The international politics of a fragmenting internet: A view from Africa

Dr Iginio Gagliardone was funded by a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship (ECF) from February 2015 - January 2016 at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies. Iginio is now a Senior Lecturer at the University of Witwatersrand

The internet is increasingly threatened by fragmentation, a process that gives greater power to states to regulate and monitor it and develop national internets. This research examines how two apparently opposed tendencies are encouraging this fragmentation in Africa: the securitization of development promoted by the US and the rising role of China in the media and telecommunication sector. Through a structured comparison of two neighbours with different conceptions of their information societies, democratic Kenya and autocratic Ethiopia, it explores the impact of these processes on the growth of Kenyan and Ethiopian internet and the consequences for development and human rights.