This book provides a governance perspective on China’s digital authoritarianism by examining the political and institutional dynamics of the country’s internet sector in a historical context. Using leading theories of authoritarian institutions, it discusses China’s approach to the internet and methods of implementation in terms of party-state institutions and policy processes. This provides a much-needed ‘inside out’ perspective on digital authoritarianism that avoids the perception of China as some coherent and static monolith. The study also offers a powerful rationale for China’s cyber sovereignty as an externalisation of its domestic internet governance framework and broader political-economic context. As China shifts from rule-taker to rule-maker in world politics, the Chinese Dream (zhongguo meng) is now going global. Beijing’s digital authoritarian toolkit is being promoted and exported to other authoritarian regimes, making China a major driver of digital repression at the global level.

"A Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Book" -- dust jacket.

Liberation Technology brings together cutting-edge scholarship from scholars and practitioners at the forefront of this burgeoning field of study. An introductory section defines the debate with a foundational piece on liberation technology and is then followed by essays discussing the popular dichotomy of liberation'' versus "control" with regard to the Internet and the sociopolitical dimensions of such controls. Additional chapters delve into the cases of individual countries: China, Egypt, Iran, and Tunisia.

This book provides a governance perspective on China's digital authoritarianism by examining the political and institutional dynamics of the country's internet sector in a historical context. Using leading theories of authoritarian institutions, it discusses China's approach to the internet and methods of implementation in terms of party-state institutions and policy processes. This provides a much-needed 'inside out' perspective on digital authoritarianism that avoids the perception of China as some coherent and static monolith. The study also offers a powerful rationale for China's cyber sovereignty as an externalisation of its domestic internet governance framework and broader political-economic context. As China shifts from rule-taker to rule-maker in world politics, the Chinese Dream (zhongguo meng) is now going global. Beijing's digital authoritarian toolkit is being promoted and exported to other authoritarian regimes, making China a major driver of digital repression at the global level. Monique Taylor is University Lecturer in World Politics at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

The Internet was supposed to be an antidote to authoritarianism. It can enable citizens to express themselves freely and organize outside state control. Yet while online activity has helped challenge authoritarian rule in some cases, other regimes have endured: no movement comparable to the Arab Spring has arisen in China. In Contesting Cyberspace in China, Rongbin Han offers a powerful counterintuitive explanation for the survival of the world’s largest authoritarian regime in the digital age. Han reveals the complex internal dynamics of online expression in China, showing how the state, service providers, and netizens negotiate the limits of discourse. He finds that state censorship has conditioned online expression, yet has failed to bring it under control. However, Han also finds that freer expression may work to the advantage of the regime because its critics are not the only ones empowered: the Internet has proved less threatening than expected due to the multiplicity of beliefs, identities, and values online. State-sponsored and spontaneous pro-government commenters have turned out to be a major presence on the Chinese internet, denigrating dissenters and barraging oppositional voices. Han explores the recruitment, training, and behavior of hired commenters, the “fifty-cent army,” as well as group identity formation among nationalistic Internet posters who see themselves as patriots defending China against online saboteurs. Drawing on a rich set of data collected through interviews, participant observation, and long-term online ethnography, as well as official reports and state directives, Contesting Cyberspace in China interrogates our assumptions about authoritarian resilience and the democratizing power of the Internet.

Nationalism, in China as much as elsewhere, is today adopted, filtered, transformed, enhanced, and accelerated through digital networks. And as we have increasingly seen, nationalism in digital spheres interacts in complicated ways with nationalism "on the ground". If we are to understand the social and political complexities of the twenty-first century, we need to ask: what happens to nationalism when it goes digital? In China's Digital Nationalism, Florian Schneider explores the issue by looking at digital China first hand, exploring what search engines, online encyclopedias, websites, hyperlink networks, and social media can tell us about the way that different actors construct and manage a crucial topic in contemporary Chinese politics: the protracted historical relationship with neighbouring Japan. Using two cases, the infamous Nanjing Massacre of 1937 and the ongoing disputes over islands in the East China Sea, Schneider shows how various stakeholders in China construct networks and deploy power to shape nationalism for their own ends. These dynamics provide crucial lessons on how nation states adapt to the shifting terrain of the digital age and highlight how digital nationalism is today an emergent property of complex communication networks.

You are being lied to by people who don't even exist. Digital deception is the new face of information warfare. Social media has been weaponised by states and commercial entities alike, as bots and trolls proliferate and users are left to navigate an infodemic of fake news and disinformation. In the Persian Gulf and the wider Middle East, where authoritarian regimes continue to innovate and adapt in the face of changing technology, online deception has reached new levels of audacity. From pro-Saudi entities that manipulate the tweets of the US president, to the activities of fake journalists and Western PR companies that whitewash human rights abuses, Marc Owen Jones' meticulous investigative research uncovers the full gamut of tactics used by Gulf regimes and their allies to deceive domestic and international audiences. In an age of global deception, this book charts the lengths bad actors will go to when seeking to impose their ideology and views on citizens around the world.