Unpacking Digital Authoritarianism: Definitions and Considerations

Digital authoritarianism is a wide-ranging and, at times, difficult-to-define area of international security analysis. To help us tease out some key terms and analytical frameworks in this ever-evolving domain, we brought on international security expert and analyst Mr. Erol Yayboke, Director of the Project on Fragility and Mobility and Senior Fellow for the International Security Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

In 2020, Mr. Yayboke and Deputy Assistant Samuel Brannen of the U.S. Department of Defense jointly published a CSIS brief, “Promote and Build: A Strategic Approach to Digital Authoritarianism.” The publication puts forth a useful analytical set of concepts to develop a deeper understanding of the modern landscape of digital authoritarianism as a threat to global democracies and the subversion of human rights while also highlighting some specific key actors, models, and methods of the practice, and other overlapping challenges in our rapidly digitizing world.

You can read Mr. Yayboke and Deputy Assistant Brannen’s full CSIS brief here -

“Promote and Build: A Strategic Approach to Digital Authoritarianism.”
Other work by Mr. Yayboke and his colleagues:
"The Real National Security Concerns over Data Localization."
"Technology as a Driver of Gender Equality and Peace."
This episode was hosted and produced by Noelle Boyd.

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