The Kremlin's cameras and virtual Potemkin villages: ICT and the construction of statehood

Analyzing the role of sensors, the chapter explores how information communication technologies (ICTs) are used by state actors to strengthen governance. While ICTs contribute to implementation and enforcement of political decisions, they also play a role in construction of symbolic statehood. Case studies demonstrate the role of web cameras in Russia: monitoring of national projects, post-emergency relief, elections monitoring, and city management. While web cameras increase accountability and provide means for the decisions’ enforcement, deployment of networked sensors also provide means for deception through the symbolic construction of statehood. Web cameras are used for imitating statehood by communicating to the public the illusion of accountability and control. However, citizens’ sensors challenge the symbolic construction that relies on governments’ sensors. While ICT-based construction of statehood provides stability, in the long term increasing dissonance between the two systems of sensors can lead to a clash and the collapse of statehood.