When Regimes Choose Not to Digitalize: Understanding the Selective Digitalization of Authoritarian Governance Practices Through the Lens of the Chinese Petitioning System

Current scholarship on digital authoritarianism in authoritarian regimes primarily examines how these regimes strategically deploy digital technologies to expand their autocratic capacity, such as through digital surveillance and repression, enhanced online censorship, and propaganda (Schlumberger et al., 2024; Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; Roberts & Oosterom, 2025; Michaelsen & Ruijgrok, 2025; Feldstein, 2021). While offering invaluable new insights, such studies often create the impression that authoritarian regimes are on a linear path toward ubiquitous digital control. While some literature shows that the expansion of digital authoritarianism in authoritarian regimes is subject to constraints, it mostly focuses on involuntary limitations, such as principal–agent issues and implementation gaps, immature technology, fragmented data systems, and societal pushback against excessive digital repression (Aradau & Blanke, 2022; Conduit, 2026; Miller, 2019; Pei, 2024; Yu & Zeuthen, 2024). It is far less understood when and why authoritarian regimes may opt to intentionally limit the digitalization of their authoritarian toolkits. Regimes may, for example, deliberately under-digitalize because they prioritize analog governance practices for ideological or legitimation purposes, protect discretionary spaces to preserve political flexibility, or because leaders assign low political priority to digitalizing particular governance domains. Thus far, no study has engaged in a systematic comparison of the determinants of intentional and non-intentional under-digitalization of authoritarian governance domains. This paper aims to address this gap by answering the following question: Why and how do technologically advanced authoritarian regimes, such as the People’s Republic of China (PRC), intentionally or non-intentionally limit the digitalization of authoritarian governance practices? The paper proposes a new typology that distinguishes between intentional and non-intentional domains of selective digitalization of governance practices in authoritarian regimes. This typology is demonstrated through an in-depth case study of the Chinese petitioning system, a traditional input institution that is undergoing extensive digitalization. The study draws on the qualitative analysis of Chinese government regulations, procurement documents, and expert interviews with university scholars and Party-state officials that were conducted across three fieldwork trips to China between 2023 and 2026. Through this interdisciplinary analysis that bridges China Studies and Comparative Politics, the study aims to challenge the assumption that digital authoritarianism necessarily entails a move toward comprehensive digital control and to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of digital authoritarianism by revealing when and why authoritarian regimes may deliberately opt for limited digitalization in favor of analog governance practices.