State-Sanctioned Surfing, Limited Connectivity, and Varied Access to Cyberspace in Nondemocracies

Nondemocratic regimes—whose rule depends upon the quashing of dissent and the control of information—are acutely concerned about unfettered societal access to the World Wide Web and e-mail. The Internet provides users with powerful means to come into contact with an expansive range of ideologies and data and to disseminate and discuss those findings. Almost without exception, nondemocratic rulers have initiated rigorous efforts to counteract the ideational consequences of this new medium, but they have not acted in a uniform fashion. Differences in their legitimation strategies— particularly whether they rely upon economic or ideological measures—account for variations in the willingness of nondemocratic rulers to allow the public to access cyberspace and utilize the Internet’s considerable information-gathering and communication capabilities. To highlight the dissimilar Internet strategies employed by nondemocracies, the state-sanctioned surfing strategy employed in China is compared with the more restrictive limited connectivity that occurs in Cuba.