[IRIS] ITD Special Issue: Digital Authoritarianism in Africa

[Silvia Masiero]

Dear colleagues,

Hope you are well! Below an ITD Special Issue call for papers that can be of interest.

With best wishes,

Silvia

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Information Technology for Development (ITD) announces a new Special Issue and call for papers on "Digital authoritarianism in Africa: Authoritarian practices, digital rights, and digital citizenship as resistance."

Submission deadline: May 31, 2026

Read the full CFP here: https://lnkd.in/enFYxEnV

Guest Editors:

Tony Roberts<https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonyroberts3/>
Institute of Development Studies
t.roberts at ids.ac.uk<mailto:t.roberts at ids.ac.uk>

Tanja Bosch
University of Cape Town
tanja.bosch at uct.ac.za<mailto:tanja.bosch at uct.ac.za>

Caroline Khene<https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolinekhene/>
Institute of Development Studies
C.Khene at ids.ac.uk<mailto:C.Khene at ids.ac.uk>

>From the CFP:

African researchers have been prolific in documenting the insidious impacts of digital authoritarian practices in closing civic space, constraining citizen agency and violating digital rights and freedoms (Roberts & Karekwaivanan 2023; Roberts & Mare, 2025).

However, the academic literature on digital authoritarianism has been dominated by studies on China, Russia and Iran (countries classified as authoritarian states) and by studies of surveillance and disinformation in the USA and Europe (see however Ayalew (2021) and Mare (2020)). This Special Issue will address three gaps in the existing literature by creating a space for analysis of digital authoritarianism (a) in under-represented African countries (b) from the perspective of African scholars and (c) using African epistemological approaches and theoretical lenses.

The term digital authoritarianism was first used in the literature by Erixon and Lee-Makiyama (2011) but was more widely popularised in a Freedom House (2018) report. Digital authoritarianism is used to refer to a range of practices including but not limited to digital surveillance, digital disinformation, internet shutdowns and the use of facial recognition technologies to conduct public space surveillance. The most cited definition of digital authoritarianism is ’the use of digital information technology by authoritarian regimes to surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations’ (Jones 2022). However, a range of other terms and definitions are commonly used in the literature (Roberts and Oosterom 2024). Digital authoritarian practices are prevelent not only in countries classified as authoritarian but also in open, democratic, and hybrid regimes (Akinyetun and Ebunine 2022).

Citizens have not been passive in the face of digital authoriarianism. A digital rights movement has emeged using a rights-based framework to evaluate the impact of digital authoritarian practices on citizens’ ability to exercise, defend and expand fundamental rights and freedoms. The concept of data justice is also increasingly used to analyse the ways in which digital platforms both enable and constrain exercise of rights and freedoms. These approaches connect to older debates in citizenship studies and critical pedagogy about what forms of citizen action, critical literacy and digital citizenship are need to resist the descent into digital authoritarianism.

The scope of the Special Issue will include digital authoritarian practices in all regime types from across the African continent. The practices will be analysed throught conceptual lenses that include but are not limited to digital rights, panoptic power, gender backlash and digital resistance and digital citizenship.

All the best,

Silvia (with Special Issue editors)


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