Civil Society 2.0? How the Internet Changes State-Society Relations in Authoritarian Regimes: The Case of Cuba

In the debate over the role of civil society under authoritarian regimes, the spread of transnational web-based media obliges us to rethink the areas in which the societal voice can be raised --- and heard. Taking the case of state-socialist Cuba, a diachronic comparison analyses civil society dynamics prior to the Internet--in the early to mid-1990s and a decade later, after digital and web-based media made their way onto the island. The study finds that in the pre-Internet period, the focus was on behind-the-scene struggles for associational autonomy within the state-secular framework. A decade later, web-based communication technologies have supported the emergence of a new type of public sphere in which the civil society debate is marked by autonomous citizen action. While the defies the socialist regime's design of state-society relations, the effect on democratization depends on the extent to which a voice connects with off-line public debate and social action. [GIGA WP 156/2011]http://www.giga-hamburg.de/dl/download.php?d=/content/publikationen/pdf/wp156_hoffmann.pdf