Circumvention Tools: Not a Democratic Transition Strategy
There tends to be a lot of focus on the role of circumvention, mobile and social media tools in democratic struggles taking place in closed societies that tend to overstate their potential and impact in many cases. While these tools and technologies can be helpful in these environments, they are only on part of the equation and alone will not bring about significant political reform.
The first point should go without saying: introducing new technologies into closed societies can contribute to the struggle for democratic rights if done well, but can come at great risk to the activists and citizens of those countries. Therefore, it places a big responsibility on organizations involved and should not be taken lightly.
The political and technology environments in authoritarian states vary greatly. They range from highly sophisticated states that use the latest technologies to support their repressive policies, to less technologically advanced countries that rely on a wide range of more direct measures to monitor citizens, control information and suppress human rights.
It’s important to recognize that building circumvention or similar tools and playing the “cat and mouse” game with technologically savvy authoritarian regimes isn't a democratic transition strategy. While useful and frequently necessary – and also very risky – these tools must be placed in the context of the broader democratic development process. Circumvention, mobile and other technologies are used by activists and citizens in all kinds of innovative ways, but to be most effective in bringing about political reform, they must be used to support well-organized political activities by strong organizations, typically civic groups or political parties, with long-term plans for change.
The introduction of these tools in the absence of good civic or political organization will not result typically in the desired outcomes.
An example of a successful combination in a repressive regime were the efforts of a strong civic group and opposition political party in the 2008 Zimbabwe election.