Description
Although authoritarian regimes are renowned for their centralised cyber technology strategies, in recent years they have also witnessed the emergence of semi-autonomous pro-regime hacking communities that claim to be independent of government. But given that no such actor can exist in an authoritarian environment if they are not viewed to serve the interests of their ruling regime, this paper asks: Why are authoritarian regimes devolving cybersecurity functions to patriotic hackers, and does this devolution influence authoritarianism more broadly?
This paper examines the role played by patriotic hackers in authoritarian regimes by examining the Syrian regime’s devolution of cybersecurity operations to the country’s patriotic hacking community. Observing the phenomenon through the metric of distance, it argues that while devolving power is not a unique phenomenon in authoritarian regimes, the novelty lies in the mechanism and effects of the devolution that result from the digital authoritarian context in which it takes place. Indeed, the internet enables regimes to constantly manipulate the sense of space between themselves and the hackers, creating ambiguity around who and where the regime is at any given time, and creating a technology-spurred blur that conveys a sense of omnipresence.
