Abstract
Scholars have documented two decades of declining political freedoms globally, the steady rise of authoritarianism and its migration online. Digital authoritarian practices are increasingly being deployed, including mass surveillance, coordinated campaigns of disinformation, online gender-based violence and internet shutdowns. To date there has been insufficient academic analysis of the impact of these digital authoritarian practices on development or of how citizens are responding to create space for development. To address these gaps this study is guided by two research questions: How do digital authoritarian practices impact development as freedom? and Can digital citizenship practices expand freedoms and remove unfreedoms? This paper uses Sen’s (1999) concept of development as freedom and Glasius and Michaelsen’s (2018) concept of digital authoritarian practices to produce a conceptual paper with an illustrative case from Zambia. The paper advances a series of arguments in dialogue with the existing theoretical literature to propose a new definition and provide a first typology of digital authoritarian practices. It then provides a novel concept of digital citizenship practices and a typology of these countervailing forces. The paper contributes a new framework for analysing the relationship between the two sets of practices and development as freedom.
Recommended Citation
Roberts, T.,
&
Nampoothiri, N.
(in press).
Do Digital Authoritarian Practices Impact Development as Freedom? The Role of Digital Citizenship Practices and the Digital Freedoms Framework.
Information Technology for Development.
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/itd_forthcoming/23