[Air-L] Call for Abstracts / Workshop on Digital Authoritarianism in the Global South and East

[Saif Shahin]

Call for Abstracts for a Workshop on
Digital Authoritarianism in the Global South and East
at the ECPR Joint Sessions
University of Innsbruck, Austria
7-10 April 2026

Submission deadline: 3 December 2025

For details and submission, please visit
https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/16786

The global decline in political rights and civil liberties has coincided
with the expanding reach of the internet. This Workshop examines how
emerging digital platforms, practices, and policies help entrench
authoritarianism, or exacerbate democratic backsliding, in regions where
the majority of humanity resides, including Asia, Eastern Europe, Africa,
and Latin America. It maps the transforming terrain of digital
authoritarianism, from internet shutdowns and online censorship to
surveillance, disinformation, and participatory propaganda. It also
elucidates how data justice and civil rights activists are developing
strategies to resist such authoritarianism.

While research on digital authoritarianism has burgeoned in recent years,
the scholarship remains limited to a few nations — typically those already
deemed authoritarian. We turn attention to the Global South and East to
explore the myriad forms digital authoritarian practices take across
societies with varied democratic, totalitarian and hybrid political
histories. A Workshop is an effective format to bring scholars interested
in diverse contexts to share their work with each other. This will also
help generate a more cohesive conceptual understanding of digital
authoritarianism and its evolving tools, modalities, and effects.

The Workshop will aim to advance knowledge in three key directions. First,
while foregrounding the significance of political and historical context,
the Workshop will illustrate how comparative and transnational approaches
can help us explore the material and normative diffusion of digital
authoritarianism. For example, contributions could examine how China’s
digital policies serve as a ‘model’ for repressive regimes elsewhere.
Second, extant scholarship emphasises internet shutdowns and surveillance
as the key instruments of digital authoritarianism. The Workshop will also
pay attention to novel modalities such as participatory propaganda and
violations of digital rights. Third, moving beyond a narrow focus on
states, the Workshop will also consider the role of corporations, tech
operators, ordinary users and other actors in reinforcing authoritarianism.
It also invites contributions on everyday acts of algorithmic resistance to
digital authoritarianism.

In line with these objectives, the Workshop calls for papers addressing
questions such as:
• How do digital technologies, platforms, and infrastructures enable
authoritarianism in the Global South and East (GSE)?
• How have the modalities of digital authoritarianism—from shutdowns to
censorship, propaganda etc— evolved in the GSE?
• What are the roles played by diverse actors—including the state, parties,
corporations, civil society and citizens—in digital authoritarianism in the
GSE?
• What factors and conditions can accentuate or ameliorate digital
authoritarianism in the GSE?
• Who are the targets of digital authoritarianism in the GSE and what is
its impact on them?
• How does digital authoritarianism diffuse, either materially or
normatively, across the GSE—or from the Global North/West to GSE?
• How are legal or extra-legal instruments used for/against digital
authoritarianism in the GSE?
• What are the responses to digital authoritarianism in the GSE and under
what conditions are they likely to succeed?
• How does digital authoritarianism shape power relations, domestic and
international, in the GSE?

How to propose your paper for the Workshop

Please create an account on the European Consortium for Political Research
website, ECPR.eu. Then, visit the Workshop details page (
https://ecpr.eu/Events/Event/WorkshopDetails/16786) and choose ‘Propose a
Paper.’

The following details are required to complete the submission:
• Workshop title (Digital Authoritarianism in the Global South and East);
• Paper title (no more than 20 words);
• Abstract (no more than 500 words);
• 3–8 keywords, selected from a predetermined list, indicating the paper’s
subject, theme and scope;
• Co-author’s email address as registered in My ECPR (if applicable).

Please contact us if you have any questions.

Workshop Directors
Saif Shahin, Tilburg University, s.s.shahin at tilburguniversity.edu
Junki Nakahara, University of Amsterdam, j.nakahara at uva.nl

_____
*Saif Shahin, Ph.D.*
Assistant Professor <https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/staff/s-s-shahin> of
Digital Culture
MA Thesis Coordinator, Dept. of Culture Studies
Director, Digital South Research Lab
<https://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/humanities/digital-south-lab>
Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences
Tilburg University, Netherlands

Associate Editor
<https://www.tandfonline.com/journals/witp20/about-this-journal#editorial-board>
Journal of Information Technology & Politics

Google Scholar
<https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=pzy87iEAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao> |
ResearchGate <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Saif-Shahin>