Ruling through Telegram? The Rise of Information Autocracies in Central Asia

• In Event: Unpacking Propaganda and Disinformation in Post-Communist Countries

Abstract

For more than 30 years, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian Republics (CARs) continue to remain under either full or semi-authoritarian rule. As citizens across the globe turned to social media to get and share information, they also found themselves increasingly exposed to myriad forms of propaganda campaigns. In a way, social media has also become a platform for state-sponsored propaganda aimed at shaping public opinion in support of incumbent authoritarian regimes. Distinctively, post-Soviet CARs have utilized various online platforms to (a) disseminate disinformation and propaganda to create “manufactured consent” among the public for its domestic and foreign policy objectives; (b) suppress pro-democratic voices through systemic restrictions; and (c) conduct mass surveillance of citizens.

Starting from 2009, arguably, most Central Asian Republics have been gradually transitioning into informational autocratic regimes (Guriev and Treisman, 2020). Rather than using the brutal force of repression, the CARs intensively began relying on state information propaganda to legitimize and consolidate their grip on power. The latest massive, yet unsuccessful collective mobilization in Kazakhstan (in January of 2022) offers a compelling case to assess the extent of democratic progress in Central Asia.

In this project, I investigate two questions: (1) under what conditions do authoritarian regimes effectively utilize system-supporting manufactured consent to accomplish their domestic political objectives? and (2) to what extent does the theory of Information Autocracy help explain the regime durability dynamics of the post-Soviet Central Asia? In so doing, I interrogate the following two theoretical frameworks: (a) system-supportive manufactured consent theory developed by Herman and Chomsky (1988) who frame mass media platforms as “effective and powerful ideological institutions that carry out a system-supportive propaganda function… without overt coercion”; and (b) a theory of information autocracy, recently advanced by Guriev and Treisman (2020).

This study is informed by original fieldwork data that employs mixed-method analyses. In addition to original interviews with the elites of Kazakhstan, I conducted process-tracing qualitative methods to identify major themes, junctures, and fissures that account for causal complexity that help explain mass mobilization. To account for state-sponsored propaganda, I analyze a large volume of social media data from popular Telegram channels that are run by pro-regime propagandists.

The preliminary findings suggest that both theories of “manufactured consent” and “Informational Autocracy” provide compelling explanations of the evolving regime dynamics and its durability in Central Asia. Furthermore, the evidence shows that CARs increasingly and systematically employ tools of informational tactics (e.g., propaganda, Internet access control) to (a) prevent or co-opt potential collective mobilization, and (b) survive the rival elite challenge, in case of mobilization, by successfully reframing the anti-government protest narrative into a pro-regime discourse that helps further legitimize their (incumbent) autocratic regime.

Author

• Dilshod Achilov, University of Massachusetts - Dartmouth