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Networked Authoritarianism at the Edge: The Digital and Political Transitions of Cambodian Village Officials

Published: 22 April 2021 Publication History

Abstract

This paper describes how village-level officials, relatively new to the Internet, use popular digital platforms on smartphones to supplement and extend long-standing patterns of information control and authoritarian power in rural Cambodia. They use these tools to monitor local affairs, report to the central government, and promote local government activities, practices which intimidate villagers and encourage their political withdrawal and self-censorship. This paper makes three contributions to the literature on networked authoritarianism and rural governance. First, technological changes currently underway in the Cambodian rural bureaucracy reflect a generational transition, as long-standing officials struggle to use new media easily or effectively, leading to new anxieties and breakdowns for these traditional holders of power. Second, bureaucratic information practices in these villages rely on material practices ranging from paper, face to face meetings, and loudspeakers, to new tools such as Facebook and smartphones - underlining significant continuities in mechanisms of bureaucratic power and control. Third, networked authoritarian practices conjure for villagers the historical links between information control and violence, and the effectiveness of these tactics on chilling speech is often rooted in villagers' memories of fear.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 5, Issue CSCW1
CSCW
April 2021
5016 pages
EISSN:2573-0142
DOI:10.1145/3460939
Issue’s Table of Contents
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Published: 22 April 2021
Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW1

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  1. authoritarianism
  2. cambodia
  3. governance
  4. hci4d
  5. history
  6. privacy

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