Does Internet access lead to Democracy

1. Does Internet access lead to Democracy Jordan Hersch jh6049a@american.edu American University School of International Service

2. Research Question & Research hypothesis • Research Question • Does Internet access within a country lead to more Democratic societies? As Internet access increases, does Democracy increase as well? Does a country need a certain amount of technology (Phones/Computers) before the Internet has an impact? • Research hypothesis/hypotheses • H0= Internet access has no affect on Democracy • H1= More internet access leads to more Democracy

3. Literature Review • The Democratic Effects of the Internet, 1994-2003. A Cross-National Inquiry of 152 Countries • Theory: Higher internet diffusion will lead to higher democratic growth. [Jacob Groshek (2009)] • Findings : The research hypothesis was accepted in this study. They found a moderate but statistically significant impact of internet diffusion on democracy rates. In countries where steps toward democracy were already taking place it had a much larger effect than in countries with no democratic efforts. Also it was seen as one of the best indicators of a strong democracy in countries that were already democratic. • Do “Liberation Technologies” Change the Balance of Power between Repressive States and Civil Society? A Thesis Presented to the Faculty Of The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy • Theory: At least one of the predictors of Internet use, Mobile phone use, or phone use, are statistically significant predictors of the number of protests.[Patrick Meier (2011)] • Findings : The results are only statistically significant in countries where a large portion of the population had cell phones. • Theoretical and/or empirical gap/s in the existing literature • Theoretical gap/s: Analysis of who uses the internet in non-democratic countries in relation to governmental changes • Empirical gap/s: There is limited data, partly because the internet is relatively young.

5. Data • Unit of analysis/study : Countries. N = 191 • Source of the data: • Democracy levels: Freedom House, Mobile Cellular Phones per Capita: Banks CNTS 2007 • Internet use: International Telecommunication Union (ITU) All data sources are considered reliable and are the best available. • Dependent variable/s • Y is Freedom House Level of Democracy. The democracy levels are standardized to a 0-100 scale, and are interval-ratio • Independent Variable • X1 is Level of Internet Dispersion – ITU • Controls are: Asia, Africa, Ethnic fractionalization

6. Descriptive Statistics Table or/and Graphics • ITU- Internet Diffusion • The mean is relatively low – 6.62% average global internet diffusion. The min is 0, and the max is 77.24. • Freedom House Index • Mean = 64.57. This has increased over time. It is credible as it is very close to the Polity IV Democracy Index mean.

7. Descriptive Statistics

8. Dependent Variable: Democracy Scores

9. Mean of Democracy levels, Mean of Internet diffusion Mean Democracy vs. Mean Log Internet diffusion

12. Findings & Policy Implications of the research • Findings: Did you accept your research hypothesis? • Using the Freedom House Index of democracy we were able to reject the Null Hypothesis and find a moderate relationship within, and a weak relationship between and overall. • For Asia and Africa and ethnic fractionalization there is statistical significance. • What are the policy implications of your findings? • Spreading Internet access can lead to higher democracy levels