Covid-19 and the Surveillance State: A New Pretext For Limiting Personal Freedoms and Dissent in the Post-Soviet Space
Covid-19 and the Surveillance State: A New Pretext For Limiting Personal Freedoms and Dissent in the Post-Soviet Space
Author(s): Eimear O’CaseySubject(s): Media studies, Government/Political systems, International relations/trade, Security and defense, Electoral systems, Health and medicine and law
Published by: PIC Promotion of the Intercultural Cooperation
Keywords: Covid-19; Surveillance State; Limiting Personal Freedoms; Post-Soviet Space;
Summary/Abstract: COVID-19 has seen a number of governments in the post-Soviet region enhance their law enforcement and surveillance capabilities. Governments are leveraging existing technologies to police COVID-19 lockdowns and using the pandemic as a test case for new forms of tracking citizens. In the absence of a clear end date to the pandemic, there is an emerging threat of governments’ maintaining enhanced restrictions on fundamental freedoms and employing surveillance technology indefinitely as a means of suppressing dissent. The international community will need to improve its understanding of these threats, and integrate them into policy responses to democratic deficiencies in the region.
Journal: Ukraine Analytica
- Issue Year: 2020
- Issue No: 03 (21)
- Page Range: 49-56
- Page Count: 8
- Language: English