Technological Solutions for Complex Problems: Emerging Electronic Surveillance Regimes in Eurasian Cities

Abstract

This essay examines ‘smart city’ initiatives rapidly emerging across Eurasia that are aimed at the surveillance of disorderly and criminal behaviour in public spaces. They are a result of both locally driven demand to modernise law enforcement and global pressures to innovate. We specifically compare Kyiv, Almaty, and Bishkek. Each city differs in regard to who initiated smart city policies and under what conditions new technology was purchased from foreign vendors. Our essay contributes to the growing socio-legal literature on Eurasia by analysing how these electronic surveillance projects are used to manufacture an orderly, safe society and achieve modernity without the burden of deeper political change.

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