“Common-Sense Solutions:” Surveillance Technologies and the Expansion of State Power in Democratic Contexts

This paper argues that the police use of facial recognition (FR) in Chennai, India signals a gradual infrastructural, bureaucratic, and discursive expansion of authoritarianism within a democratic setting. Rather than emerging through overt repression or dramatic policy shifts, this democratic backsliding is being brought about through the expansion of the state’s surveillance assemblage: through incremental technological additions and subtle shifts in everyday practices and cultural discourse. This article draws on: 1) theories of the politics of sociotechnical systems (Bijker et al., 1987; Winner, 1980) and infrastructures (Bowker & Star, 2000) to analyse how routine technological upgrades, bureaucratic procedures, and cultural narratives cumulatively expand state power; and 2) Steven Lukes’ conceptualization of power as the ability to shape what others perceive as their own interests (Lukes, 1975) to analyse how this happens without triggering massive public scrutiny or political contestation. Data for this analysis was collected through field interviews with the Chennai police, interviews with Indian civil society representatives, and an analysis of local media coverage and framing of FR surveillance. Based on this data, I show how FR is introduced as a modular addition layered onto existing policing infrastructures, databases, and bureaucratic routines, rather than as a singular, radical technological innovation. FR is presented, both by police officers and in media, as a pragmatic tool that improves efficiency and compensates for structural shortcomings such as understaffing or inadequate records. Its public usage and embedding into the everyday labour of officers normalizes its presence and expands discretionary authority under the veneer of automation. The use of culturally resonant narratives of modernity and techno-solutionism in media coverage serves to legitimize FR deployment. These processes enable the expansion of state power in ways that appear commonsensical rather than coercive. This subtle democratic backsliding is also facilitated by a permissive regulatory environment and a fragmented civil society constrained by resource, linguistic, and political barriers. Further, legacy news media amplify police narratives and legitimize FR surveillance, while giving little attention to concerns about accuracy, due process, or discriminatory targeting. Cumulatively, these processes serve to normalize surveillance for the larger public even as it disproportionately impacts marginalized caste, class, and religious groups. For these communities who already experience heightened surveillance and discretionary policing, the integration of FR into routine police work not only reproduces but magnifies these inequalities by embedding them into multiple layers of a technical system that claims objectivity. By conceptualizing FR as a modular component of a broader surveillance stack, this paper demonstrates how seemingly pragmatic and routine technological additions function as elements in a larger assemblage that enables authoritarian capacities even in democratic societies. The Chennai case illuminates how digital authoritarianism in the Global South can be cultivated through incremental infrastructural and normative changes and cultural narratives rather than overt repression, offering a framework for understanding similar trajectories across other democracies.