Digital Repression Index (updated 2024 data)
Description
The data describes global patterns of digital repression from 2005-2024 and incorporates two composite indexes: a latent construct of digital repression and a latent construct of digital repression capacity. Key issues addressed by this data: Which countries are deploying digital repression techniques and how prevalent is their use? What is the relationship between regime type and digital repression? How might we understand the relationship between specific types of repression (violating political liberties, physical violence committed by the state, or curtailing private civil liberties) and digital repression? How does the deployment of individual components of digital repression differ by political system and regime type?
Files
Steps to reproduce
Accessed data from the Digital Society Project and used factor analysis to aggregate 8 different variables (v2smgovfilprc v2smgovshut v2smgovsm v2smgovsmcenprc v2smgovdom v2smpardom v2smarrest v2smgovsmmon) to create a latent construct of digital repression. Aggregated four capacity variables (v2smgovfilcap v2smgovshutcap v2smgovcapsec v2smregcap) to create a latent construct of digital repression capacity. See Mechkova, Valeriya, Daniel Pemstein, Brigitte Seim, Steven Wilson. 2025. Digital Society Project Dataset v7.