By T, Staffer of De Birhan Media
17-10-2011
This is a timely book written in the high time of the Arab Springs. It is a resourceful study of the role of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) on the democratic and political situation of countries with large Muslim communities.
I have skimmed the book.
Howard analyzes the ways in which ICTs contribute to democratic entrenchment or transition in countries with large Muslim communities, Ethiopia being one of them. To do so, he evaluates ICT use and democratic change in 75 countries with Muslim communities from 1994 to 2010. He argues that the revolution in the Middle East will be digitalized, meaning that transitions will no longer occur without the necessary digital tools. In his analysis, he searches for the ingredients of the modern recipe for democratic transition or democratic entrenchment. As to Howard, new technologies become a fundamental infrastructure for journalists and civil society groups; they are a necessary but not sufficient causal condition for contemporary regime change. I will deal on these and issues related to political Islam issues in the future piece. This book has six chapters. Chapter 1 offers a conceptual framework and some useful indicators for studying diffusion and political institutions.
Chapter 2 deals with ICT policies and lineages of the digital state. Chapter 3 focuses on political parties’ online presence. Parties in countries with Muslim communities have benefited from lower prices for branded addresses and hosting services and could rapidly catch up with other non-developed countries in establishing websites.
The use of ICTs has also an impact on journalism and media landscapes (chapter 4). People can participate as “citizen journalists” in cultural production by blogging and posting videos or photos. They disseminate information on human rights violations, which cannot go unnoticed any more
Chapter 5 – Civil society is often defined by its independence from the state. Civil society groups need media beyond state control and as such, they have benefited a lot from ICTs.
The last descriptive chapter is dedicated to censorship and the production of a political culture. For Howard, political culture “refers to ideological frames that help filter information”. The production of a political culture has significantly grown due to the spread of ICTs in countries with important Muslim communities.
Among the results of his analysis, Howard lists the solutions with the highest consistency and coverage: For democratic transitions, having a comparatively active online civil society is the most important ingredient of both necessary and sufficient solutions. In small countries and countries with a well-educated population, this active online civil society is even sufficient for democratic transitions. For democratic entrenchment, a well-developed information infrastructure is important, while it is crucial that the country’s economy is not dominated by fuel exports.
Howard’s book provides ample evidence for the importance of ICTs in democratic transitions and points to the possibilities of supporting democratic transitions by discouraging the export of censorship software or by making reforms of information structure a condition for loans from the international lending community.
Ethiopia as a case in his Book
From the Horn of African countries Sudan, Eritrea and Ethiopia in all the assessments have been sectioned in the Authoritarian list. Kenya and Djibouti were in the Transition list and Somalia was in the Crisis.
He says in Authoritarian regimes the competition for political positional is restricted by political elites, chief executives are chosen through a recognized process within a small community of power brokers, and there are few constitutional checks on the executive branch. Autocratic regimes sharply restrict or suppress competitive political participation; there are few institutionalized constraints on the ruling elites and often these ruling political elites exercise control over cultural and economic activity. Among dictatorships, the executive branch is prioritized for ICT resources. Justice and Revenue authorities get limited investments, largely because state capacity and transparency in these domains is anathema to the ruling elite.
Table 2.2 p.68 and 69 – Government Offices Online in the Muslim World, 2008
Ethiopia as sectioned in the authoritarian list has its Revenue Website hosted in-country. The Executive branches existence online was not found. The Legislature was found but not hosted in-country. Similarly, the Foreign Affairs and Justice Government Offices were also found but not hosted in-country. And E-Government Services were indicated as Poor.
Comparatively, Somalia, which is sectioned under Crisis state, its Executive and Legislature had an Online Presence though hosted outside the country. Eritrea had none of its Government Offices found Online. Its E-Government Presence was also poor like Somalia and Ethiopia.
Table 2.3 P. 68 and 69 – Outcomes –Remittances, ICT –led Growth and State Capacity, 2010
In Ethiopia, a remittance given per capita in 2007 was eight. ICT-led growth given as exports of computer and information services in millions of US dollars in 2003 was zero in the case of Ethiopia. State capacity was modest in 2007 while it was improving between 2000 and 2010.
Table 3.3 p. 98-99 Outcomes – Information Infrastructure for Political Parties, 2000-2008
Number of online Parties and All Political Parties, 2000 were 1 and 26 in Ethiopia. The number of Online Parties and All Political Parties, 2005 in Ethiopia were 3 and 24. The Number of online parties hosted in country/number of online parties/ all political parties, 2008 was 0, 6 and 10. The volume of content provided by political parties for citizens is indicated as moderate in 2008.
Table 4.3 Page 124 and 125 State Ownership and Online Journalism, 2007 -2010
The State Media Market Share or State Dominance in media markets through direct ownership or indirect organizational control in Ethiopia within the period was High. Number of Online News Sites 3 and Daily Newspapers were also three. Number of Online News Sites Hosted In-Country was zero and the number of online news sites was three. The importance of the online news sphere was low.
Table 5.1 Page 138-39 Civil Society Online
Size and Growth of Civil Society Online/ Size of online population calculated as proportion of national online in 2007, and indicated as Medium and growth of online population calculated as the annual rate of growth in the internet population from the year 2000 to 2007 was in Rapid growth.
The online library infrastructure of the five largest government, private or other public libraries was evaluated as None , similar was the case in Eritrea.
Table 6.1.P 176 and 177: Censorship and the Production of Political Culture, 2003-2008
The Digital cultural production relative to internet user population small in Ethiopia. Internet Monitoring and restrictions was described as Unrestricted.Social filtering was Selective.Political Filtering was Substantial.Conflict/Security filtering was selective. Internet tool filtering was selective.
Table A.3: Page 212 Proportion of Population Practicing Islam, Degree of ICT Diffusion, and countries that remained Authoritarian
Ethiopia has Muslim Population – Small and the Technology Diffusion was slow. The Authoritarian Status of Ethiopia – Remained Authoritarian. However, Howard says Ethiopia consistently scored +1 in Polity IV over the period of study, but in the author’s judgment this country is not in the set of transition or entrenchment countries. Eritrea had a moderatetechnological diffusion. Stunningly, Somalia, a crisis state had a rapid growth rate of technological diffusion. For countries such as Benin, Eritrea, and Gambia, technology diffusion has not been particularly rapid and democratization movements in these countries have had little success.
Writing about censoring and surveiling political culture online, He says Ethiopia, Pakistan, Syria, and Uzbekistan have similar strategies for obstructing access to locally produced content while leaving access to international websites fairly unrestricted.
Philip N. Howard.
The Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy: Information Technology and Political Islam.
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
Page 285
ISBN 978-0-19-973641-6;
$24.95 (paper)
ISBN 978-0-19-973642-3
You read the rest…
