---
_id: '60234'
abstract:
- lang: eng
  text: "<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title>\r\n          <jats:p>It has become a new
    global trend that governments are partially automating decision-making processes
    by public agencies. This, however, has led to some scandals revealing grave injustices,
    including the Robodebt scandal in Australia and the childcare benefit scandal
    in the Netherlands. This chapter argues that the normative impacts of the move
    towards automated decision-making can be fruitfully understood and addressed through
    the lens of civic virtue. It starts by outlining the Dutch childcare benefit scandal,
    showing that what happened cannot be reduced solely to human intent or structural
    factors, but needs to address the in-between term of human moral dispositions.
    Following this insight, the chapter outlines a framework of civic virtue, which
    outlines ideal states (civic virtue) and their deviations (civic vice) for different
    temporal configurations (past-, present-, and future-oriented civic virtue). Finally,
    the chapter uses this framework to reflect on the much-touted principle of ‘explainability’
    in addressing harms like the ones done to citizens in the childcare benefit scandal.
    Three impacts are laid bare through the lens of civic virtue, of servility, presumptuousness,
    and political recalcitrance. Explainability, the chapter argues, may successfully
    address these impacts, but only if it ceases to focus solely on narrow black box
    problems in AI and address public governance more holistically.</jats:p>"
author:
- first_name: Wessel
  full_name: Reijers, Wessel
  last_name: Reijers
citation:
  ama: 'Reijers W. Civic Vice in Digital Governance. In: <i>Public Governance and
    Emerging Technologies</i>. Springer Nature Switzerland; 2025. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14">10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14</a>'
  apa: Reijers, W. (2025). Civic Vice in Digital Governance. In <i>Public Governance
    and Emerging Technologies</i>. Springer Nature Switzerland. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14</a>
  bibtex: '@inbook{Reijers_2025, place={Cham}, title={Civic Vice in Digital Governance},
    DOI={<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14">10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14</a>},
    booktitle={Public Governance and Emerging Technologies}, publisher={Springer Nature
    Switzerland}, author={Reijers, Wessel}, year={2025} }'
  chicago: 'Reijers, Wessel. “Civic Vice in Digital Governance.” In <i>Public Governance
    and Emerging Technologies</i>. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14">https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14</a>.'
  ieee: 'W. Reijers, “Civic Vice in Digital Governance,” in <i>Public Governance and
    Emerging Technologies</i>, Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025.'
  mla: Reijers, Wessel. “Civic Vice in Digital Governance.” <i>Public Governance and
    Emerging Technologies</i>, Springer Nature Switzerland, 2025, doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14">10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14</a>.
  short: 'W. Reijers, in: Public Governance and Emerging Technologies, Springer Nature
    Switzerland, Cham, 2025.'
date_created: 2025-06-16T20:37:16Z
date_updated: 2025-09-22T10:04:39Z
doi: 10.1007/978-3-031-84748-6_14
language:
- iso: eng
place: Cham
project:
- _id: '370'
  name: 'TRR 318; TP B06: Ethik und Normativität der erklärbaren KI'
publication: Public Governance and Emerging Technologies
publication_identifier:
  isbn:
  - '9783031847479'
  - '9783031847486'
publication_status: published
publisher: Springer Nature Switzerland
quality_controlled: '1'
status: public
title: Civic Vice in Digital Governance
type: book_chapter
user_id: '102524'
year: '2025'
...