Can Digital Authoritarianism Deter Political Freedom?: Innovation in Digital Technology and Democratization

Current works on the relationship between digital technologies and democracy focus on the rate of the internet or mobile phone users as an independent variable. These variables are not enough for reflecting on the innovativeness in digital technologies. This paper explores whether or not the creation of digital technologies in authoritarian states prevents democratization by using patent data. This study expects that innovative non-democratic states in digital technologies successfully deter democratic movements because digital technologies enable governments to achieve economic development, detection of anti-governmental activities, manipulation of information, decrease of indiscriminate suppression, and application of imported technologies. However, empirical analyses found that only innovative authoritarian states with strong censorship, that generate a greater number of patents of digital technologies can successfully deter democratization. KCI Citation Count: 0