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  Effect of Information Technology on State Repression  

Publications

Under Review
  • "High Tech Governance in Emerging High Technology State Powers." 
    Abstract State powers and high technology industries have historically and symbiotically implemented new information and communication technologies (ICTs) to advance their operational goals. However, much of the scholarship and policy discourse studying such practices is limited to well-known mass surveillance revelations in advanced-industrialized Western democratic contexts. We present the first event-catalogued case-history analysis of 306 cases of mass surveillance systems that currently exist across 139 nation-states in the world system. Identifying the ‘known universe’ of these population-wide data infrastructures that shape the evolving relationships between citizens and state powers, this study pays particular attention to and fills an existing void in the contemporary study and understanding of mass surveillance practices by examining how population surveillance systems have diffused across the international system. By closely investigating cases of state-backed cross-sector surveillance collaborations, we address the following questions: What is the recent, global history of state-sanctioned mass surveillance systems deployment? Which stakeholders have most prominently expressed support for, benefited from, or opposed these systems, and why? What have been the comparative societal responses to the normalization of these systems in recent decades? Addressing these questions provides valuable traction for understanding how comparative contexts shape the way governance technologies unfold and spread, potentially in ways that re-enforce state powers’ interests and dominance over their citizens.

Working Papers
  • "The Effect of the Internet of Contentious Politics in Authoritarian Regimes."  
    Abstract The internet allows autocratic governments to monitor their populations and potentially repress opposition groups. At the same time, internet access allows these groups to self-organize and mobilize collective action. We argue that, at a low internet penetration rate, opposition groups are more likely to mobilize and express their dissent. Yet this effect reverses at higher internet penetration rates, due to more targeted government monitoring and repression. We test this argument by conducting a meta-analysis across hundreds of sub-national datasets from the xSub data library (http://www.x-sub.org), along with estimates of internet penetration from 2006 until 2016. These (expected) findings highlight the curvilinear relationship between repression and dissent, and have important implications for scholars and policymakers interested in the effects of information and communications technology in authoritarian regimes.

  • "Citizen Support for Government Surveillance: Evidence from a Survey Experiment in Kuwait." 
    Abstract Scholars have increasingly studied the state's use of surveillance, but we know little about how citizens respond to it, especially in nondemocracies. When are citizens more likely to accept government surveillance? Are people more likely to sacrifice privacy when they face external threats? Using an experiment embedded in a nationally representative survey of 2,000 Kuwaiti nationals, we test whether citizens are more willing to accept internet monitoring when they face external threats. We expect that different types of threats and targets will produce divergent public support for surveillance as well as different levels of policy support, trust in government, risk perception, and online behaviors.
    • with Yuree Noh & Tarek Masoud

  • "Tracing the Development of India's Big Data Governance Infrastructure." 
    Abstract The Indian Unique Identification project, running under the brand name ‘Aadhaar’ is a citizen identification project, initiated in 2009, that aims to assign a unique twelve-digit number to all Indian residents. This number is linked to biometric information (scans of fingerprints, face and irises) and as demographic information (name, date of birth, gender, residential address). As of March 2016, it is the largest national biometric database in the world with information of over 998 million individuals stored in India's Central Information Data Repository servers located in the country’s ‘Technology Capital’, Bangalore. In this paper, we provide a descriptive analysis of the institutional apparatus of the Aadhaar project, noting three key categories of actors involved with the project – 1. The Indian Government (Central and State) 2. Private for profit sector 3. Civil Society not for profit sector. We examine how each of these three groups of actors are involved in structuring, implementing and regulating the project, focusing on the inter-relationships between three groups.
    • with Vishnupriya Das, Fan Liang, Wei Chen, Nicholas Moore & Muzammil M. Hussain

General Audience Articles