Carrying Out “Democratic Administration” Using AI

Traditionally, the civil service was expected to execute policies formulated by the political executive. This separation of roles functioned effectively when the civil service primarily handled revenue collection, law enforcement, and justice administration. However, this dynamic broke down during the 1950s when community development programs were introduced. These programs granted significant responsibilities to locally elected representatives, such as block-level samiti presidents. This marked the inception of India's first wave of grassroots democracy, albeit a short-lived one.

During the 1970s, a multitude of development initiatives were launched under the slogan "Garibi Hatao," and civil servants assumed a prominent role in their execution. This shift in responsibilities led to tensions between elected representatives who sought a role in implementation. These tensions were partially resolved by introducing additional structures at the district level, like planning boards and review committees, and implementing unique financial arrangements, such as funds for Members of Legislative Assembly (MLAs). Over time, district in-charge ministers, along with Members of Parliament (MPs) and MLAs, largely supplanted district officers in determining which projects to undertake and how to execute them.

The root cause of this tension was the political inclination to engage in execution, rather than focusing solely on policy-making. An anecdotal conversation between Pratap Singh Kairon, the Chief Minister of Punjab, and his Chief Secretary underscores this inclination. When told by the Chief Secretary that the Chief Minister's role primarily involved policy formulation, the Chief Minister reportedly expressed a desire to implement programs and leave policy-making to civil servants.

Second wave

The second wave began in the 1980s, with Karnataka's experiment involving district secretariats being particularly noteworthy. These experiments culminated in the passage of the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments in the mid-1990s.

Similar trends have emerged in other parts of the world. Around the time India granted constitutional status to urban and rural bodies, the Republic of South Africa crafted its own constitution in 1996, establishing a unitary state with three autonomous yet interconnected spheres of government at the national, provincial, and local levels. An intriguing feature was the creation of an exclusive subject list for local bodies in the constitution, encompassing areas like water, sewerage, and roads.

Presently, a global trend is emerging, permitting people to directly manage their own affairs. An example of this is the rise of citizen assemblies in the United States of America, Britain, France, Canada, and the Netherlands. This shift toward a direct role for citizens can be seen as the onset of the third wave of grassroots democracy.

Third wave

The third wave is founded on the concept of democratic administration, as developed by Vincent Ostrom, professor of political science at Indiana University. He describes that currently, bureaucratic hierarchies control and oversee service provision for residents, resulting in a vertical, remote, and power-driven form of public administration. As residents do not have a direct role in monitoring and controlling public services, they remain disinterested in their provision. Citizens can be made to take an interest in public services, if they are given direct control over the services that matter most to them and monitor them in real-time. This horizontal form of citizen supervision is known as democratic administration.

Implementing democratic administration and providing residents with direct supervision of identified services has been challenging. Now, digital technology, particularly AI, provides a way out. Here are some ways to enable continuous resident engagement in service supervision:

·       Municipal services: Sanitary inspectors could use apps to upload images of street sweeping (before and after), as well as details of garbage collection and anti-malaria operations. The combination of images, text, and audio can be processed using AI, and relevant summaries can be shared with residents, who can provide feedback at the end of each month, influencing salary decisions.

·       Building rules and land use changes: Citizens often lack information about changes in building rules and land use. Before any alterations, residents could trace the circumstances surrounding existing land use and building rules, and understand the impacts of changes on water, sewerage, traffic, and air pollution. Hypertext references could link all changes in the Master Plan in both textual and graphical formats.

Democratic administration represents a moving away from a democratic system where voting occurs once every couple of years after which decision-making is completely delegated to the civil service or political executive to one based on continuous technologically enabled engagement of residents with the nuts and bolts of government decision-making.

The AI-driven third wave would be a radical revision to our standard assumptions not just about how democracy works but about what democracy even is.