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.""

Comments

Re:eight authoritarian countries

[radicalsubversiv]

Yes and no.

As an American who opposes most of "my" government's policies, who fall back on this sort of reasoning as a defense of American imperialism and plutocracy. The implication that we ought to stand united behind a government which fails to represent our interests simply because we don't get in locked in jail for saying so is absurd. Moreover, there are plenty of countries around the world which respect the most basic civil liberties of its citizens (and quite a number that do a better job of it).

The history of American is largely one two separate threads. One is those who have advocated for the continued expansion of this great experiment we call democracy -- the anti-Federalists, abolitionists, sufragettes, Populists, labor unionists, Socialists, (some) progressives, New Dealers, and the Civil Rights and peace activists of the 60s.

On the other side is those who have typically held power, in alliance with the nation's wealthiest and selfish interests. It is they who passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, maintained slavery in the South, opposed voting rights' for women, turned their back on starving farmers, martryed labor leaders, threw the Socialists in jail for speaking out against WWI, opposed anti-trust legislation, let loose the dogs on Martin Luther King, and sent our young men to die needlessly in Vietnam.

Today, that tradition is being continued by politicians like Bush and Ashcroft who seek precisely to limit our liberty and threaten democracy. To uphold America-under-Bush as a beacon of openness for the rest of the world plays into their hands.