Digital activism and authoritarian legitimation in post-Soviet Central Asia
Kurmanov B. Knox C.
2024Routledge
Information Society
2024#40Issue 5343 - 360 pp.
Scholarly research on the role of digital activism in authoritarian settings has largely centered around debates on “liberation technology” versus “networked authoritarianism”. In this article we aim to extend existing research by linking authoritarian legitimation theories with emerging scholarship on digital activism. We examine Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, two autocracies in post-Soviet Central Asia, and show how non-democratic regimes use digital activism for legitimation purposes. Our study draws on 33 qualitative in-depth interviews with digital activists and state officials in both countries to generate critical comparative insights into how modern autocracies function in the digital age. Our analysis suggests that autocracies use four mutually inclusive and escalating legitimation mechanisms (limited participation, outputs legitimation, regime discourse, and targeted repression) in their interactions with digital activists to become more resilient.
Autocracies , digital activism , legitimation , Tajikistan , Uzbekistan
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Institute of Public Policy and Administration, University of Central Asia, Bishkek, Kazakhstan
Graduate School of Public Policy, Nazarbayev University, Astana, Kazakhstan
Institute of Public Policy and Administration
Graduate School of Public Policy
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