15:30 - 17:45
Friday-Panel
Chair/s:
Lukas Rudolph, Tina Margarete Freyburg
Discussant/s:
Lukas Rudolph, Tina Margarete Freyburg
Section A - Meeting Room D

Ellen Lust
Clientelism, Credibility, and Context

Edgar Cook, Jan Vogler
What Determines American Citizens' Views of the Administrative State? The Roles of Political Affiliation, Value Systems, Experience, and Bureaucratic Performance

Tina Freyburg, Lisa Garbe, Keith McManamen
Ownership of telecom companies and internet disruptions

Kristen Kao, Ellen Lust
Signal of Strength? Clientelism and Voters’ Expectations of Politicians’ Performance in Malawi and Zambia


Section B - Meeting Room S

Amuitz Garmendia Madariaga, Sandra Leon
Evidence of In-group and Out-group Dynamics in Subcentral Benchmarking

Francesco Granella
Campaign money for nothing? Understanding the consequences of a ban on corporate contributions: evidence from Brazil

Lukas Rudolph, Franziska Quoss, Thomas Bernauer
NIMBYism and mass public preferences in public goods provision – evidence from mobile phone antenna placement in Switzerland
Ownership of telecom companies and internet disruptions
Tina Freyburg 1, Lisa Garbe 1, Keith McManamen 2
1 University of St.Gallen, School of Economics and Political Science, Switzerland
2 Psiphon Inc., Toronto, Canada

Internet disruptions–the temporary halt of access to (specific) internet services–have become a popular tool in African countries to control the flow of digital information and communication, especially in autocracies during times of elections and mass protests. Ownership of the internet infrastructure, in particular internet service providers (ISP) is critical to understanding a state’s capacity to control such flow since most direct forms of control require ISP to comply with government requests. We propose to explore the relationship between ISP ownership and internet disruptions at times of political contestation in sub-Sahara and North Africa from 2016 until today, where countries show varying degrees of authoritarianism, economic development, and internet penetration. We seek to make at least two scientific contributions. First, we propose a more realistic understanding of the societal, political and economic implications of internet provision and its disruption in authoritarian-developing contexts, taking into account the role of telecommunication companies. Second, we develop a tool that allows to infer variance in ISP behavior at times of political contestation based on abnormal trends in the use of popular circumvention services.