Domestic Digital Repression and Cyber Peace

Abstract

This chapter provides a conceptual map of the ways in which ICTs impact state repression. This mapping exercise seeks to identify some initial sites of influence in order to further theorize and empirically evaluate the effects of ICTs on our current understandings of state repression. We begin by outlining a conceptual definition of digital repression informed by the extant literature on state repression. We then derive four constituent components of state repression and trace the impact of ICTs on each of our four components. In conclusion, we discuss how our findings may inform or upend existing theories in the study of state repressive behavior.