Communications Breakdown: When and Why States Resort to Shutting Down the Internet

Why do some states opt to shut down the internet given circumstances of dissent when others do not? By evaluating the relationships between protest activity, informational communications technologies, and regime type, I argue when protesters coordinate -- which increasingly occurs online -- the resulting dissident activities have mixed impacts on state response. Termed from its mix of features from both democracies and autocracies, hybrid regimes experience differing levels of dissident activity and types of state responses as well as varied degrees of insecurity from perceived threat. In turn, hybrid regimes, compared to autocracies or democracies, are more inclined to shut down the internet to quash coordination among protesters and to stall informational flows of anti-regime sentiments. My hypotheses are tested using a series of negative binomial models and support is found for large event protests eliciting internet shutdowns in hybrid regimes.