Technology, repression, and authoritarian power in international studies

The relationship between digital technologies and authoritarianism has become a significant area of inquiry in political science and international relations. Authoritarian regimes and backsliding democracies increasingly employ artificial intelligence, mass surveillance, algorithmic censorship, internet shutdowns, digital propaganda, biometric identification, and commercial spyware to monitor populations, suppress dissent, manipulate elections, and strengthen regime survival. These practices raise fundamental questions about how technology alters state power, political legitimacy, human rights, and the boundaries between domestic repression and international security. Recent research demonstrates that digital control is not limited to national contexts: governments and aligned actors use cyber operations, coordinated disinformation, online harassment, and transnational surveillance to influence foreign publics, repress diasporas, interfere in elections, and consolidate geopolitical partnerships. However, significant gaps remain in explaining how these tools interact with institutional weakness, populist politics, electoral authoritarianism, techno-nationalism, and changing forms of sovereignty. Further investigation is also needed into the role of private technology companies, the legal and ethical consequences of digital repression, and the conditions under which digital tools generate resistance rather than compliance. This Research Topic aims to examine the mechanisms, political consequences, and international ramifications of authoritarian technology use. It seeks to develop comparative and theoretically informed accounts of how states deploy digital capabilities for regime survival, social control, electoral manipulation, information warfare, and transnational repression. Contributions may investigate how digital authoritarian practices affect democratic resilience, civil liberties, international law, global security, and relations among states. The Research Topic also encourages research on whether emerging technologies intensify authoritarian power or create new opportunities for accountability, collective action, and democratic contestation. To gather further insights into digital authoritarianism across domestic, transnational, and international settings, this Research Topic focuses on political and institutional uses of digital technologies rather than on purely technical studies of cybersecurity or artificial intelligence. We welcome articles addressing, but not limited to, the following themes: - Digital authoritarianism and regime survival - Electoral autocracies and technology-driven political control - Populist politics, counter-narratives, and digital mobilisation - Algorithmic governance and electoral manipulation - Information warfare, disinformation, and geopolitical alignment - Transnational repression and cross-border cyber influence - Digital weaponisation of state institutions - Techno-nationalism and digital governance in federal systems - Commercial spyware, state procurement, and surveillance markets - Biometric surveillance and facial-recognition technologies - Internet shutdowns, platform blockage, and censorship - Civil-society demobilisation and digital repression - Legal frameworks, digital sovereignty, and authoritarian rule - Foreign election interference and cyber-enabled influence operations - Digital resistance, democratic resilience, and accountability Topic editors: Ghulam Rasool, Dr. Aftab Alam Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/87043/technology-repression-and-authoritarian-power-in-international-studies