Digital Authoritarianism: The Geopolitical Battle for Democratic Control

Today’s topic is digital authoritarianism and my guest to share her incredible wisdom on these issues is Eileen Donahoe. Eileen formerly served as the US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council and the Director of Global Affairs at Human Rights Watch. She currently runs the Global Digital Policy Incubator at Stanford, where she is prolific at advocating for human rights-based governance in the digital realm.

Our conversation today is as far-ranging as the issues, anchored in part by Eileen’s recent work posing “Top Technology Priorities for the Biden Administration,” advocating that “A Transatlantic Effort to Take on China Starts with Technology” and speaking with Former Executive Chairman of Google Eric Schmidt on “The Ethics of Doing Business with China.”  

First, we discuss China. China poses a significant threat with respect to turning the world towards digital authoritarianism, which it is both modeling at home and exporting abroad.  Eileen and I deconstruct this model and discuss strategies for US leadership to build an effective geopolitical front to counter this threat.  

Here, we touch on the relationship between technological supremacy and normative power. This positions the US lead with respect to AI development as a strategic matter of democratic concern.  Under a “rivalry partnership” model, a favorable balance of power would create multiple layers — cooperative, competitive, and adversarial— of the US-China relationship to be simultaneously pursued. 

Eileen and I also discuss the importance of leading with human rights- based domestic policy and a strong US —EU alliance on governing digital society. A key issue for both will be platform regulation, which we map for both its public and private dimensions considering privacy, freedom of expression and a general balance of rights. 

In a game of multi-dimensional chess we are lucky to have Eileen to show us the Queen’s Gambit. Thankfully, Eileen is here to show us the Queen’s Gambit. The stakes are nothings short of a global battle for the model of digital governance that will dominate the next century.  Will it reflect open society or cybersovereign models of state control?  Listen in as Eileen shares strategies for US leadership to support democracy in a digital world.