This Workshop seeks to advance scholarly debates on the intersection of offline and digital authoritarianism, while providing junior researchers with the opportunity to consolidate and refine their projects. Although existing studies have examined authoritarian practices in isolation, less attention has been paid to the interdependence between traditional, offline mechanisms of repression and their digitally mediated counterparts. By foregrounding this nexus, the Workshop will highlight how authoritarian strategies evolve across political systems, including democratic and authoritarian regimes. The Workshop will focus on developing novel theoretical frameworks, addressing methodological challenges, and identifying comparative approaches for systematically analysing these dynamics.
There is a substantial body of research on authoritarianism and the use of physical control, and in recent decades, a growing literature has examined digital authoritarianism (Kermani, 2025; Earl et al., 2022; Polyakova & Meserole, 2019; Roberts & Oosterom, 2024). Despite significant overlaps between the two domains — for example, in the deployment of propaganda and the ways in which digital propagandists adapt lessons from offline practices — scholarship has rarely addressed them in a combined manner. Authoritarian regimes and other non-democratic forces routinely employ suppressive tactics offline and online simultaneously, yet our understanding of how these spheres intersect and reinforce one another remains limited. Given the risks that such hybrid suppressive campaigns pose to democratic movements and values, their systematic investigation is necessary and timely.
Equally important are the theoretical and methodological challenges inherent in studying these phenomena. Although offline and online spaces are now deeply intertwined, each retains specific settings and logics that complicate the task of analysis. Research on authoritarian practices must therefore account for these differences while also striving to develop a unified framework capable of integrating both domains. For example, while digital authoritarianism in restrictive contexts can be examined through digital methods, access to the field and participants often remains limited and risky. At the same time, systematic approaches to studying offline suppression are constrained by the infeasibility of surveys or interviews with citizens in such contexts. This Workshop will address these gaps by advancing novel theoretical perspectives and methodological strategies to guide future research.
Earl, J., Maher, T. V., & Pan, J. (2022). The digital repression of social movements, protest, and activism: A synthetic review. Science Advances, 8(10), eabl8198. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abl8198
Kermani, H. (2025). The art of delirium: Social media suppression in authoritarian regimes. Communication Theory, qtaf006. https://doi.org/10.1093/ct/qtaf006
Polyakova, A., & Meserole, C. (2019). Exporting digital authoritarianism: The Russian and Chinese models (Policy Brief, Democracy and Disorder Series).
Roberts, T., & Oosterom, M. (2024). Digital authoritarianism: A systematic literature review. Information Technology for Development, 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1080/02681102.2024.2425352
1: How are physical and digital authoritarianism connected, and how can we study such hybrid repressive campaigns?
2: What are the main similarities and differences between offline and online repression (e.g., in actor/practices)?
3: Which theoretical and methodological challenges arise from the nexus of offline and online repression for research?
4: How can we combine traditional and digital methods to understand the nexus of offline and digital authoritarianism?
5: How do platform algorithms shape repression, and how do links to offline authoritarianism differ?
1: The theoretical understanding of the connections between physical and digital authoritarianism
2: Methodological challenges and solutions in studying the nexus of physical and digital authoritarianism
3: Theoretical challenges and advances in studying the nexus of physical and digital authoritarianism
4: Empirical studies focusing on the interplay of physical and digital authoritarianism
5: Cross-platform studies investigating digital authoritarianism and the connections to physical suppression
6: Comparative study of physical vs. digital authoritarianism across countries, and their interconnections
