Information and communications technology (ICT) has played a catalytic role in shaping political outcomes in the developing world. Calls for protests over social media and text messages aided activists to organize anti-government action against authoritarian regimes during the Arab Spring. In emerging democracies, online platforms and smartphone apps increasingly allow citizens to mobilize get-out-the-vote efforts and send reports on bribe-paying or the quality of public services with a text or tweet. The potential of ICT to strengthen the accountability, transparency, and quality of governance in developing countries has also captured the attention of donors, who advocate for the use of ICT as a component to aid programming, and private investors (increasingly from China), who hope to capitalize on an expanding base of consumers. But what do governments in transitioning societies think of all this? In his new book, Iginio Gagliardone addresses this question with a trenchant and timely examination of the relationship between political and technological development in Ethiopia—one of Africa’s most populous countries and its largest recipient of aid, but about which very little has been written regarding its contemporary politics....
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/articl…