Moments of Opportunity: Tech in Closed Societies

In recent years, partly in response to the US State Department’s focus on internet freedom, we have seen increased interest in applying technology to closed societies to create more political space and opportunities for democratic progress. In these challenging environments democracy and human rights activists and civic groups have demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt new technologies and when combined with established organizing principles can create moments of opportunity for democratic gains and enhanced channels for political engagement in authoritarian countries.

The key is not only to employ effective technologies, but to pair the technologies with strategies and approaches that are developed for the political environment where the technologies are being used. This approach can help activists get out ahead of authoritarian regimes and make relative and even potentially “game-changing” democratic gains when periods are identified where such innovations can rapidly be put to use. While regimes may quickly catch up, or clamp down, by employing technologies and other techniques to bolster their regimes, gains made during the gap created between early adoption and governmental response can have long term positive consequences for democratic activists.