Algorithmic governance and surveillance federalism: transforming the digital state in India and ASEAN

Introduction The current paper suggests the conceptualisation of surveillance federalism as the theoretical framework to interrogate the recomposition of local and regional democratic autonomy in the context of multi-level governance in the second stage of digital centralisation. Using a comparative method that compares India with a chosen group of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) states, that is, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines, this paper discusses the hostile relationship between technologically modernising statehood and strong democracy. However, these centrally controlled digital architectures, exemplified by biometric identity regimes and algorithmic governance platforms, radically transform the federal bargain, as the manuscript argues. Although these systems are said to improve the efficiency of the provision of public services, they also erode the sovereignty of the sub-national governments replacing the consent-based shared sovereignty with technologically mediated centralised controls. Methods Using a qualitative comparative design, this study compares India’s centralised coordination model with three distinct ASEAN trajectories such as Singapore’s technocratic model, Indonesia’s decentralised but increasingly Jakarta-centric framework, and the Philippines’ environment of localised experimentation and divided democratic capacity. Data is drawn from document analysis of national digital strategies and institutional capacity reports. Results The paper outlines three interlocking processes at work in surveillance federalism: (1) centralisation of data at the expense of local democratic institutions; (2) the emergence of technocratic public administration, replacing deliberative politics with computational rationality; and (3) the algorithmic paradigm of citizens as data. A case study of the Aadhaar system in India and the Digital India programme that has been compiled shows how these centralised platforms are gradually de-democratising Panchayati Raj institutions and local autonomy in municipalities. Southeast Asian popular case studies that seek to explain the difference in digital mono-centralisation tend to take simplistic approaches to the analysis of different digital trajectories. An example of a high-capacity technocratic model with little democratic accountability is the Smart Nation programme in Singapore. Conversely, post-Reformasi decentralisation in Indonesia has triggered a new generation of Jakarta-centric surveillance, and in the Philippines, we can see an illustration of the multiplied impact of surveillance technologies in a divided democratic environment on local governmental capacity. Collectively, these instances illustrate how different forms of surveillance federalism burst forth in different regimes with different institutional outcomes. Discussion The findings suggests that the democratic theory suggests that digital surveillance is a qualitatively new danger to federal democracy, which functions by creating institutional changes that are unobtrusive and do not involve a constitutional change. The theoretical breakthrough is the theorisation of surveillance federalism as a reconfigurative process of intergovernmental relations, citizen-state relations, and democratic accountability. The results dispute techno-optimistic accounts of digital governance and shed light on a way forward to democratic resilience, including the concept of data sovereignty, increased transparency, and strengthening local institutions. The policy implications are not limited to the cases presented, but they provide valuable lessons to democratic federations that face the demands of digitised concentration.