Cyber state capacity: A model of authoritarian durability, ICTs, and emerging media

Highlights

• Develops cyber state capacity (CSC) as a theoretical model for analyzing ICTs role in government power.

• Builds on models of authoritarian consolidation of power and state capacity.

• Discusses political uses and consequences of using ICTs, including bots and propaganda programs.

• A case-study of Egypt and Saudi Arabia leading up to Arab Spring using the CSC model.

• ICT systems can bolster government power, as well as provide economic and entertainment benefits that may pacify grievances.

Abstract

In this article, I developed the theoretical concept of cyber state capacity (CSC). Advancing Gobel's (2013) theoretical model of information and communication technologies (ICTs) and authoritarian consolidation, I introduced the theoretical propositions of CSC, which help explain how governments use information and communication technological systems to maintain stability, development, and stay in power. Well established, durable regimes have implemented ICT infrastructures that rival advanced democracies, yet the wave of liberalization that was expected to occur has not. After lying out the theoretical concepts, I conducted a qualitative case illustration to analyze the state enhancing or weakening ICT environments in Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the years leading up to, and at the time of, the Arab Spring. Developed ICT systems can bolster government power through sophisticated surveillance and propaganda operations, as well as providing economic and entertainment benefits that may contribute to placating individuals' motivations for increased political concessions.

Introduction

The idea of developed information and communication systems and authoritarian government survival had been doubted by many, especially since the public rollout of the internet. The open and free-flowing nature of information and communication online was supposedly nearly impossible to contain. As such, some viewed people-powered democracy as a powerful social-trend (Shirky, 2008). Nearly three-decades into the internet era, however, authoritarianism has not only survived, but arguably has thrived (Cowen, 2017a; Diallo, 2017). By and large, authoritarian states have implemented information and communication technologies (ICTs) at high rates and have nearly caught up with many advanced democracies (World Bank, 2016). Yet, autocracies persist. While a solid and growing body of research on the dynamics of ICTs and emerging media in autocracies exists, there is still much to learn (see Corrales & Westhoff, 2006; Rod & Weidmann, 2015; Stoycheff, Nisbet, & Epstein, 2016).

One explanation of the durability of autocracies is that governments have become savvy technology users that exploit ICTs and emerging media to control information, run sophisticated surveillance programs, and produce propaganda in ways appeal to individuals and add chaos to the public discourse (Brookings & Singer, 2016; King, Pan, & Roberts, 2013; King, Pan, & Roberts, 2017). The surveillance technologies allow the government to listen to public discussions, providing valuable feedback about the public mood. Relatedly, developed ICTs and emerging media give the ruling regimes the ability to offer economic and entertainment benefits, appeasing the public in place of political concessions, which helps strengthen their ruling position (Corrales & Westhoff, 2006).

As the ways that governments and other political entities can use ICTs to gain, maintain, and strengthen their power become more complex, the more necessary it is to systematically analyze these phenomena. In this paper, I developed the theoretical model of cyber state capacity (CSC). In the following sections, I introduce the concept of CSC, which describes how ICTs can empower and enhance (or weaken) autocratic governance. CSC builds on the theoretical concept of state capacity from international relations research, and Gobel's (2013) theoretical model of ICTs and authoritarian consolidation. Next, I conducted a qualitative comparative case illustration in which I used the theoretical framework of CSC to analyze the different occurrences and outcomes in Egypt and Saudi Arabia in the time around the Arab Spring in 2011. The framework of CSC differs from much of the collective action and civil resistance research as it focuses on the governments' actions and the ICTs systems, not the actions of the protesters.

I used the term ICTs throughout as a comprehensive term for information and communication technology, that includes the internet, mobile phones, and social and emerging media of all types.