Description
This paper examines how algorithmic governance is reshaping state-society relations in India, China, and Vietnam, three states with markedly different regime types but converging strategies of digital control. Rather than treating predictive analytics, biometric infrastructure, and platform regulation as neutral administrative tools, the paper argues these technologies constitute a new mode of political power: continuous, largely invisible, and legitimised through the language of security and efficiency. Drawing on Foucault's theories of discipline and biopolitics, Deleuze's account of control societies, and Zuboff's concept of surveillance capitalism, the paper traces how legal architectures, such as China's Cybersecurity and Data Security Laws, Vietnam's 2018 Cybersecurity Law, and India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, institutionalise state authority over data, speech, and movement. Through a comparative, interpretive analysis of legal frameworks, policy documents, and human rights reporting, the paper shows that despite differing regime types, these states share a governing logic of automated control that erodes civil liberties while reframing surveillance as a technical, security-oriented public good. The paper argues that as these models proliferate, they pose a distinct and underexamined threat to democratic accountability across the region.