USING AND EXPORTING DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM: CHALLENGING BOTH CYBERSPACE AND DEMOCRACIES
USING AND EXPORTING DIGITAL AUTHORITARIANISM: CHALLENGING BOTH CYBERSPACE AND DEMOCRACIES

Summary/Abstract: Over the last two decades, views regarding cyberspace and the usage of digital means by governments shifted from hopes of cyber-utopias to fears of cyber-dystopias, fuelled by increasingly heavy limitations imposed on Internet freedoms and online privacy rights worldwide, a tightening grip of authoritarian regimes on cyberspace, disinformation campaigns, censorship, internet shutdowns, digitally-enabled mass surveillance both online and offline and so on. Thus, the discussion will be centred on Russia’s and China’s usage and export of digital authoritarianism, while also considering steps taken by liberal democracies to counter such actions, focusing on the role of the US and of the EU and its member-states. This paper will start with a literature review regarding digital authoritarianism and an exploration of how Russia and China are using and exporting it. States such as Russia and China are using digital means to bolster and expand their authoritarian regimes, while also exporting digital authoritarianism to other like-minded governments around the world, creating an unignorable challenge for liberal democracies and civil society groups everywhere. Finally, the paper will also address potential courses of action and policies that liberal democracies and international organisations can take for countering digital authoritarianism. For instance, they should promote an alternative model for digital governance and governance through digital means, starting by promoting digital liberties and privacy rights instead of trying to limit them for national security purposes (e.g., the case of encryption). Thus, liberal democracies should respond to digital authoritarianism by further bolstering democracy.

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