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Open Networks, Closed Regimes
kris writes "First Monday has an interesting article on Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, presenting evidence that The Internet may not be automatic downfall of authoritan regimes as anecdotes commonly suggest.
In their words: The authors trace Internet use in eight authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries: China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. They discover that authoritarian governments, far from fearing the information age, have chosen to direct Internet development in ways that bolster the state. At the same time, many regimes are struggling to cope with the potent challenges posed by new technologies. The authors encourage policy makers in the U.S. and other industrialized democracies to promote specific Internet-based initiatives that foster political liberalization, rather than perpetuating the myth of the Internet as an unstoppable "virus of freedom.""
As reported earlier today on this very site, the US has been e-mailling Iraqi officials in an attempt to get them to defect.
I've lived in Saudi Arabia and Singapore, and anyone who mentions them both in one breath is insane. Saudi Arabia is a society where religious police patrol the streets looking for and beating people who don't go to prayers, who keep their stores open or use pay phones during the 5 daily prayer periods, or who are women and show their ankles or noses. It's a country where government agents hang around in the mosques listening for rabblerousers, who are summarily dragged off for interrogation.
Singapore, on the other hand, is basically what you get if you combine the social conservatism and corporate-centricity of the USA with the ridiculous libel laws of the UK. It's far closer to the USA than it is to Saudi Arabia.
And the big difference is, in Singapore, people want it that way. They have one of the world's highest income levels, they have safety, they have long life and good health, and they have enough freedom not to feel stifled. One of the greatest achievements is that there's basically no sectarian trouble despite significant Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, and Hindu populations all sharing a small and dense space. Any number of polls has turned up time and time again that the vast majority wouldn't change a thing.
Singapore is effectively a one-party state. In part that's because only a minority have wanted change. It's also because the PAP is aggressive in its use of libel action to silence non-member candidates who make too much noise.
Personally, coming from a tradition where freedom of expression is a cherished core social value, I find that uncomfortable. But it doesn't change the fact that it works for Singapore. And it's not the sort of country where people would feel like they couldn't complain to me because they'd get taken away by the secret police.
Anyway, by conflating these - though the material online was too thin to really be able to get to the bottom of their evidence - they seem to elide over the likely fact that the internet's open expression is a far greater threat to a regime like Saudi Arabia, which is unpopular anyway - than to one like Singapore's. Without relatively complacent countries like Singapore and UAE to soften the mix, I doubt their thesis would stand. Additionally, the inclusion of countries like Burma and to some extent Vietnam, where internet is a non-factor in general society, clouds their point further.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
It's not published in Popular Mechanics, it's published in internal documents which - over the space of 40 years - make it out one way or another.
Additionally, people involved in the process share bits and pieces with others who re-assemble the chain of enquiry and publish their own summaries. This is how so much documentation on constructing nuclear weapons has become public.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
The US has a a very good record on freedom of speech though, relative to other countries. Speech is not the only freedom though and the US has totalitarian aspects undreamable in other industrialized countries. Case in point: Bush ordered dockworkers on the West Coast back to work by virtue of Taft-Hartley act. The Taft-Hartley act was called the "slave labor" act back in the 1950's because it FORCES people to work against their will. Employers can lay people off as they want, but workers are not allowed to stop working. Labor laws in the United States are frightening, and frankly they are pretty close to a totalitarian country.
Well, I won't dispute that other countries perceive the US as insulated compared to themselves, which probably has some truth to it. As far as being oppressed worse than previous generations, well - thirty years constitutes a generation. How does the average inflation-adjusted hourly wage in the US compare to what it was thirty years ago? It's lower, people make less per hour than they did a generation ago. To maintain the living standards of a generation ago with lower pay, household debt has increased, from 65% of post-tax income to over 100%. Hours worked has also increased, surpassing Japan, with over 100 more hours per year than thirty years ago. So your desire to see this generation of American workers poorer, more debt-burdened, paid less and working more has already come true.
"Cuba is called authoritarian, although Colombia is not."
Colombia has a president and a vice president elected for four-year terms by popular election.
Cuba has Fidel Castro.
Colombia a bicameral legislature with representatives chosen by popular election.
Cuba has Fidel Castro.
Colombia has four different high courts dealing with different matters with clear lines of division.
Cuba has... you get the idea.
"In Colombia, hundreds of union activists are killed every year by death squads"
Death squads that are not sanctioned by the government and are actually hunted down (if for no other reason than to keep DEA money flowing in).
"And the average Cuban has one of the highest standards of living in Latin America."
GDP per capita in Colombia: $6300
GDP per capita in Cuba: $2300
"US corporate media constantly puts Cuba under a microscope,"
Other than US sugar growers, most US businesses would rather sanctions against Cuba be dropped. They have things they want to sell in Cuba, and Cuban laborers would probably work for as little as the Chinese.
"It's almost beyond belief that a US-funded study would call Vietnam's government authoritarian."
Yes, it's changing, but it might have something to do with their history and what they did to their own people in the mid- to late-70's. They did things Stalin didn't even think of. Why do you think there were so many Vietnamese people fleeing the country in make-shift rafts after the "final" "peace" treaty was signed?
"but I often think leaders who are criticized in the corporate press (Chavez"
You mean the guy who extended the length of presidential terms after he got himself elected president? Yeah, real bastion of morality and democracy there...