Outsourcing Surveillance

This Element examines how the Chinese state conducts digital surveillance by outsourcing management of online opinion.

The digital age has afforded autocrats new technologies of control, allowing it to co-opt, pre-empt and repress dissent. This Element mentions that based on an analysis of 3,000 public procurement documents, and elite interviews with stakeholders, the Chinese state has outsourced the functions of online surveillance to corporations.The digital age has afforded autocrats new technologies of control, allowing it to co-opt, pre-empt and repress dissent. But, what if they lack the technical capacity to access digital tools of control? In what ways have digital technologies altered the way autocratic states conduct statecraft? Based on an analysis of more than 3,000 public procurement documents, and a dozen elite interviews with various stakeholders, we found that the Chinese state has outsourced various functions of online surveillance to private and for-profit arms of state-owned corporations. We found that outsourcing surveillance is intended to augment state technical capacity to moderate and fine-tune the conduct of digital repression. Outsourcing digital repression opens up a pandora box of state-business collaborations in autocratic settings. This Element contributes to the literature on outsourcing repression, state‒business relations, and conduct of digital statecraft.