Authoritarian Diffusion and Cooperation within Regional Organisations: Legal Harmonisation of “Internet Sovereignty” Policies within the Countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation

Abstract

This paper explores the concept of “internet sovereignty” as developed and endorsed by the member states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). First, the concept is shown to have developed as a synthesis between the restrictive Chinese internet governance model based on the “Golden Shield” and Russian conceptions of national “information spheres”. Research then shows how this “sovereignty” model serves to legitimise refocusing internet governance around the state, allowing for stricter controls on internet access, content, data, and infrastructure in authoritarian contexts. Using causal process tracing, this paper shows that the SCO supports the transfer of digital policy between members based on this normative “sovereignty” model, the alignment of states with the legalised form of this model in institutional documentation, and the transfer of the legitimising “Three Evils” narrative frame. This shows that regional organisations can provide a significant platform for authoritarian learning, which, when successful, helped the regimes of the SCO to find policies to expand and stabilise their control over the digital realm.