Mapping The Trends of Digital Authoritarianism in Pakistan

The expansion of new technological improvements has generated debates about digital authoritarianism and its diffusion. However, there is negligible discussion about digital authoritarianism and its diffusion. Considering this research gap, the proposed paper aims to answer two research questions. The first research question explores the various models of digital authoritarianism particularly China, Russia, and Türkiye and examines how much Pakistani model is inspired by these models. The second question aims to understand Pakistan’s approach toward digital sphere by focusing primarily on surveillance, internet censorship, dis/misinformation. The paper is based on exploratory case study that examines the diffusion of digital authoritarianism from China, Russia, and Türkiye by studying the case of Pakistan. For analyzing Pakistan, a four-layered approach to digital authoritarianism will be utilized. The four-layered approach is based on the framework developed by Howard et al. (2011) in their article The Dictators’ Digital Dilemma. Howard et al. explains that authoritarian regimes adopt four levels to control digital communication. These levels include full networks (government control over the entire Internet infrastructure by shutting down the internet), sub-networks (smaller part of the infrastructure such as websites or social media platformers that are censored or blocked by the government), network-nodes (targeting of individual users, activities, or content creators for their views or online activities), and by proxy (the use of intermediaries to restrict access to the specific content or expression). The paper is divided into four sections. The first section delves into digital authoritarianism and diffusions process. The Chinese, Russian, and Turkish models of digital authoritarianism will be covered in the second section. In the third section, comparison of Chinese, Russian, and Turkish models with Pakistani model will be undertaken. The last section maps our digital authoritarianism in Pakistan and examines Pakistan’s approach to the digital sphere by focusing primarily on surveillance, internet censorship, dis/misinformation.