The Digital Expansion of Transnational Repression

Early cyber-optimist views framed Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as tools of political empowerment and democratic mobilization. However, the global spread of digital authoritarianism has revealed how digital media can also serve as instruments of repression. These repressive practices extend beyond national borders, targeting diaspora and exile communities through what is now termed Transnational Repression (TR). While most existing research has concentrated on domestic contexts or focused narrowly on physical (analog) forms of repression, little systematic work has explored the digital dimensions of this phenomenon. This paper investigates how digital technologies reshape states' strategies of TR across regime types, with particular attention to the rise of Digital Transnational Repression (DTR). DTR includes tactics such as online threats to dissidents and their families, digital surveillance, hacking, censorship of dissident content, and manipulation of the information environment. Drawing on rationalist models from the dissent–repression literature, I argue that states confronted with digitally mobilized transnational publics face a strategic trade-off: they may adopt either traditional physical repression or lower-cost digital alternatives. To investigate this phenomenon, I introduce a novel dataset that systematically captures both analog and digital forms of transnational repression across all regime types. The dataset offers new insights into the evolving modalities of state coercion — revealing that contemporary repression is often subtle and nonviolent, yet remains highly effective in silencing dissent.