Repression in the digital age : Communication technology and the politics of state violence

The effect of the digital revolution on citizens’ ability to voice dissatisfaction with their government and to coordinate dissent via social media has been the subject of much recent research. Optimistic accounts have so far failed to address the salient fact that the state maintains de facto control over the access to social media, which means that new digital technology also provides abusive governments with tools to repress challengers. This dissertation investigates how states’ strategies of violent repression are informed by the use of these opportunities to control the internet. I identify two main forms of control, which are the restriction or disruption of the internet on the one hand, and digital surveillance on the other hand. States face a trade-off: they can either restrict access to the internet and with it diminish opposition groups’ capabilities, or they can permit the digital exchange of information and monitor it to their own advantage. I argue that the choice of internet control affects the type and scale of state-sanctioned violence used against perceived domestic threats. The choice of digital surveillance as a form of control is likely to be used in conjunction with targeted acts of localised violence against those identified as critical to the future success of opposition movements. The availability of highly specified intelligence on the intentions and location of opposition leaders enables states to use targeted violence. Where states have chosen to respond to critical domestic threats in the form of censorship, they will also be more likely to visibly demonstrate their authority through a heightened use of violent repression. In addition, censorship severely limits the choices for violent action on the side of the government, by restricting the state’s own access to the required intelligence for selecting precise targets. Consequently, during periods of censorship, state-sanctioned violence is likely to affect the domestic population indiscriminately. I present a global analysis of the relationship between internet disruptions and the level of state-sanctioned violence, confirming that states who use net- work disruptions are also more likely to abuse the rights of their citizens. Evidence presented in case examples provides contextual understanding for the variety of different digital control tools which states have at their disposal. The full implications of the theoretical argument are tested by moving to the sub-national level, and investigating the relationship between internet control and state violence, spatially and temporally in the Syrian conflict. I present a new integrated database on incidences of state killing in Syria, as well as disaggregated measures of network accessibility. First, I show that internet shutdowns occur in conjunction with significantly higher levels of state violence, most notably in areas where government forces are actively challenged by opposition groups. Second, I use supervised machine-learning to analyze over 60,000 records of state killings by the Syrian regime, and classify them to distinguish between targeted and untargeted acts of repression. I show that higher levels of internet accessibility are consistently linked to an increase in targeted repression, whereas areas with little or no access to the internet witness more indiscriminate campaigns of violence. I conclude the dissertation by discussing the implications of the theoretical argument and the results, which have important ramifications for research and policy attempting to limit state abuse in the twenty-first century

Repression in the Digital Age : Communication Technology and the Politics of State Violence

The effect of the digital revolution on citizens’ ability to voice dissatisfaction with their government and to coordinate dissent via social media has been the subject of much recent research. Optimistic accounts have so far failed to address the salient fact that the state maintains de facto control over the access to social media, which means that new digital technology also provides abusive governments with tools to repress challengers. This dissertation investigates how states’ strategies of violent repression are informed by the use of these opportunities to control the internet. I identify two main forms of control, which are the restriction or disruption of the internet on the one hand, and digital surveillance on the other hand. States face a trade-off: they can either restrict access to the internet and with it diminish opposition groups’ capabilities, or they can permit the digital exchange of information and monitor it to their own advantage. I argue that the choice of internet control affects the type and scale of state-sanctioned violence used against perceived domestic threats. The choice of digital surveillance as a form of control is likely to be used in conjunction with targeted acts of localised violence against those identified as critical to the future success of opposition movements. The availability of highly specified intelligence on the intentions and location of opposition leaders enables states to use targeted violence. Where states have chosen to respond to critical domestic threats in the form of censorship, they will also be more likely to visibly demonstrate their authority through a heightened use of violent repression. In addition, censorship severely limits the choices for violent action on the side of the government, by restricting the state’s own access to the required intelligence for selecting precise targets. Consequently, during periods of censorship, state-sanctioned violence is likely to affect the domestic population indiscriminately. I present a global analysis of the relationship between internet disruptions and the level of state-sanctioned violence, confirming that states who use net- work disruptions are also more likely to abuse the rights of their citizens. Evidence presented in case examples provides contextual understanding for the variety of different digital control tools which states have at their disposal. The full implications of the theoretical argument are tested by moving to the sub-national level, and investigating the relationship between internet control and state violence, spatially and temporally in the Syrian conflict. I present a new integrated database on incidences of state killing in Syria, as well as disaggregated measures of network accessibility. First, I show that internet shutdowns occur in conjunction with significantly higher levels of state violence, most notably in areas where government forces are actively challenged by opposition groups. Second, I use supervised machine-learning to analyze over 60,000 records of state killings by the Syrian regime, and classify them to distinguish between targeted and untargeted acts of repression. I show that higher levels of internet accessibility are consistently linked to an increase in targeted repression, whereas areas with little or no access to the internet witness more indiscriminate campaigns of violence. I conclude the dissertation by discussing the implications of the theoretical argument and the results, which have important ramifications for research and policy attempting to limit state abuse in the twenty-first century

Internet Outages and State Repression

Presented online via Bluejeans Events and in-person in the CODA Building, 9th floor atrium on February 18, 2022 at 12:30 p.m.Anita R. Gohdes is a Professor of International and Cyber Security at the Hertie School in Berlin, Germany. Her research focuses on political violence, state repression and the measurement of human rights.Runtime: 56:37 minutesState-imposed Internet shutdowns, which represent the most extreme form of online censorship, are globally gaining in popularity. Previous research has highlighted the human rights implications of shutdowns, but has thus far largely focused on studying individual countries, while relying on reported online disruptions. This paper takes a global comparative approach, arguing that all else equal, state actors will be more likely to abuse citizens’ physical integrity rights in countries with Internet outages that in countries where no outages occur. To account for all Internet outages, I construct two new indicators based on network measurement data that globally monitor the Internet for instances of outages in near real-time. I present a multivariate analysis of the relationship between Internet shutdowns and physical integrity violations across 168 countries between 2017 and 2020. The evidence presented in this paper suggests that Internet outages are significantly associated with an increase in repression, when compared to years and countries where uninterrupted Internet access is available. With more and more governments making use of cyber controls, the results have important ramifications for research and policy attempting to limit state abuse in the digital age

Canaries in a coal-mine? What the killings of journalists tell us about future repression

An independent press that is free from government censorship is regarded as instrumental to ensuring human rights protection. Yet governments across the globe often target journalists when their reports seem to offend them or contradict their policies. Can the government’s infringements of the rights of journalists tell us anything about its wider human rights agenda? The killing of a journalist is a sign of deteriorating respect for human rights. If a government orders the killing of a journalist, it is willing to use extreme measures to eliminate the threat posed by the uncontrolled flow of information. If non-state actors murder journalists, it reflects insecurity, which can lead to a backlash by the government, again triggering state-sponsored repression. To test the argument whether the killing of journalists is a precursor to increasing repression, we introduce a new global dataset on killings of journalists between 2002 and 2013 that uses three different sources that track such events across the world. The new data show that mostly local journalists are targeted and that in most cases the perpetrators remain unconfirmed. Particularly in countries with limited repression, human rights conditions are likely to deteriorate in the two years following the killing of a journalist. When journalists are killed, human rights conditions are unlikely to improve where standard models of human rights would expect an improvement. Our research underlines the importance of taking the treatment of journalists seriously, not only because failure to do so endangers their lives and limits our understanding of events on the ground, but also because their physical safety is an important precursor of more repression in the future

Repression Technology: Internet Accessibility and State Violence

This article offers a first subnational analysis of the relationship between states' dynamic control of Internet access and their use of violent repression. I argue that where governments provide Internet access, surveillance of digital information exchange can provide intelligence that enables the use of more targeted forms of repression, in particular in areas not fully controlled by the regime. Increasing restrictions on Internet accessibility can impede opposition organization, but they limit access to information on precise targets, resulting in an increase in untargeted repression. I present new data on killings in the Syrian conflict that distinguish between targeted and untargeted events, using supervised text classification. I find that higher levels of Internet accessibility are associated with increases in targeted repression, whereas areas with limited access experience more indiscriminate campaigns of violence. The results offer important implications on how governments incorporate the selective access to communication technology into their strategies of coercion

Bringing perpetrator and victim identities into empirical ethnic conflict research

Recent research situated at the sub-national level has vastly increased our understanding of the motives and conditions that drive the outbreak of ethnic conflict. Data- collection efforts that have focused on identifying group-level characteristics, such as their geographic location, the types of discrimination they endure, and the relationship they have with the state, have been crucial to this process. I argue that we now need to advance data-collection efforts at the individual level, with regards to perpetrator and victim characteristics, in order to understand the intricate and changing dynamics of contention that occur once collective violence has already begun. This includes expanding our theoretical and empirical knowledge on the dynamics of non-lethal forms of violence, such as displacement, gender-based violence, and the use of forced labour