The rise of algorithmic governance and the dual revolution: Applications, challenges, and governance of artificial intelligence in public administration

Artificial intelligence (AI) is penetrating the domain of public administration with unprecedented depth and breadth, acting as both a powerful tool for enhancing government efficiency and a profound challenge to traditional democratic values and governance structures. To comprehensively understand its application roles, core challenges, and future governance pathways, this paper conducts a systematic literature review to construct and provide robust empirical support and systematic theoretical elucidation for a “tool-paradigm dual revolution” analytical framework. Following the PRISMA guidelines, we performed a systematic literature search and multi-stage screening of the Web of Science database, ultimately including 694 core articles for thematic synthesis. Our analysis reveals that AI plays a dual role in public administration. As a “tool”, it significantly enhances administrative efficiency in specific domains. However, its deep application is precipitating a “paradigm revolution” that systematically challenges core public values such as fairness, accountability, and justice by reshaping power relations and decision-making logic. Our framework reveals how the pursuit of tool-level efficiency endogenously and inevitably triggers paradigm-level power restructuring and value conflicts, particularly the problems of algorithmic bias and broken chains of accountability. The paper concludes that the introduction of AI in public administration is a profound governance transformation, the success of which depends not on the technology itself, but on the ability to construct a robust democratic accountability and ethical regulatory framework centered on “meaningful human control” and “data justice” to ensure that technological development consistently serves the public interest.