Digital Panopticon. How Do Autocracies Use Technological Infrastructure?

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to examine the causes and consequences of the formation in a non-democratic state of the digital infrastructure of control and suppression of society. As a research method, a comparative case study was used in the interpretation of A. Lijphart and a cross-temporal comparison, as an analysis of dynamic changes in specific periods of time. It should be noted that the comparison here also serves as a special view at the political phenomenon (in this case, the use of digital technology in autocracies). The theoretical foundations of the emergence of modern autocracies and the reasons for increasing government attention to technology are considered. Specifi c examples consider the use of digital technologies to control society and strengthen the political regime of autocracies. Both political and socio-economic aspects of the functioning of modern authoritarian systems are revealed on the example of the China and the Philippines. At the end of the text is considered the probability of the spread of such practices in modern Russian Federation. Based on a theoretical and practical analysis, the authors come to the following conclusions: autocracies use digital technological infrastructure to form a system of control over citizens; the technological leader in the formation of such control systems is China, which exports elements of the technological infrastructure to other autocracies through state-owned corporations; In the Russian Federation, after a number of legislative changes in the information sphere, with the support of the China, elements of control over the internet and a system of big data collection subordinate to the state are being formed.