Political studies of automated governing: A bird's eye (re)view

In this paper, we develop an approach for analyzing the increasingly important strand of research that deals with automated systems of governing. Such systems, which figure prominently in public policy and regulation, are designed to utilize the rapid advancement in computer technology, like artificial intelligence, with the purpose of governing something or someone. Drawing on a large sample of articles we present a comprehensive analysis of scholarly works where these systems are studied as political, rather than neutral, instruments of governing. We find that the current state of the art articulates the politics of automated systems of governing in three ways. Namely, as part of ontological, epistemological and ideological questions. We conclude that future research should investigate the complex forms of marketization nested in these systems, that it should move from theoretical examples to detailed empirical studies and that political science should get more involved with the issue.

Automated summary

This paper presents an approach for analyzing the research on automated systems of governing. The authors find that the current research primarily focuses on the ontological, epistemological, and ideological aspects of these systems. They suggest that future research should investigate the complex marketization forms within these systems and conduct detailed empirical studies, while calling for more involvement of political science in this issue.