Relational Legitimacy in the Age of Algorithmic Governance: Rethinking How AI Reconfigures Citizen State Relations

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the epistemic and relational foundations of public governance. As algorithmic systems structure information flows, influence administrative judgement, and mediate interactions between citizens and the state, established legitimacy models centred on participation, procedural quality, and institutional performance no longer fully capture how authority is interpreted and evaluated. While research highlights opacity, bias, and weakened accountability in algorithmic decision processes, a core issue remains insufficiently theorised: how legitimacy can be sustained when governance relations are mediated through technologies that transform what citizens can know, understand, and contest. This conceptual paper advances a theory of relational legitimacy for AI governed environments. It argues that legitimacy depends not only on institutional safeguards but also on the cognitive and relational conditions that enable citizens to assess algorithmic decisions in light of publicly anchored standards of fairness, accountability, and democratic authority. AI reshapes these conditions by redistributing epistemic authority and altering interpretive practices, yet digital technologies can also empower citizens by improving political and digital literacy and strengthening their capacity to scrutinise and enact throughput legitimacy. Integrating insights from AI governance, epistemic authority, and relational approaches in public administration, the paper develops a framework specifying how AI reconfigures citizen state relations and outlines implications for accountability architectures, institutional design, and value alignment in algorithmic public governance.