Two-layer panopticon: how the Chinese government uses digital surveillance to prevent collective action.
Authoritarian regimes increasingly use digital surveillance to suppress collective action. Existing accounts emphasize how dictators use mass surveillance of citizens to gather information and deter mobilization, but overlook their continued reliance on human agents, whose shirking often undermines...
| Publicado en: | Social Forces Vol. 105; no. 1; pp. 340 - 363 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Oxford University Press / USA
Sep2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=196060151&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 196060151 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00377732 SFR jtl: Social Forces issn: 00377732 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Sep2026 vid: 105 iid: 1 pid: 622 pub: Oxford University Press / USA artinfo: ui: 196060151 10.1093/sf/soaf194 ppf: 340 ppct: 23 formats: tig: atl: Two-layer panopticon: how the Chinese government uses digital surveillance to prevent collective action. aug: au: Zhang, Han affil: Department of Sociology and the Watson School of International and Public Affairs, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, United States keyword: bureaucracy China collective action copyrightHolder:University of North Carolina Chapel Hill copyrightYear:2026 digital authoritarianism inLanguage:en principal–agent problem protest publisher:Oxford University Press repression sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf194 surveillance bureaucracy China collective action copyrightHolder:University of North Carolina Chapel Hill copyrightYear:2026 digital authoritarianism inLanguage:en principal–agent problem protest publisher:Oxford University Press repression sameAs:https://dx.doi.org/10.1093/sf/soaf194 surveillance ab: Authoritarian regimes increasingly use digital surveillance to suppress collective action. Existing accounts emphasize how dictators use mass surveillance of citizens to gather information and deter mobilization, but overlook their continued reliance on human agents, whose shirking often undermines repression. We propose a two-layer Panopticon framework for digital surveillance. Dictators can directly surveil citizens. They can also surveil the frontline agents responsible for implementing repression, reducing shirking and improving prevention. We test this framework in China using an original dataset of 51,611 government procurement contracts that captures digital workplace surveillance of agents alongside mass surveillance of citizens. We find that each layer independently reduces protest and that their interaction produces modestly reinforcing effects. Causal mediation analysis reveals an asymmetric mechanism: about one-third of the protest-reducing effect of citizen surveillance operates through increased oversight of agents, while agent-facing surveillance reduces protest directly. These results remain robust across dynamic panel models, instrumental variables, and alternative protest data. This article bridges and extends research on state repression, principal–agent problems in bureaucracy, and digital authoritarianism, offering new theoretical and empirical insights into how digital technologies strengthen the practice of authoritarian rule. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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