Everyone is busy with budget stuff, but I have thoughts about the digital authoritarianism argument so you're gonna hear them:
1. The argument that technology is better for dictatorships than democracies is a hypothesis which remains empirically untested.
1. The argument that technology is better for dictatorships than democracies is a hypothesis which remains empirically untested.
2. You can't claim that tech savvy dictatorships endure longer than their pre-tech predecessors and less tech savvy peers w/out showing me a regime survival analysis. Whats the cut-off point for pre and post tech? How do you define autocracy or dictatorship?
The longest ruling regimes are monarchies which obviously aren't democratic. Is their survival due to tech? Some of the other longest ruling dictators are in sub-Saharan Africa and Central Asia, not areas know for their tech savvy.
3. I'm not convinced anyone in this space is being "led by China." China uses tech for domestic oppression and China sells tech internationally to whomever buys it. That doesn't make it a leader.
4. I think that current writing on surveillance in authoritarian regimes focuses too much on tech and not enough on the social structures that enable mass surveillance.
Authoritarianism erodes, reshapes, and dismantles foundational social units like families, neighbors, co-workers, etc to establish and perpetuate political control. Tech is a tool, but education, socialization, coercion, violence and fear are the foundation of mass surveillance.
5. I agree w/ the point that the initial optimism about the internet and social media didn't pan out. But you have to wonder whether this optimism was just naïveté about politics and history. Anything that connects people is inherently vulnerable to manipulation.
