Numeric Governance and Algorithmic Power: The Role of Big-Data Technologies

The British anthropologist Bernard Cohen showed that enumerative modalities such as censuses and surveys objectified social categories and differences of identity in colonial India. As such, they served as means of governance and control. Similarly, in contemporary international relations, technologies of information and communication embody social power relations. Automated decision making—for example, tracking devices, sensors, and predictive profiling used to police communities and mount counterterrorism campaigns—enforce hierarchies in national and international society. These big-data technologies rely on algorithms based on complex mathematical formulas, and operate across state borders. They offer major benefits, including opportunities for access to more information and knowledge as well as efficiencies for mitigating disparities in society. They can enable comparative and longitudinal analysis for enabling policy reform and better understanding of political and economic change. But risks stem from the biases of the people who create them, imperfect inputs that filter data, and the potential for encoding forms of discrimination. Highlighting these trends, this paper examines the role of algorithmic power in international relations, with emphasis on its implications for the welfare state, democratic accountability, transparency, and regulation.