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The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy
Information Technology and Political Islam
Philip N. Howard
256 pages
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235x156mm
978-0-19-973642-3
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Paperback
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30 September 2010
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- First book to move beyond potential and hypothetical relationships between technology diffusion and democratic transitions to look at lived experiences for countries under study
- Draws on a statistical study that compares data trends across 74 Muslim countries between 1990 and 2008
- Addresses 2009 presidential elections in Iran
Around the developing world, political leaders face a dilemma: the very information and communication technologies that boost economic fortunes also undermine power structures. Globally, one in ten internet users is a Muslim living in a populous Muslim community. In these countries, young people are developing their political identities—including a transnational Muslim identity—online. In countries where political parties are illegal, the internet is the only infrastructure for democratic discourse. In others, digital technologies such as mobile phones and the internet have given key actors an information infrastructure that is independent of the state. And in
countries with large Muslim communities, mobile phones and the internet are helping civil society build systems of political communication independent of the state and beyond easy manipulation by cultural or religious elites.
This book looks at the role that communications technologies play in advancing democratic transitions in Muslim countries. As such, its central question is whether technology holds the potential to substantially enhance democracy. Certainly, no democratic transition has occurred solely because of the internet. But, as Philip Howard argues, no democratic transition can occur today without the internet. According to Howard, the major (and perhaps only meaningful) forum for civic debate in most Muslim countries today is online. Activists both within
diasporic communities and within authoritarian states, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, are the drivers of this debate, which centers around issues such as the interpretation of Islamic texts, gender roles, and security issues. Drawing upon material from interviews with telecommunications policy makers and activists in Azerbaijan, Egypt, Tajikistan and Tanzania and a comparative study of 74 countries with large Muslim populations, Howard demonstrates that these forums have been the means to organize activist movements that have lead to successful democratic insurgencies.Readership: Scholarly and professional, would also be appropriate as supplemental reading for courses in islamic media studies.
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Philip N. Howard, Associate Professor of Communication, University of Washington Philip N. Howard is an Associate Professor of Communication at the University of Washington. His previous authored book, New Media Campaigns and the Managed Citizen (Cambridge, 2006), won the American Sociological Association's Communication Technology and Society Section Best Book Award and the International Communication Association's Outstanding Book Award.
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Acknowledgements
Prologue: Revolution in the Middle East Will be Digitized
Introduction: Political Communication and Contemporary Muslim Media Systems
1.: Evolution and Revolution, Transition and Entrenchment
2.: Lineages of the Digital State
3.: Political Parties Online
4.: New Media & Journalism Online
5.: Civil Society and Systems of Political Communication
6.: Censorship and the Politics of Cultural Production
Conclusion: Information Technology and Democratic Islam
References
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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