Webs, walls, watchmen: counterinsurgency policing and digital authoritarianism in Pakistan

This paper explores the relationship between counterinsurgency policing and digital authoritarianism, two phenomena that are evolving in tandem. Using Pakistan as a case study, it investigates the development of smart policing technologies, the introduction of cybercrime legislation, and internet governance and monitoring, to identify three pathways through which counterinsurgency policing is aiding digital authoritarianism: transnational networks, domestic policymaking, and historically entrenched patterns of pacification and population control. This paper relies upon fieldwork conducted in the cities of Karachi and Lahore. It suggests that in democratically regressing states such as Pakistan, counterinsurgency policing strategies rooted in colonial logics of governance and surveillance can provide the foundation for cementing authoritarian control in today's digital era through a variety of institutions, processes, and legal frameworks, producing a chilling effect in both physical and digital realms. In doing so, this paper makes critical contributions to contemporary debates on counterinsurgency policing and digital authoritarianism.