Abstract
Western pundits have warned about the risks posed by Chinese companies for exporting surveillance technologies to Africa (Bartlett 2023) due to not only risks in the technology but also the exportation of authoritarian development. Scholars who perceive Chinese technology companies as state instruments that facilitate the state's agenda to expand authoritarian digital development in Africa support this view (Cheney 2019; Gravett 2020; Khalil 2020; Mozur, Kessel, and Chan 2019). This view is contested by empirical findings arguing that Chinese companies primarily engage in digital capitalism, providing products that meet certain African states' digital control and heterogenous development needs (Bagwandeen 2019; Gagliardone 2019).
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 533-537 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Ps-Political Science & Politics |
| Volume | 58 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 1 Jul 2025 |