In a world where authoritarian regimes have become increasingly pervasive, digital surveillance has become a primary tool for maintaining control over citizens. Despite the public's awareness of...Show moreIn a world where authoritarian regimes have become increasingly pervasive, digital surveillance has become a primary tool for maintaining control over citizens. Despite the public's awareness of digital surveillance and its potential to limit freedom of expression and assembly, citizens of authoritarian regimes continue to organize and participate in public demonstrations in order to express their grievances. This paper therefore examines the extent to which digital surveillance influences citizens’ participation in public protests in authoritarian regimes, and how citizens cope with the limits imposed by such technologies. Combining existing scholarship with an examination of the case of China and the development of its ‘Golden Shield’, this study contends that digital surveillance succeeds in reducing public participation in demonstrations through creating a ‘chilling effect’ and causing widespread fear of physical retribution. It finds that citizens make use of a variety of strategies to mitigate the risk of digital surveillance through employing creative methods of censorship circumvention and evasion, although the longevity of such methods remains unclear. Process tracing is used to evaluate the key causal mechanisms associated with the developed “Digital Panopticon” theory. The paper concludes by discussing the wider socio-political implications of the findings.Show less
An ambitious project, the social credit system (SCS) was suggested by the Chinese government in 2014 in order to increase trust and integrity within Chinese society. It aims to shape citizens’...Show moreAn ambitious project, the social credit system (SCS) was suggested by the Chinese government in 2014 in order to increase trust and integrity within Chinese society. It aims to shape citizens’ behavior in the way that is desired by the Chinese government. In other words, it punishes and rewards citizens, whereby “good” behavior will increase their scores and “bad” behavior will decrease their overall rating. Until now, previous studies on the SCS have argued that it is used for surveillance or as a tool of social governance. However, this paper provides a new perspective by conceiving of the SCS as a number of policy tools while discussing its method of shaping citizens’ behaviors. As a result, it concludes that the Chinese SCS can change and shape citizens’ behavior through social norms and affect their motivations to behave towards the way the Chinese government desires.Show less
Multiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research...Show moreMultiple government Social Credit Systems (SCSs) are being piloted in China in response to the growing calls from the population that there is a breakdown of trust within society. Previous research finds that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are employing a surveillant construction to unite the heterogenous elements of the country using Big Data (BD), including; Chinese individuals, companies, social organizations and government agencies. This thesis focuses on how Foucault’s, Deleuze & Guatarri’s and Jäger’s interpretation of the ‘dispositive’ is being updated onto the digital platform of the SCS. Conducting Siegfried Jäger’s ‘Dispositive Analysis’ over a 3 × 3 analysis framework which includes the three perspectives of Apparatus, Articulation and Assemblage over the three modalities of Law, Ethical and Utilitarian, the thesis presents how the CCP are reconstructing cyberspace for the application of the SCS. More importantly, this research finds that the CCP are drawing upon traditional Confucian & Daoist morals and ethics as the basis for the SCS’s functionality, shaping the actions and behavioural patterns of the population.Show less
