Pandemic surveillance capitalism: authoritarian liberalism or democratic backsliding?

ABSTRACT This study assesses EU states’ responses to the pandemic through engaging with literatures on surveillance capitalism, authoritarian liberalism, and democratic backsliding. It investigates restrictions that were carried out in EU states and the means that were used to enforce them via surveillance technology. The analysis reveals that private technological corporations’ resources, data, and applicational platforms enabled governmental security and health institutions to monitor, trace, and quarantine entire populaces through side stepping democratic mechanisms. Concurrent to emergency decrees and mass restrictions, governments privileged corporate and industrial interests during lockdowns. These outcomes warrant debate and theorization on what a post-pandemic liberal democratic social order will look like.