The Security—Development Dilemma in The Public Governance of Digital Platforms
The Journal of Political Theory, Political Philosophy and Sociology of Politics Politeia published an article by Evgeny Diskin, a leading researcher at the International Laboratory for Digital Transformation in Public Administration, devoted to an analysis of the contradiction between security and development in public administration through digital platforms (2026, No. 3, pp. 23–45).
The article conceptualizes the contradiction between the imperatives of security (blocking, slowing down, restricting the activities of foreign platforms) and the imperatives of development (the digital economy, innovation, user rights) as a security–development dilemma, meaning a structural management problem. The theoretical foundation consists of the security dilemma concept by J. Herz and R. Jervis, the securitization theory, and the adaptive management model. The empirical base includes a chronology of regulatory measures from 2020 to 2026, the case of YouTube slowing down, a comparison of models in the EU, the USA, China, and Russia, as well as a counterfactual analysis of Nepal and Australia. The author shows that linear strategies, which include tightening sanctions and expanding blockades, give rise to side effects that exacerbate the original problem. Over 140 administrative fines totaling more than 35 billion rubles have been imposed on foreign platforms that do not have assets in Russia, and the court penalty in the case concerning the restoration of media accounts on YouTube has reached 91.5 quintillion rubles. YouTube throttling is applied without any specific regulatory framework and stimulates the growth of VPN usage. Australia, despite its strict regulation of platforms, has not resorted to throttling or blocking, while in Nepal, the shutdown of 26 social media platforms led to mass protests and the resignation of the prime minister.
The author proposes a model of adaptive management, the central element of which is the institution of infrastructure access: the conditions for platforms’ access to the national information infrastructure are determined in advance, and failure to comply with them entails a graduated restriction ranging from a warning to a block, with judicial appeal at each stage. The proposals also include an interdepartmental coordination body, a category of system‑forming platforms, the regulatory formalization of a graduated technical restriction on access, and an annual report on the state of platform regulation.
The key thesis of Evgeny Diskin’s publication is the need for institutional design in which security and development become compatible goals, since the linear escalation of restrictions reduces the overall manageability of the digital environment.
The article is available at the following link: http://politeia.ru/files/articles/rus/Politeia-2026-3(122)-Pages-001-220.pdf.
