Algorithmic Governance and Power
How AI is Reshaping American Democracy
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- Description
- Contents
- About
How is American government being reconfigured when public authority is exercised through code, platforms, and data systems as much as through statutes, agencies, and courts? Algorithmic Governance and Power: How AI is Reshaping American Democracy shows how decisions about speech, benefits, policing, immigration, and elections are increasingly shaped by technological infrastructure and private governance operating alongside - and often inside - the state.
Nancy S. Lind argues that public power now routinely operates through a government–private sector partnership she calls the “hybrid state.” Through case-based analysis of algorithmic screening, risk assessment tools, content moderation, and microtargeted political advertising, she traces how legal and policy judgments become embedded in system design - often in ways that are hard to see, contest, or appeal through conventional administrative and judicial channels.
Written for scholars, students, and practitioners navigating a post-Chevron landscape, the book offers a practical framework for judging accountability when decision-making is automated or outsourced, clarifying responsibilities for transparency, due process, and effective oversight.
Introduction: The Architecture of the Hybrid State
- Chapter 1. From Bureaucracy to the Algorithmic State
- Chapter 2. Platforms as Political Institutions
- Chapter 3. Invisible Power and Elections: Data, Targeting, and the New Campaign Machine
- Chapter 4. Law and the Algorithmic State: Due Process, Opaque Systems, and Regulatory Lag
- Chapter 5. Inequality in the Algorithmic State
- Chapter 6. Democratic Accountability in a Black Box System
- Chapter 7. The Future of American Governance: Reclaiming Democratic Control in the Hybrid State
- Conclusion: Reclaiming the Republic
- Epilogue: Ten Principles for Governing the Hybrid State
Nancy S. Lind is Professor Emerita of Political Science and Government at Illinois State University, USA, where she taught for more than three decades. Her work focuses on democratic governance, public law, public administration, and the ways concentrated economic power shapes political institutions and policy outcomes. An award‑winning teacher and widely published scholar, Lind’s research bridges democratic theory and applied policy analysis, with a sustained commitment to accountability, citizen participation, and institutional design in contemporary democracies.