Algorithmic Government: A Theoretical Framework of Discretion, Accountability and Administrative Justice in AI-Enabled Public Service Delivery
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.68854/ndmw4s52Keywords:
algorithmic government, public administration, administrative discretion, accountability, administrative justice, automated decision-making, street-level bureaucracy, digital government, AfricaAbstract
Public administration is being automated at the point where citizens meet the state: eligibility for benefits, allocation of school places, selection for inspection, prioritisation of cases. The literature on digital discretion documents changes in front-line routines but rarely connects them to the legal and political mechanisms of administrative justice, and remedies such as human review, explanation and algorithm registers are proposed one at a time. This article asks what happens to discretion, accountability and administrative justice when a public decision is made or shaped by an algorithm. It adopts a conceptual, theory-building design based on an integrative review of 31 peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2023 and 2026, read alongside three primary statutes, and proceeds through typology construction, proposition derivation and an illustrative case analysis. Drawing on street-level bureaucracy theory, accountability scholarship and research on automated decision-making, it distinguishes three transformations: the relocation of discretion from the front-line official to the system designer, the replacement of case-by-case reasoning with population-level rules, and the dispersal of responsibility across agencies, vendors and models. Each weakens an established mechanism of administrative justice, from individualised consideration and reason-giving to hierarchical answerability and judicial review, and because the three interact, remedies designed against one of them underperform. Australia's Robodebt scheme and the Dutch childcare benefits scandal illustrate the argument, and Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa show how it applies where digital government is expanding faster than administrative law. Seven propositions specify when algorithmic administration improves consistency and reduces corruption without eroding the right to be heard. Theoretically, the article ties the location of judgement to the mechanisms of administrative justice. Practically, it recommends a design–procurement–review framework: signed design records, pre-decision exception channels, procurement terms that defeat trade-secret obstruction, and review bodies with powers over systems as well as decisions.
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