When Do Authoritarian Regimes Use Digital Technologies for Covert Repression? A Qualitative Comparative Analysis of Politico-Economic Conditions

Although autocracies increasingly learn how to integrate digital technologies into their covert repression toolbox, it remains unclear under which conditions they succeed in doing so. While some technologically developed autocracies seldom use covert repression, other technologically underdeveloped autocracies apply significantly more covert repression. This begs the question: what are the necessary and sufficient conditions involving strong digital uptake leading to high levels of covert repression? The paper uses Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) to 83 non-democratic regimes and leverages the 2021 digital repression dataset to answer this question. The findings show that digital uptake interacts with a pre-existing history of overt repression. In-depth case illustrations of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan elucidate this argument. The findings also show two other “non-digital” pathways to high levels of covert repression, providing foundations for future evidence-based case selection investigating covert repression patterns in autocracies.