Simulating Bureaucracy? The Uncertain Future of the Administrative State

Public administrations are facing major challenges: climate change, pandemics, and emerging technologies are fundamentally reshaping the demands placed on government action. Traditionally, administrative practice and administrative law have relied on control, predictability, and legal certainty. Today, however, many decisions must be made under conditions of deep uncertainty. Such uncertainty cannot be eliminated even with the best available scientific methods, e.g. because reliable data is lacking.
With the support of the Momentum program, I aim to explore how public administrations can remain capable of action under these conditions. The focus will be on whether and how innovative tools like computational modeling and simulations can help guide decision-making even when reliable forecasts are not possible. Such methods are already used, for example in climate law and AI regulation. The goal is to identify new ways for administrative law to respond flexibly to an increasingly uncertain future. To this end, I plan to establish an interdisciplinary research team combining legal and social science perspectives. Research activities will be closely connected to administrative practice to ensure practical relevance. Overall, the research aims to contribute to the development of ideas and normative frameworks for a public administration that can act proactively, flexibly, and adaptively in the face of future challenges.