China Without Jasmine: Authoritarian Resilience in the Internet Era

Abstract

The outbreak of the Arab Spring in the Middle East and North Africa reignited the scholarly debates over the possibilities of democratization in some of the most endurable authoritarian regimes and over the relation between the internet and democracy. The Arab Spring revived the cyber-utopianism, which argues that the internet is a liberation technology that can spread democracy around the world. Meanwhile, the flame of the Chinese Jasmine Revolution faded fast, though the debate over Chinas political future continued. This thesis attempts to answer the questions of whether democratization will be a likely scenario in China in the foreseeable future and whether the development of the internet has a determining role in bringing that scenario. It provides rebuttals to the cyber-utopianism and the prediction of democratization in China by using the theoretical framework of the political process theory. The evidence drawn from the survey data and the cases of social protests online suggests that the lack of insurgent consciousness, ineffective organizational structure, and impervious political control on the internet all render an internet-driven revolution in China rather inconceivable. It is individuals, organizations, and the government, rather than technologies that decide who will prevail in a particular political context. Chinas political future depends on a series of push and pull factors that are complex, interconnected and subject to random future events.