Towards a Critical Political Economy of Surveillance and Digital Authoritarianism

Abstract

In this short piece, we suggest some directions for considering the interrelated questions of postcolonial authoritarianism, platform capitalism, and surveillance. We first put forward a three-level model of contemporary digital authoritarianism, which argues for a prism of discourses, practices, and infrastructures, before we turn specifically to the political economy of contemporary capitalism. Here, we shift the focus away from only either state and/or the individual and the conventional entities in between, to consider the new platform actors driving authoritarianism and digital surveillance in the twenty-first century.

Keywords:

• digital authoritarianism,
• critical political economy,
• authoritarianism,
• governance,
• capitalism