Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
Who really controls our data, networks, and surveillance technology?
Technology control is not only found in the application that the citizen sees. It is important who manages the telephone and internet network, population and documents databases, cameras, biometric systems and centers in which the data is connected.
A private company can sell equipment, the second is to maintain it, the civil service to ask for data, and the security authority to have secret technical access. Therefore, responsibility is easily dissipated between several participants. Ownership of the company or network in itself is not a complete control, but it is a part of the power map. To know who really controls the data, it is necessary to determine who collects them, who can technically search and merge them, on what legal basis, who records the abuse and whether there is independent.
Ownership of the network or company is not the same as complete control. It is necessary to know who has the technical access, legal authority and the actual possibility of use.
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 that digital repression is not only a matter of what the government wants to do, but also what it can and can do technically. Different countries combine domestic capacities, imported technology, platforms and private suppliers, so the control of digital space arises through the entire ecosystem, and not just in one state service.
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 happens when the state manages to turn digital data into politically useful information: it can identify opponents much more accurately and direct repression towards them. The accumulation of data in itself is not a power it is crucial who has the institutions and the capacity to turn them into a decision and sanction.
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
- The authors show that technology changes authoritarian power only when it is incorporated into a broader political system institutions, surveillance, data, repression and information management. Therefore, the question of “who controls the technology” cannot be reduced to just the owner of the server or the camera; it is important who controls the entire chain in which data is transformed into political power.
comparing several countries or cases
Tansey, O. (2016), The International Politics of Authoritarian Rule, Oxford University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Tansey shows that the authoritarian government does not need all the resources for control to produce itself: external actors can give it money, weapons, political protection or other support that reduces the cost of repression and other authoritarian actions. This gives a broader international framework, but the book is not specific about data or surveillance technology.
Analysis of international cash flows and impacts
Cooley, A. i Heathershaw, J. (2017), Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia, Yale University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Cooley and Heathershaw show how much authoritarian power can rely on infrastructure outside of one’s own country banks, lawyers, intermediaries, foreign courts, lobbyists and financial centers. This is very important for understanding the international ecosystem of authoritarian government, but it is not research into digital data, networks or surveillance technology.
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