Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
How does surveillance change people's behavior before anyone is punished?
Monitoring changes behavior only when people believe that they can be recognized and connected to the consequences. If a message, going to a meeting or contact with a particular person can be related to a job, a scholarship, a border or a police record, the citizen begins to narrow his movement and speech on his own.
It often avoids people who act at risk, so supervision does not only isolate the individual, but breaks the ties necessary for joint action. The government therefore does not have to monitor everyone or punish everyone; the belief that it could be part of the job. However, the technical possibility is not evidence of actual application. It is necessary to check who has access to the data, whether the bases are connected, whether there are traces of use and whether the behavior changes just after a credible signal of supervision.
The fact that the government can use some technology does not mean that it actually uses it or that it acts. It is necessary to check the procurement, coverage, data connection and change of behavior.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
comparing several countries or cases
Feldstein, S. (2021), The Rise of Digital Repression: How Technology Is Reshaping Power, Politics, and Resistance, Oxford University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Feldstein shows how digital technology gives authorities a whole new repertoire of controls monitoring social networks, censorship, information manipulation, shutting down the Internet and targeted punishment of users. It is important that the very possibility of people identifying more easily changes the balance of power, but the book does not directly measure how many people start to remain silent or change their behavior due to awareness of surveillance.
data from a large number of countries
Xu, X. (2021), „To Repress or to Co-opt? Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance“, American Journal of Political Science 65(2): 309–325.
- Contribution to this answer
- Xu shows what power gets from digital surveillance: it learns more precisely who really opposes it and can therefore “buy peace” with wide concessions, and punish concrete opponents more. In Chinese districts, the introduction of surveillance has increased security spending and arrests of political activists, and reduced public goods.
Explain how the system works
Schlumberger, O., Edel, M., Maati, A. i Saglam, K. (2024), „How Authoritarianism Transforms: A Framework for the Study of Digital Dictatorship“, Government and Opposition 59(3): 761–783.
- Contribution to this answer
- Schlumberger and co-authors warn that digital technology is not only a more efficient version of the old repression: when surveillance, data and digital control sufficiently change the ability of the authorities to see society and intervene in it, they can change the very way of authoritarian rule. For the behavior of the individual before punishment, the work is a broader theoretical framework, not immediate proof.
study of Iran and international technology firms
Conduit, D. (2025), „Digital Authoritarianism and the Global Technology Industry: Evidence from Iran“, Government and Opposition 60(3): 751–772.
- Contribution to this answer
- On Iran Conduit shows that sophisticated digital surveillance is not necessarily produced by the state itself: foreign private companies can provide it with technology and knowledge that it does not have at home. The work well explains where the surveillance ability comes from, but does not directly examine how the knowledge that we are monitored changes our behavior.
research that checks more closely what the cause is
Roberts, M. E. (2018), Censored: Distraction and Diversion Inside China’s Great Firewall, Princeton University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Roberts shows how control can work without constant punishment: if access to information becomes sufficiently risky, slow or laborious, a large number of people simply stop trying. Thus, the expected price of behavior can produce self-censorship and withdrawal even when the ban can technically be circumvented.
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