No próximo dia 19 de Novembro, Victoire Girard (NOVAFRICA) será a oradora convidada do Seminário do Grupo de Investigação SPARC, com o tema Shutdowns. Este evento terá lugar na sala 1 do ICS-ULisboa e online

Authors: Victoire Girard (NOVAFRICA) e Alex Armand  (NOVAFRICA)

A short abstract: This project investigates why governments resort to country-wide internet shutdowns in periods of political unrest, and how these shape protest and political violence. Authorities typically justify shutdowns as a means of preventing violence and restoring public order. Yet cutting off communication may have unintended consequences: while disrupting citizens' ability to coordinate protests, it may also reduce accountability and allow governments to repress dissent with greater impunity. Combining global data on nationwide internet shutdowns, geolocated protest and violence events, and pre-existing mobile network coverage, we examine the strategic use and consequences of communication blackouts. We find that shutdowns are typically preceded by rising protest activity. Following their implementation, protests initially increase before subsiding, while state violence against civilians rises sharply, with no corresponding pre-treatment increase. These findings suggest that communication shutdowns may simultaneously disrupt collective action and facilitate state repression, highlighting the potential strategic complementarity between censorship and repression in authoritarian governance.

Short bio: Victoire Girard is Research Faculty at Nova School of Business and Economics and a Resident Member of NOVAFRICA. Her research lies at the intersection of Political Economy, Development Economics, and Environmental and Natural Resource Economics. A central theme of her work is understanding the local drivers and consequences of natural resource extraction, particularly artisanal and small-scale mining in Sub-Saharan Africa, and its implications for development, inequality, and violence. Her broader research interests include the political economy of conflict and information, as well as the distributional and environmental consequences of green finance.