Algorithmic governance and the new face of exclusion: A digital structural violence framework for critiquing techno-solutionist social policies

This study investigates how Indonesia's flagship digital social programs PKH (conditional cash transfers), BPNT (food assistance), and Kartu Prakerja (skills subsidies) produce systemic exclusion despite universalist claims. Introducing the Digital Structural Violence (DSV) framework, it conceptualizes exclusion as three interlocking mechanisms: epistemological violence (algorithmic misrecognition of informal populations), infrastructural violence (digital prerequisites that function as covert eligibility criteria), and bureaucratic obfuscation (accountability dissolved into automated systems). Synthesizing investigative reports from KPK, BPK, and Ombudsman with statistical data from BPS, the analysis reveals how these dimensions synergize to render 701,053 beneficiaries invisible, trap Rp1.438 trillion in undistributed cards, and leave 34 percent of complaints unresolved. The Ombudsman RI (2023) further reports that 73 percent of all digital welfare complaints received no substantive response, with the 34 percent figure specifically referring to complaints citing "failure to complete digital confirmation due to technical constraints." The framework bridges structural violence theory with critical data studies, offering a replicable lens for postcolonial welfare analysis. The findings suggest that digitization, framed as efficiency, risks institutionalizing technologically-mediated marginalization, highlighting the need for policy designs that prioritize contestability, infrastructural pluralism, and accountable human oversight.