Thinking Historically About the Surveillance State

Originally published on April 2, 2020 (Episode 153)

Introduction

My guest today is Christopher Miller. He’s Assistant Professor of International History at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, where he is co-director of the school’s Russia and Eurasia Program. He is author of the books Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia (2018) and The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy (2016).

He’s also the author of a very recent essay in The American Interest, “The False Promise of the Surveillance State.” In it he argues that while the Chinese Communist Party has “forged a surveillance state without peer…information alone provides no ironclad guarantee of the Communist Party’s future.” Reviewing numerous historical examples, he notes that “because analysis is hard, and because predictions are vulnerable to falsification, surveillance chiefs prefer to devote resources to collecting rather than predicting.”

This conversation builds on several others over the last year, while examining something that is often the news behind the news.

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About the Guest

Christopher Miller is Professor of International History at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. The author of numerous books, his research and commentary focus on Russia, Eurasia, political economy, and authoritarian governance.

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For Further Investigation

• Christopher Miller, “The False Promise of the Surveillance State,” The American Interest

• Christopher Miller, Putinomics: Power and Money in Resurgent Russia (University of North Carolina Press, 2018)

• Christopher Miller, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy (University of North Carolina Press, 2016)

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Listen & Discuss

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