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 (extended): 10 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@tilburguniversity.edu Junki Nakahara, University of Amsterdam, j.nakahara@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>