“Networked Authoritarianism” or The Relation of Authoritarian Regimes and Cyber Space: A Literature Review on Russia and China

The aim of this study is to examine the relationship of cyber zone and authoritarian regimes through the cases of China and Russia. It was a big expectation at 1990s that via the widespread use of ICT and especially internet, authoritarian regimes would become democratized and transparent. According to that expectation, internet would penetrate to authoritarian state like a Trojan horse and would be the sound of the democratic opposition in there, then facilitate the transforming of the regime. However, from the middle of the 2000s, it was observed that authoritarian regimes did not weaken against information technologies, and even spread across the world scale. Reason of this success was the new relation form that adopted by these regimes, especially Russia and China, against internet. In this new form, called “Networked Authoritarianism”, the regimes do not prohibit the internet, but are in compliance with it. They compete with opposition who use the internet as a democratic tool via internet by create counter discourses. Beside these, the states who adopt the networked authoritarianism, create a safe public space via the internet and facilitate the communication of state and public. Through this pseudo communication it prevents the growth of social opposition. After all, it can be concluded that the internet became not a tool that demolishes the authoritarian state from inside, but it consolidates and give strength to it