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Weaving the Authoritarian Web: Liberalization, Bureaucratization, and the Internet in Non-Democratic
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Weaving the Authoritarian Web:
Liberalization, Bureaucratization, and the Internet in Non-Democratic Regimes
Taylor C. Boas
Department of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
## email not listed ##
ABSTRACT: In this paper I argue that, contrary to early claims about the Internet in authoritarian regimes, this technology does not represent an inherently liberal sphere of communication. Rather, authoritarian governments can exert quite effective control over use of the Internet by manipulating the architecture of this flexible technology and by leveraging laws, social norms, and market conditions in ways that significantly raise the cost of unfettered Internet access. However, while diffusion of the Internet in authoritarian regimes does not constitute an automatic extension of civil liberties, this technology may well prove to be an important tool for promoting another type of political reform: bureaucratization. In countries where rampant corruption threatens the effectiveness of public administration and the legitimacy of authoritarian rule, leaders who prevent use of the Internet to challenge their monopoly on power may nonetheless use the technology to promote greater accountability in the exercise of power. Throughout the paper I illustrate these conceptual and theoretical arguments with evidence from the cases of China and Saudi Arabia.
Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia, August 28-31, 2003.
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Weaving the Authoritarian Web:
Liberalization, Bureaucratization, and the Internet in Non-Democratic Regimes
Taylor C. Boas
Department of Political Science
University of California, Berkeley
## email not listed ##
ABSTRACT: In this paper I argue that, contrary to early claims about the Internet in
authoritarian regimes, this technology does not represent an inherently liberal sphere of
communication. Rather, authoritarian governments can exert quite effective control over use of
the Internet by manipulating the architecture of this flexible technology and by leveraging laws,
social norms, and market conditions in ways that significantly raise the cost of unfettered
Internet access. However, while diffusion of the Internet in authoritarian regimes does not
constitute an automatic extension of civil liberties, this technology may well prove to be an
important tool for promoting another type of political reform: bureaucratization. In countries
where rampant corruption threatens the effectiveness of public administration and the legitimacy
of authoritarian rule, leaders who prevent use of the Internet to challenge their monopoly on
power may nonetheless use the technology to promote greater accountability in the exercise of
power. Throughout the paper I illustrate these conceptual and theoretical arguments with
evidence from the cases of China and Saudi Arabia.
Prepared for the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, Philadelphia,
August 28-31, 2003.
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