To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
Why do dictators sometimes allow opposition groups to publish their own media and at other times forbid them from doing so? Stafford argues that when dictators allow opposition media, it is to signal the ability of their regimes to withstand protest. Presenting evidence from a case study of Tunisia and original data from across the Middle East and North Africa, he shows that non-democratic governments are most likely to allow opposition media when domestic and international factors favor regime stability.
