Governing by Algorithm: What Smart Cities Are Teaching Us About Power in Liberal Democracies
The current automation of governance is an evolution in the longstanding tension between democratic responsiveness and technocratic executive power.
Across the world, city governments are adopting systems that promise to make urban life smarter. Sensors regulate traffic. Algorithms assign police patrols. Software flags welfare applicants. Cameras recognize faces. To advocates, these technologies offer efficiency, safety, and objectivity. To critics, they threaten privacy and freedom. But the political meaning of smart cities is more subtle than either side usually admits. What is at stake is not simply a clash between technology and democracy. It is the evolution of a long-standing tension inside liberal democracy itself: the tension between democratic responsiveness and technocratic executive power.
Liberal democracies have always governed through bureaucracy. Elections choose representatives, but representatives rely on administrative agencies to implement policy. This division is necessary. No modern state could function without expertise, rules, and professional management. Yet it also creates a structural problem…
Continue reading this article by Israel Kolawole, “Governing by Algorithm: What Smart Cities Are Teaching Us About Power in Liberal Democracies,” here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/governing-by-algorithm-what-smart-cities-are-teaching-us-about-power-in-liberal-democracies/