Accepting Big Brother: Privacy & State Surveillance in China's Digital Sphere

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

One of the major advantages that democratic regimes have historically enjoyed in obtaining the consent of the governed is their requirement of restraint of the state to observe citizens' private lives. Authoritarian regimes cannot credibly commit to such restraint because these regimes have an informational problem - they wish to know which citizens are dangerous to the regime and, in tandem, citizens have an obvious incentive to try to hide such information. The intrusive means of surveillance that authoritarian states often employ to solve their informational dilemma have, historically (such as the case of East Germany), generated unhappiness and resistance to the regime.

As information technology has advanced over the last 30 years, the sophistication of the monitoring of online activities in autocratic regimes has kept pace, particularly in the case of China. Yet, as the papers in this panel proposal highlight, this system of online monitoring has not produced the kind of public opinion backlash in China that earlier scholars of authoritarianism would have predicted. Each of the papers helps unpack a different aspect of this finding, and the combination of papers together offers an important contribution to the literature on public opinion regarding online privacy, state ICT policy, and, more broadly, the literature on autocratic resilience.

The papers included in this proposed panel are as follows:

"Many Faces of Privacy: The Role of Perceived Privacy in Digital Autocracy"

This paper uses qualitative research to develop a typology of citizen privacy attitudes in China, ranging from passive acceptance to resistance against privacy-degrading monitoring and control. It then employs a sophisticated survey design to determine how citizens react to visible online controls, particularly by the typologies introduced in the first part of the paper. It concludes that noticeable online monitoring induces a negative emotional feeling but does not change attitudes about privacy.

"Authoritarian Technocapitalism: Public Opinion Surveillance in China"

This paper focuses on the partnership between the Chinese government and private corporations to monitor and control the internet space. Using qualitative data, the paper notes the evolution of this partnership, from the state directing private corporations on how to implement the controls to one in which private corporations often take the initiative. The paper suggests that the division of responsibility between public and private actors over internet monitoring helps limit the resistance by the public to these controls.

"The Authoritarian Privacy Paradox: The Chinese Surveillance State as Guardian of Privacy?"

This paper examines the logic behind China’s sweeping digital privacy laws, noting that the breadth of protections offered is equal to or greater than the protections offered in other, democratic, states with the key exception of not placing limits on state use of data. These laws help position the Chinese government as the protector of citizens’ online privacy against unscrupulous business practices. Using survey data, the paper explores how exactly citizens feel about the laws and develops a picture of how citizens in China expect their privacy to be protected.

"(No) Privacy Please!: How Authoritarian States Obtain Consent for Online Monitoring"

This paper explains why citizens may sometimes consent to being monitored by an authoritarian state, even if such monitoring has no direct benefit to them but could impose direct costs. It employs the result of a large survey to suggest that citizens that have both a) high trust in the state (as many Chinese citizens do) and b) agree with the public rationale for the monitoring will voluntarily participate in downloading apps or using state technologies to opt into state surveillance.

Taken together, these papers are in dialogue with each other as to why the authoritarian government in China has effectively blunted, redirected, or co-opted the expected opposition to state attempts to invade their online privacy. They also all address how citizens respond to online controls in China - sometimes in surprising ways, sometimes in the ways we might expect.

This panel takes seriously the question posed by the APSA 2024 Call for Papers in considering ways in which authoritarian regimes may compete more effectively than democratic countries for the loyalty of its citizens. The panel will directly contribute to questions of information technology policy, citizen consent to be monitored, and perhaps chillingly, strategies and tools that other democratic or semi-democratic states may also begin to employ. It invites attendees to think carefully about why and when citizens will care about their privacy and how states can use this information strategically.

Sub Unit

• Division 40: Information Technology, & Politics

Individual Presentations

• Many Faces of Privacy: The Role of Perceived Privacy in Digital Autocracy - Danqi Guo, Freie Universität Berlin; Genia Kostka, Freie Universität Berlin

• Authoritarian Technocapitalism: Public Opinion Surveillance in China - weishan miao; Rongbin Han, University of Georgia; Qingyan WANG, University of Georgia

• The Authoritarian Privacy Paradox: The Chinese State as Guardian of Privacy? - H. Christoph Steinhardt, University of Vienna

• (No) Privacy Please!: How China Obtains Citizen Consent for Online Monitoring - Andrew MacDonald, Duke Kunshan University

Chair

• Daniela Stockmann Hertie School

Discussant

• John Wagner Givens Spelman College