West Coast History of Science Society Meeting

University of California, San Francisco

April 11th - April 14th, 2002

[Program]

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 Neither Bureaucratic nor Panoptic: Algocratic Modes of Power

A. Aneesh
Stanford University
 

This article identifies the role of programming languages and code ­ an understudied component of the workplace ­ in the emerging complex of organizational governance. Software systems, I argue, a new kind of governance or what I call algocracy (the rule of algorithms) that may be seen as undermining the importance of bureaucratic hierarchies and vertical integration. With especial reference to the reduction in middle-managerial layers widely discussed in literatures of sociology as well as economics, business and management,  I distinguish three modes of organizational governance ­ bureaucratic, panoptic, and algocratic ­ and emphasize the salient features of each in terms of three different ruling mechanisms: office, surveillance, and code respectively. The logic of algocratic forms of governance is explored methodically to demonstrate how algocracy differs from other forms.