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Cited by 118Political Conflict and GovernanceMiddle East and Rwanda ConflictsMiddle East Politics and Society

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 38 of the 38 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Pulling the plug

Gohdes, Anita R·2015·Journal of Peace Research
DOI 10.1177/0022343314551398
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Abstract

New media outlets have been deemed a vital instrument for protesters and opposition groups to coordinate activities in the recent civilian uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa. But what happens when regimes respond by shutting down the internet? I argue that governments have a strategic incentive to implement internet blackouts in conjunction with larger repressive operations against violent opposition forces. Short-term intermissions in communication channels are expected to decrease opposition groups’ capabilities to successfully coordinate and implement attacks against the state, allowing regime forces to strengthen their position. Network blackouts should consequently be accompanied by significant increases in military activity. Analyzing daily documented killings by the government in the Syrian civil war, I find that blackouts occur in conjunction with significantly higher levels of state repression, most notably in areas where government forces are actively fighting violent opposition groups. In addition, I estimate the number of undocumented conflict fatalities prior to and during network blackouts to test whether they are implemented to hide atrocities from outside observers, and find no support for this hypothesis. The results indicate that such network blackouts constitute a part of the military’s strategy to target and weaken opposition groups, where the underreporting of violence is not systematically linked to outages.

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Crossref · 10.1177/0022343314551398

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Citations

Cites

Research works printed but not linked: 14

  1. Bamford, 2014, Edward Snowden: The untold story, WIRED
  2. Beaumont, 2013, Syrian missiles similar to ‘ones used in previous chemical weapons attacks’
  3. Dafoe, 2014, Placebo tests for causal inference
  4. Gallagher, 2012, Updated: Paint it black – how Syria methodically erased itself from the ’net
  5. Gohdes, 2014, Predicting unreported conflict fatalities with log-linear multiple recapture models
  6. Keating, 2013, Firing mortars? There’s an app for that, Slate
  7. MacFarquhar, 2012, Rebel groups in Syria make framework for military, New York Times
  8. Madory, 2013, Internet blackout in Sudan
  9. Miller, 2012, Syrian opposition uses home-made rockets and Google technology, video reveals
  10. Perlroth, 2013, Syria loses access to the internet
  11. Peterson, 2012, Syria’s iPhone insurgency makes for smarter rebellion
  12. Reynolds, 2014, Best of all plausible worlds? Checking robustness of time-series cross-sectional models with fictitious plausible alternate treatments
  13. Tufekci, 2014, The day the Turkish government banned itself from Twitter
  14. York, 2012, Satphones, Syria, and surveillance

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Metadata

Authors
Gohdes, A. R.
Affiliations
University of Mannheim (DE)
Corresponding author
Gohdes, Anita R
ORCID
Gohdes, Anita R
Venue
Journal of Peace Research
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Published
2015-02-12
Volume
52
Issue
3
Pages
352-367
ISSN
  • 0022-3433 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-3578
DOI
10.1177/0022343314551398
OpenAlex
W2119085661
Cited by
118
References
37
Citations by year
2026: 7 · 2025: 9 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 9 · 2022: 13 · 2021: 11 · 2020: 34 · 2019: 8 · 2018: 9 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 2 · 2015: 4
FWCI
24.32
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Licence
Locations
Journal of Peace Research (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Political Conflict and Governance
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Middle East Politics and Society
Keywords
internet shutdowns, state repression, Syrian civil war, underreporting of violence, Middle East and North Africa, military strategy

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