Conclusion

The final chapter concludes the book with a summary of the key findings and a discussion of their academic and policy implications. The main insight is that increasing Internet penetration helps to keep the occurrence of protest low, but catalyzes ongoing dissent once it has started. This shows that the introduction and expansion of the Internet is a double-edged sword for autocratic governments. The book also shows, however, that violent repression against public protest continues to be an effective tactic employed by autocratic governments. At the same time, autocrats seem to be substituting these traditional forms of political control with digital ones, where the Internet can help reduce levels of popular mobilization when there are fewer institutional channels. This is an important insight for policy-makers, as it shows that seeming improvements in autocratic politics could simply be due to shifts in the ways by which political control is exerted.