Destination Unreachable – But for How Long? The Utility of Internet Shutdowns in an Increasingly Digitalized World

Internet shutdowns have become a popular instrument to curb protests and influence elections. Despite their large-scale impacts on human rights, democratic processes, and the economy, we lack a comprehensive understanding of when and under which conditions digital autocrats resort to this form of censorship. This paper presents a novel theory that explains the use of Internet shutdowns through the lens of a digital autocrat. I argue that their utility is influenced by (1) the initial costs or barriers, such as the complexity of a shutdown, the availability of technology, skills, and the power over infrastructure; (2) the “effectiveness” of an Internet shutdown in containing dissent; (3) the consequential costs, in especially economic and societal costs; and (4) the availability of alternative instruments to suppress salient or prevent dissent. I argue that governments of increasingly digitalized economies are becoming more reluctant to deploy Internet shutdowns in general. Based on previous empirical studies, I find that while their initial costs remain cheap, their effectiveness is questionable and connected to immense consequential costs that increasingly outweigh their expected benefits. The growing availability of alternative, more sophisticated digital repressive instruments further enriches the authoritarian toolkit. Thus, governments are facing a dilemma: while Internet shutdowns will not disappear completely – being a readily available, “just-in-time” means of choice against large-scale protests – their use will decrease as the dependency on the Internet increases. With this theory, I not only provide an explanation of the use and adoption of Internet shutdowns across time, cases, and regimes. More substantively, this paper will guide future research on Internet shutdowns in an increasingly digitalized world by proposing specific assumptions and new testable hypotheses. The expectations derived from this theory may inform the advocacy work and mitigation strategies for Internet shutdowns of activists and civil society organizations in the future.