The Algorithmic Hand: Artificial Intelligence, Democracy, and Collective Action at Scale

Abstract

For two centuries, new communication technologies have promised democratic renewal, yet the underlying power structures have scarcely shifted. AI-enabled deliberation risks becoming the next iteration of that cycle. The core problem is not scaling dialogue; it is that even overwhelming public agreement can still be ignored without consequence.

This paper recenters deliberative democracy around a single question: not how citizens form preferences, but whether those preferences have political effect. It clarifies the democratic goods that deliberation at scale could offer, shows how large majorities routinely fail to move policy, and argues for reimagining AI not as a tool for mass conversation but as orchestration infrastructure capable of converting deliberative consensus into coordinated pressure. This is the “algorithmic hand,” an approach that lowers the costs of collective action and raises the costs of institutional non-response.

The paper then examines the limits of this vision, from governance safeguards to the political economy that keeps deliberation small, and concludes that deliberation will remain marginal until it confronts the institutional arrangements that determine responsiveness itself.

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