Wiring the Leviathan? How State Capacities Shape the Digitalization of Information Control in Central Asian Authoritarian Regimes

Why are some authoritarian regimes more successful in building strong systems of information control despite the rapid proliferation of digital technologies? While scholars agree that the political effects of such proliferation in authoritarian regimes can be context-specific, the process of the digitalization of authoritarian information control strategies often remain a black box. Most studies focus on the effects of “digital repression”, but not on its determinants. This paper argues that the state capacities available to the regime determine the type of bureaucratic response to the digital uptake and, thus, shape the strength of information control in a given country. To illustrate this argument, I conduct a comparative case study of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan based on the process-tracing methodology using both secondary and primary data, including 30 semi-structured interviews. The findings show that the Kazakhstani regime required significant financial and network capacities to proactively transform its offline surveillance strategy, while successive Kyrgyzstani regimes failed to do so due to the lack of finances and problems with the enforcement of legislation. That said, even a moderate level of technological integration into repression bureaucracy resulted in the partial decentralization and assetization of the information control strategies by the private sector, thus, significantly expanding their scope in both countries. The findings highlight the need for more process-oriented institutionalist studies of “digital authoritarianism” and invite further debates on how state capacities can be leveraged to avoid full informational monopolization by authoritarian regimes.