Authoritarianism & Control

Authoritarianism is a political system defined by a lack of free and fair elections, with centralized controls limiting political pluralism, and categorized by the concentration of power in the hands of a single leader or group of elites, frequently described as a regime. Contemporary authoritarian states have evolved for the 21st Century – they frequently masquerade as modern democracies, holding elections, and constructing the facade of representational institutions to legitimise their heavy-handed rule. Fundamental to this strategy is the control of information, with digital censorship and novel forms of computational propaganda now augmenting the traditional toolset of authoritarian repression and co-optation.

The Path-to-Power team has research focuses on the digital strategies of undemocratic rule, including computational propaganda and exclusionary populist rhetoric, as well as on the networks of cooperation established between such rulers in the digital age, which actively undermine online freedoms.

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