Repression or Progression: The Question of AI’s Impact on Political Crackdowns Open Access

Abstract

Political repression has significant consequences for citizens and countries around the world. Existing research focuses on various causes of repression, yet fails to consider AI surveillance as a contributor factor. I generate hypotheses pertaining to AI surveillance’s ability to increase or decreasing government repression according to the extent to which it is implemented. My data, drawn from news and Amnesty International reports, reveals that in general, AI surveillance is not a statistically significant cause of political repression. Other variables like population, the cumulative intensity of conflicts, and regime type could be more important in determining instances of repression. Yet further analysis also reveals AI surveillance applied to private devices and social media contributes to higher levels of repression. As a whole, AI surveillance most strongly affects the number of politically motivated charges a government levies against citizens as a form of repression. My results contribute to the conversation of AI’s role in the modern world, how the global community can better address political repression, and the intersection of how AI surveillance can influence government crackdowns.

Table of Contents

Introduction 2

What is Artificial Intelligence? 3

The Importance of Studying Political Repression 4

Literature Review 6

Alternative Theories of the Causes of Political Repression 6

Digital Surveillance as an Effective Tool for Governments to Repress a Population 10

Artificial Intelligence in Politics and Governance 12

The Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Political Repression 14

Thesis Contributions 16

Theory 17

Digital Surveillance and its Effect on Political Repression 17

Artificial Intelligence Surveillance and its Effect on Political Repression 18

Hypotheses 24

The Middle East and North Africa as an Appropriate Sample 24

Methodology 25

Operationalizing and Collecting Data on Artificial Intelligence 26

Operationalizing and Collecting Data on Political Crackdowns 28

Controlling for Potential Confounding Variables 28

Evaluating Causal Effects 32

Findings 33

Figure 1 34

Table 1 34

Table 2 36

Qualitative Evidence 38

Limitations 38

Conclusion 41

References 43

Appendix 47

Artificial Intelligence Ontology 47

Political Repression Ontology 49

Descriptive Statistics 52

Sample of Artificial Intelligence Data for Algeria 52

Sample of Political Repression Data for Algeria 53

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	Political Science
Degree	B.A.
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	Political Science, General
Keyword	Repression Artificial Intelligence Digital Surveillance Surveillance Political Repression AI
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Dr. Emily Gade, Emory University
Committee Members	Dr. Hubert Tworzecki, Emory University Dr. Sam Cherribi, Emory University

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