China's Digital Authoritarianism [electronic resource] : A Governance Perspective / by Monique Taylor.

1. Building Digital Authoritarianism: From the Great Firewall to the New IP -- 2. Authoritarian Governance and China's Party-Centric Model -- 3. Internet Governance during the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao Eras -- 4. Digital Authoritarianism in the Xi Jinping Era -- 5. A Party-Led Internet Economy -- 6. China's Digital Authoritarianism Goes Global -- 7. Conclusion.

This book provides a governance perspective on China's digital authoritarianism by examining the political and institutional dynamics of the country's internet sector in a historical context. Using leading theories of authoritarian institutions, it discusses China's approach to the internet and methods of implementation in terms of party-state institutions and policy processes. This provides a much-needed 'inside out' perspective on digital authoritarianism that avoids the perception of China as some coherent and static monolith. The study also offers a powerful rationale for China's cyber sovereignty as an externalisation of its domestic internet governance framework and broader political-economic context. As China shifts from rule-taker to rule-maker in world politics, the Chinese Dream (zhongguo meng) is now going global. Beijing's digital authoritarian toolkit is being promoted and exported to other authoritarian regimes, making China a major driver of digital repression at the global level. Monique Taylor is University Lecturer in World Politics at the University of Helsinki, Finland.