Internet Diffusion, Protests, and Preventive Co-optation in Dictatorships

• In Event: JSS SESSION: Information Effects Abroad

Brief Overview

Using a difference-in-differences strategy that exploits the Chinanet company’s broadband upgrade in 2002, I find that Chinese local governments preemptively co-opt citizens to forestall mobilization facilitated by information technologies.

Author

• Xu Xu, Stanford University