POLI 381 - Digital Authoritarianism

Semester Offered: Fall
1 unit(s)

This seminar explores the global rise in digital authoritarianism – the use of digital and information technologies by authoritarian governments to repress, surveil, and manipulate populations for regime goals. We problematize the notion that authoritarianism is a uniquely “Eastern ” or developing country phenomenon and consider how China, Iran, Russia, Britain, the United States, France, and Israel are drivers of this trend and its implications for international and domestic politics. We discuss the networked resistance to digital authoritarianism from citizens and civil society, norm diffusion, and the effects of these innovations on platform governance, technology transfer, gender-based violence, interstate warfare, censorship, human rights, and the sovereignty, territoriality, and autonomy of states. To gain a critical perspective on digital authoritarianism, we read Nanjala Nyabola’s Digital Democracy, Analogue Politics: How the Internet Era is Transforming Politics in Kenya, Steven Feldstein’s The Rise of Digital Repression, and Jacob Helberg’s The Wires of War: Technology and the Global Struggle for Power among other texts. Chibuzo Achinivu.

Prerequisite(s): Permission of the instructor.

One 2-hour period.

Course Format: CLS