Public sector digitalisation and stealth intrusions upon individual freedoms and democratic accountability

ABSTRACT

Everyday administrative practices are relatively understudied in research on illiberalism and authoritarianism. This article addresses this gap to account for the neoliberalist and technopopulistic motivations that support illiberal and authoritarian practices in a weak rule of law context. Using narrative analysis, it interprets the role of beliefs and desires of politico-administrative actors in facilitating such actions in the context of India’s public sector digitalisation. This article elaborates how the instrumental rationalities embedded into the design of digitalised policies and their practices at various levels of analysis can erode voluntariness and privacy as well as undercut democratic accountability. This article makes a case for recentering the democratic ethos in designing and implementing digitalised policy regimes to ensure everyday administrative practices are aligned with the need to avoid the infringement of individual freedoms and democratic accountability.

KEYWORDS:

• Public sector digitalisation
• reform by stealth
• illiberalism
• authoritarianism
• policy design
• policy implementation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Srinivas Yerramsetti

Srinivas Yerramsetti holds a Ph.D. in public administration from the School of Public Affairs and Administration at Rutgers University, Newark, and an M.Phil. in Science Policy from the Centre for Studies in Science Policy at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He now works as a postdoctoral researcher at the KPM Center for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland.