PI: Karol Czuba, Assistant Professor, Nazarbayev University
Grant Amount and Grant Fund: $2,500, Alma Ostrom and Leah Hopkins Civic Education Fund
Project Abstract: Government adoption of digital surveillance technologies, from facial recognition to mobile device hacking software, in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) has increased substantially in the wake of improved internet access on the continent. While a growing literature in Political Science has explored the effects of such surveillance on repression, cooptation, and public goods provision in other parts of the world, few scholars have studied the phenomenon in the African context; as a result, available evidence is limited, unsystematic, and largely descriptive. This project expands our knowledge of the phenomenon by providing more systematic evidence of government digital surveillance in SSA and explaining the adoption of the technologies that make surveillance possible. The project involves the collation of an original dataset that details instances of digital surveillance undertaken by African governments for political purposes as well as field research in several countries, starting with Kenya.