DATA 443 - Digital Dictatorships

Credits: (4)
Prerequisite(s): CSCI 146 or DATA 201
Dictatorship is one of the oldest forms of government in the world. In recent years, dictators have adapted to shifting political terrain, developing new ways of overcoming threats and maintaining domination. This is particularly the case in the digital sphere where new technologies have profoundly altered how politics operate and peoples interact in both democracies and autocracies alike. This course considers digital dictatorship along two dimensions-as a strategy of autocratic survival (digital tools of control) and as a method of empirical inquiry (“big data” on autocratic politics).