How Internet Access Affects Political Violence And Government Reconfiguration

I investigate the causal relationship between internet access and political violence. Theory predicts increased internet access will cause governments to increase repression and civil conflict against communities. Following Czernich et al. (2011), I use an instrumental variable regression framework. Results indicate that political violence decreases by approximately 0.03% as internet usage increases in a country. Results are robust to both sets of data. Further investigation of these events indicate that increased internet usage has led to an increase of government reconfiguration of government administrations by 0.04%. Each result aligns with theoretical predictions in the literature