Oxford Insights
For centuries, protests and revolutions have been at the heart of political life around the world. But these periods of ‘state crisis’, when protests threaten the existence of both the current government and the incumbent governing system, are changing. New technologies are refashioning the ways in which citizens communicate with each other and disrupt the status quo. They have also given governments an immense control apparatus. Artificial intelligence (AI), in particular, is becoming a site of contestation during state crises. This has been shown in recent years during protest movements in Hong Kong, Belarus, Sudan and Algeria, among others, during which protesters have challenged single-party regimes or dictatorships.
This report aims to unpack the emerging technological tensions at play in the new worlds of protest and state control. These tensions have consequences for the foreign policy of governments in liberal democracies like the UK, where we are based. Liberal democratic governments are frequently drawn into state crises abroad, when there is a perceived imperative to act to oppose the excesses of authoritarian regimes. They need to understand the developing contours of these protests and revolutions so that their responses are principled and consistent.
Cover photo by James Eades on Unsplash
