureaucracies are often criticized for their inflexibility, budget-maximizing wastefulness, and excessive rules and procedures. Rapid advances in technology, including the expansion of digital government, the use of artificial intelligence, and the ability to collect and analyze big data, promise to make public sector organizations leaner, more efficient, and more responsive to citizens’ needs. While these technological changes have prompted some observers to forecast the end of bureaucracy, data from many countries show that bureaucratic public organizations are not disappearing. In this article, we argue that this paradox can be explained by revisiting some of the foundational work of sociologist Max Weber, who envisioned public administration itself as a bureaucratic machine. Advanced computing technologies, like artificial intelligence, are reinforcing bureaucratic tendencies in the public sector, not eliminating them. While advances in technology may transform the way public sector organizations operate, they can also serve to strengthen bureaucracy’s core purpose.

۱٫ Introduction

Rapid advances in digital and computing technologies have changed the operation of public administration in many countries. In areas like tax collection, criminal justice, and public health, sophisticated computerized data processing systems are becoming essential elements in the implementation of public policy and the delivery of public services. For example, advanced computerized data processing has been used in Brazil to control tax evasion (Faúndez-Ugalde et al., 2020: 3), in the United States to provide guidance on whether to hold or release a defendant before a criminal trial is held (Rizer & Watney, 2018), and in Singapore to aid in contact tracing as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response (Goggin, 2020). These automated systems save time, reduce human capital costs, free up personnel to work on other tasks, curb biases and discrimination, and enable the consideration of problems too complex for human analysts. On the negative side, critics have argued that automation in public administration can pose ethical problems (Liaw et al., 2020), increase inequality (Eubanks, 2018), and generally reduce the quality of democratic governance (Young et al., 2019: 312). Some observers have commented that digital government will alienate citizens, leaving them “detached from the state” (Byrkjeflot et al., 2018: 1005).

Given these debates, as well as the rapid increase in sophistication and the declining costs of information-based technologies, now is the time to examine how advanced computing, automation, and artificial intelligence might transform the practice of public administration itself. One view is that, by doing away with the worst aspects of public sector administration, computing technologies will facilitate the “demise of bureaucracy” (Bennis, 1965: 34). More recently, others have argued that technology will facilitate a shift to a new form of flexible, responsive government operating in “a radically less complex institutional and policy landscape, engineered for simplicity” (Dunleavy et al., 2006: 489). How realistic are these predictions?