IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/telpol/v36y2012i6p476-483.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Egypt’s digital activism and the Dictator’s Dilemma: An evaluation

Author

Listed:
  • Saleh, Nivien

Abstract

In recent years academics have used the term Dictator’s Dilemma to describe the impact of the Internet on undemocratic societies. The Dilemma says that if dictatorial rulers permit increased Internet penetration, they risk overthrow; if they do not, they isolate themselves from the global information economy, causing economic decline. Since Internet penetration world-wide has deepened, the Dilemma implies that dictatorships are bound to fall one by one. But how good is the Dilemma as an analytical device? Not very, this essay argues, using the Egyptian uprising of January 2011 as a case study. By examining the state’s Internet politics before 2011, the use of the Internet by Egyptian resistance activists, and the power relations that existed after the overthrow of the Dictator, this essay argues that the Dictator’s Dilemma blinds scholars to what really happens on the ground.

Suggested Citation

  • Saleh, Nivien, 2012. "Egypt’s digital activism and the Dictator’s Dilemma: An evaluation," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 36(6), pages 476-483.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:36:y:2012:i:6:p:476-483
    DOI: 10.1016/j.telpol.2012.04.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030859611200050X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.telpol.2012.04.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jha, Chandan Kumar & Sarangi, Sudipta, 2017. "Does social media reduce corruption?," Information Economics and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(C), pages 60-71.
    2. Sylvain B. Ngassam & Simplice Asongu & Gildas T. Ngueleweu, 2023. "Social media use for offline political action (OPA) and corruption in Africa: impacts and transmission channels," Working Papers 23/059, European Xtramile Centre of African Studies (EXCAS).
    3. Jha, Chandan Kumar & Kodila-Tedika, Oasis, 2020. "Does social media promote democracy? Some empirical evidence," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 42(2), pages 271-290.
    4. Sudipta Sarangi & Chandan Jha, 2014. "Social Media, Internet and Corruption," Departmental Working Papers 2014-03, Department of Economics, Louisiana State University.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:telpol:v:36:y:2012:i:6:p:476-483. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/30471/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.