Authoritarian Surveillance Trends: Structural Racism and Transnationalism

This paper extends the “authoritarian surveillance as a practice” (Topak, Mekouar, and Cavatorta 2022) perspective by focusing on the major trends that shape authoritarian surveillance in three different contexts. It draws on authoritarian surveillance practices implemented by Turkey, Israel (in Palestine), and the European Union (EU) (at Africa-Europe borderzones) and observes that, despite different contexts and regime types, authoritarian surveillance is driven by structural racism and transnational associations. In Turkey, racialized Kurdish populations and pro-Kurdish dissident groups have been the major recipients of authoritarian surveillance practices, even though mass authoritarian surveillance has impacted large segments of the society. The Gülen community, which is a Turkey-origin transnational movement, played a major role in the intensification of authoritarian surveillance, while the EU provided indirect support because of its reliance on Turkey for stopping migrants trying to reach Europe. The EU implements authoritarian surveillance not only through responsibilizing external actors (such as in Turkey and Libya) for border policing but also through the deployment of its own border surveillance technologies. The EU drones, provided by Israeli companies, surveil and facilitate the return of black African migrants to Libya where they are subjected to crimes against humanity. The long history of European colonialism in Africa shapes the current racist use of EU drones as an authoritarian surveillance practice, which is implemented through the EU’s transnational associations involving Libyan militia groups and Israeli drone companies. In Palestine, the legacies of Israel’s settler-colonial racism against Palestinians have culminated in the current genocidal surveillance by Israel. Israel has been committing genocide within a network of transnational associations and is also one of the major exporters of authoritarian surveillance technology, ranging from spyware to drones. Through examination of these contexts, the paper argues that authoritarian surveillance is practiced by both liberal and authoritarian regimes, is driven by structural racism and is implemented through the involvement of various transnational actors.