Abstract
As financial systems digitize, the infrastructure through which citizens and groups transact is becoming susceptible to new forms of digital authoritarianism that remain undertheorized. This conceptual paper introduces Digital Financial Authoritarianism (DFA), a domain of digital authoritarianism (DA) that operates through digital financial infrastructure. Applying Goertz’s (2020) concept formation framework, DFA is defined at the basic level as the exercise of state power through digital financial infrastructure in a manner that favors obedience to authority over personal liberty. The secondary level comprises three dimensions: financial surveillance, financial exclusion, and financial constriction, each derived from assessing DA's four established practices (Roberts & Oosterom, 2025) against DFA’s basic-level definition. The fourth DA practice, disinformation, has no financial equivalent. Illustrations from democratic, hybrid, and authoritarian regimes include account freezes targeting protesters, election-time mobile money shutdowns, and identity-linked central bank digital currencies, showing that DFA varies with policy or institutional choices rather than regime type. DFA may be especially pronounced in developing economies, where financial-inclusion agendas can expand participation through mobile money and cashless policies that concentrate everyday transactions within digital financial infrastructure through which states can surveil, exclude, and constrict.
Recommended Citation
Johnson-Siedentop, M. H.
(in press).
Surveillance, Exclusion, Constriction: Digital Authoritarianism Through Financial Infrastructure.
Information Technology for Development.
Available at:
https://aisel.aisnet.org/itd_forthcoming/34