Since the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its increased use in the public sector, there has been a two-fold debate in practice and academia about the relationship between transparency and...Show moreSince the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its increased use in the public sector, there has been a two-fold debate in practice and academia about the relationship between transparency and trust. On the one hand, transparency can create an open government culture and improve trust; on the other hand, transparency confuses citizens and leads to delegitimization of government. This research contributes to the debate by examining the effect of algorithmic decision-making transparency on institutional trust and procedural fairness's role in this relationship through a quantitative vignette study focusing on enforcing parking fines. The study distinguishes itself from others by measuring institutional trust by three dimensions (competence, benevolence, and honesty) and transparency by two dimensions (accessibility and explainability). The results reveal that: (1) accessibility increases institutional trust and trust in the competence and benevolence of the institution; (2) explainability increases institutional trust and trust in the competence of the institution; (3) procedural fairness negatively affects the relationship between accessibility and institutional trust and between accessibility and trust in the competence of the institution; (3) procedural fairness positively affects the relationship between explainability and trust in the benevolence of the institution. These results imply that institutional trust is multidimensional and can be influenced differently but that access and explainability of decision-making increase trust. Furthermore, local governments can make greater use of the Dutch algorithm registry to provide citizens with access and explanations of decision-making to enhance trust in the institution.Show less
The politics-administration interface has been subjected to much academic controversy. This observation is particularly true at the national and sub-national level of government, where the...Show moreThe politics-administration interface has been subjected to much academic controversy. This observation is particularly true at the national and sub-national level of government, where the relations between politicians and civil servants received sustained attention from the scholarly community. Yet, the international realm remains largely excluded from this central debate. This Master thesis seeks to correct this research gap. By drawing on the vast literature on the politics-administration interface, the present thesis tests the degree of separation between international civil servants in the high and low tiers of the United Nations (UN) Secretariat. It seeks to enrich the ongoing debate on political-administrative relations by studying this topic from a novel vantage point. Moreover, it contributes to the contemporary literature on international public administrations (IPAs) by offering a qualitative single-case study of the UN Secretariat. While the results of this research are limited in their external validity, they confirm the urgent need to study international administrations as compound and dynamic organizations on their own. The author finds a strong degree of separation between politics and administration in the Secretariat, which transpires through this administration’s hierarchical structure, the emphasis on internal career development, as well as its highly competitive, merit-based selection system. The author encourages the scholarship to test the ideal of separation in other international bureaucracies, and hopes that this project will serve as a catalyst to study the politics-administration interface beyond the boundaries of the nation-state alone.Show less
This thesis explores the relationship between bureaucratic accountability and their disposition toward utilizing algorithms in their decision-making processes. Drawing upon the literature on...Show moreThis thesis explores the relationship between bureaucratic accountability and their disposition toward utilizing algorithms in their decision-making processes. Drawing upon the literature on government accountability and aversion to algorithmic decision-making, it hypothesizes that the more public officials are aware of the chains of accountability they are tied to, the less favorable they will be to utilizing algorithms. The hypothesis is tested through a case study of the Chilean Institute of Social Services, which employs multiple algorithms to automate eligibility decisions for pension and other social benefit applications. To trace the organization’s bureaucratic accountability chain, data collection is based on semi-structured interviews of public officials from different hierarchical levels. The results confirm several theoretical expectations on reduced discretion, muddled authority over the algorithm and algorithmic opacity, leading to blame avoidance within the organization. However, the results also disprove the hypothesized negative relationship, revealing that officials with high awareness and perceptions of individual accountability instead favor using algorithms to automate decisions. Further analysis of the dependent variable reveals that a favorable disposition toward algorithm use is overwhelmingly tied to the perception of trust. The individual descriptions of bureaucrats convey clues for an alternative explanation of the outcome, suggesting that stringent evaluation and audit practices can help circumvent algorithm aversion resulting from opaque algorithms or reduced discretion. Such a potential explanation implies that bureaucratic accountability chains could serve as a substitute source of trust, allowing public servants to hold the algorithm to account by proxy. The qualitative accounts in this thesis offer insights into how bureaucrats feel personally accountable for the algorithms they use, expanding the literature of public officials’ reliance on algorithmic decision-making.Show less
