How Digital Surveillance Justifies Massive Lockdowns in China During COVID-19
Friday, November 17, 202312:00 PM - 1:20 PM (Pacific)
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall
SCCEI Seminar Series (Fall 2023)
Friday, November 17, 2023 | 12:00 pm -1:20 pm Pacific Time
Goldman Room E409, Encina Hall, 616 Jane Stanford Way
How Digital Surveillance Justifies Massive Lockdowns in China During COVID-19
China’s draconian response to COVID-19 drew considerable criticism, with many suggesting that intense digital surveillance and harsh lockdowns triggered the unusual public dissent seen in China in late 2022. However, we argue that rather than backfiring, digital surveillance may have legitimized the government’s overreaction by making uncertain threats appear certain. We collected data on daily counts of lockdown communities and COVID cases from 2020 to 2023. Using a difference-in-differences approach with World Value Surveys (China 2012, 2018) and a nationwide online survey in 2023, we show that real-world lockdowns significantly reduced public perception of respect for human rights and trust in the government; however, these effects are moderated by the pervasiveness of COVID surveillance, proxied by cellphone usage. To establish causality, we use a survey experiment to show that digital surveillance indeed increases support for COVID lockdowns by making citizens more likely to believe they are close contacts. In contrast, surveillance cannot justify protest crackdowns. Our findings suggest that uncertainty in threats to public safety may foster support for state surveillance and coercion.
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About the Speaker
Xu Xu is Assistant Professor of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University. Xu studies digital authoritarianism, political repression, and the political economy of development, with a regional focus on China. He is currently working on a book entitled Authoritarian Control in the Age of Digital Surveillance. His other ongoing projects examine the political aspects of artificial intelligence, social media propaganda, public opinion on state repression, and state-society relations in China. His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics, and the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, among other peer-reviewed journals.
He received his Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State University in 2019, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University from 2020 to 2021.
A NOTE ON LOCATION
Please join us in-person in the Goldman Conference Room located within Encina Hall on the 4th floor of the East wing.