Does Internet access lead to Democracy

Jordan Herschjh6049a@american.edu

American UniversitySchool of International Service

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/hypothesesH0= Internet access has no affect on

DemocracyH1= More internet access leads to more

Democracy

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.

Variable Mean Std. Dev Min Max Observations

Freedom House

overall 64.57 28.41 14.28 99.96 N=3230n=191

Tbar=16.91

Freedom House

between 27.22 14.28 99.96

Freedom House

within 8.41 15.85 125.89

ITU Internet

overall 6.62 12.78 0 77.23 N=1919n=188

T=10.21

ITU Internet

between 7.93 .01 46.77

ITU Internet

within 9.87 -27.46 70.74

DataUnit of analysis/study : Countries. N = 191Source 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 VariableX1 is Level of Internet Dispersion – ITU Controls are: Asia, Africa, Ethnic

fractionalization

Descriptive Statistics Table or/and Graphics

ITU- Internet DiffusionThe mean is relatively low – 6.62% average

global internet diffusion. The min is 0, and the max is 77.24.

Freedom House IndexMean = 64.57. This has increased over time. It

is credible as it is very close to the Polity IV Democracy Index mean.

Descriptive StatisticsDescriptive Freedom House

IndexITU–Internet

diffusion

mean 64.57 6.62

p50 71.4 .95

sd 28.41 12.78

iqr 57.12 5.71

min 14.28 0

max 99.96 77.24

cv .44 1.93

Dependent Variable: Democracy Scores

0.0

2.0

4.0

6.0

8D

ensi

ty

20 40 60 80 100FH Liberal Democracy standardized scale 100 pts (Freedom House)

20

40

60

80

100

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year

Mean of FH Stand Upper 95% CI

Lower 95% CI

Source: Freedom House, 2012

FH Democracy Index

-10

01

02

03

04

0

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year

Mean of Internet Diffusion Upper 95% CI

Lower 95% CI

Source: ITU

Internet Diffusion

Mean of Democracy levels, Mean of Internet diffusion

02

04

06

08

0

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year

Mean of FH Stand meanli

Mean Democracy vs.Mean Log Internet diffusion

62

64

66

68

Me

an o

f FH

Sta

nd

1990 1995 2000 2005 2010Year

Source: Freedom House, 2012

FH Democracy Index

OLS Asia Africa Year Fixed Effect

Full Fixed Effect

Model Fixed Effect

Model Random Effect

Internet Diffusion

4.871*** (0.000)

4.028*** (0.000)

3.883*** (0.000)

7.429*** (0.000)

0.567** (0.000)

0.816*** (0.000)

0.896*** (0.000)

Asia -4.749*** (0.000)

Ethnic fractionalization

-30.13*** (0.000)

-25.31*** (0.00)

Africa -5.210** (0.00)

Constant 66.88*** (0.000)

82.29*** (0.000)

80.59*** (0.000)

107.8*** (0.000)

31.03*** (0.000)

67.84*** (0.000)

64.75*** (0.000)

r2 0.243 0.316 0.316 0.427 0.950 0.069

chi2 140

N 1842 1817 1817 1842 1842 1842 1842

Freedom House Fixed Effects

Freedom House Random Effects

Research Hypothesis

Within r2= 0.0693 (0.000) N = 1842

Within r2= 0.0693 (0.000) N = 1842

Reject H0, There is a weak correlation

Between r2= 0.4612 (0.000) N = 1842

Between r2= 0.4612 (0.000) N = 1842

Reject H0, There is a moderate correlation

Overall r2= 0.2430) N = 1842

Overall r2= 0.2430 (0.000) N = 1842

Reject H0, There is a weak correlation

Findings & Policy Implications of the researchFindings: 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