Digital Knives are Still Knives

Abstract

This chapter discusses the case study of authoritarian Azerbaijan which looks at the challenges that regime critics face and how technology and social media can be leveraged to overcome these challenges, especially due to reduced costs of content creation and distribution as well as organising without co-location. Twenty-first century authoritarian regimes manage and deter dissent in less overt forceful ways than in the past, instead using more creative methods for repression of those that oppose them. Azerbaijan is a hegemonic electoral authoritarian regime, that is, a type of electoral authoritarianism in which although elections are held regularly and political opposition is legally allowed, the elections are uncompetitive and little more than a theatrical setting for the self-representation and self-reproduction of power. While perhaps social media may ease some pain, because the regime is firmly entrenched, there is no hope—digital or otherwise—for the Azerbaijani opposition.