8-Bit iron fist: Digital authoritarianism in competitive authoritarian regimes: The cases of Turkey and Hungary

Official URL: https://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2578319_(Table of contents)

This thesis examines the instrumentalization of digital authoritarian strategies under right-wing populists’ regimes by comparing two cases, namely Turkey and Hungary, with each other as well as the existing Chinese and Russian models of digital authoritarianism in the literature. The theoretical framework is built on a cost-benefit evaluation for populists in employing strategies from the digital authoritarian toolkit as well as the populist anti-establishment rhetoric. Said two factors are taken as the key variables in explaining the gradual change in their regimes’ media landscape. The findings suggest that blooming competitive authoritarian regimes under right-wing populism exhibit a hybrid model falling between its Chinese and Russian counterparts. Furthermore, both cases show that the development of the digital authoritarian regime follows a general pattern of the process starting from the incumbents’ media monopoly, heightened by systematic persecution of individuals of opposition and strengthened by the employment of manipulation and disinformation tactics. Hence, empirical evidence for said cases support the main argument that despite being distinct examples, right-wing populists’ approach to digital authoritarianism is a generalizable pathway motivated and restrained by comparable factors. Lastly, the model for competitive authoritarian regimes under right-wing populism exists on a continuum between the two main models of China and Russia and therefore constitutes a third typology of digital authoritarianism.