Artificial Intelligence, Symbolic Power, and Overqualified Personal Assistants in African Personalist Regimes: A Critical Integrative Review
Abstract
The growing integration of artificial intelligence into governance systems has intensified debates concerning bureaucratic authority, symbolic power, and executive control within African personalist regimes. These regimes are commonly defined by strong central control of leadership, constrained independence of institutions, largely ceremonial ministerial roles, and the sidelining of highly educated professionals who, despite their advanced academic credentials, are frequently positioned in lower-level administrative duties. This study examined how artificial intelligence ecosystems, symbolic governance, regional exclusion, and personalist political structures interact to shape bureaucratic hierarchies and the deployment of overqualified personal assistants in selected African states. The study adopted a critical integrative review design based entirely on secondary data analysis. Evidence was synthesized from 312 documentary records selected through a PRISMA-guided review process involving peer-reviewed journal studies, governance reports, parliamentary archives, ministry records, budget documents, public service reports, media investigations, and digital governance literature focusing on Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Zimbabwe, Chad, and Sierra Leone. The findings revealed persistent patterns of symbolic ministerial authority under centralized executive systems, while overqualified personal assistants performed substantive administrative, diplomatic, analytical, and policy coordination functions despite remaining institutionally subordinate. The study further established that artificial intelligence reforms frequently coexisted with informal executive dominance rather than dismantling personalized systems of control. The study contributes an integrative framework linking artificial intelligence ecosystems, symbolic governance, bureaucratic inequality, and regional marginalization while emphasizing the need for merit-based administrative reforms, strengthened institutional professionalism, and equitable deployment of expertise within increasingly digitized governance systems.
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