Tina Margarete Freyburg

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Prof. Ph.D.
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Freyburg
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Tina Margarete
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tina.freyburg@unisg.ch
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+41 71 224 2600
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    Item type:Publication,
    Authoritarian collaboration and repression in the digital age: balancing foreign direct investment and control in internet infrastructure
    (Informa UK Limited, 2025-01-13)
    Garbe, Lisa
    ;
    Maerz, Seraphine
    ;
    Freyburg, Tina  
    Controlling the digital public sphere has become an important factor of authoritarianism in the twenty-first century. Authoritarian states are reluctant to accept foreign direct investment (FDI) in their internet infrastructure. However, expanding internet infrastructure is expensive, often necessitating FDI. We argue that investment from other autocracies allows incumbent dictators to provide internet access and use it for repressive purposes. Specifically, we contend that the more repressive an authoritarian regime is offline, the higher the share of FDI from other autocracies; and the more FDI from other autocracies, the less FDI prevents the internet from being used for online repression. We analyse how the level of offline repression predicts different ownership structures of internet service providers (ISPs) in authoritarian African countries, and use a difference-indifferences estimator to test how FDI from autocracies affects online repression. Using data from the Telecommunications Ownership and Control dataset, we find a positive relationship between levels of repression and share of FDI from autocracies; if at least one ISP is owned by a foreignautocratic investor, authoritarian regimes can expand repression online. Our study provides new insights into how authoritarian collaboration enables autocracies both to accept FDI in internet infrastructure and to leverage it for repressive ends.
    Type:journal article
    Journal:Democratization
    URL:https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13510347.2024.2442377?src=
    DOI:10.1080/13510347.2024.2442377
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/121822
    Scopus© Citations 3
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    Item type:Publication,
    The political power of internet business: A comprehensive
    dataset of Telecommunications Ownership and Control
    (TOSCO)
    (Springer, 2023)
    Freyburg, Tina  
    ;
    Garbe, Lisa
    ;
    Wavre, Veronique
    The ‘internet’—familiar shorthand for information and communication technologies (ICT)—is built on a physical infrastructure owned by a variety of state and private actors, foreign and domestic, with multiple interests. It has not only driven change on a global scale; its spread also had a profound impact on the social sciences. However, our understanding of how its architecture, and especially its owners, influence its political and economic impact is still in its infancy. This paper presents the Telecommunications Ownership and Control (TOSCO) dataset on ownership of internet service providers (ISPs) that allows to recognize the internet as strategically built and used by governments and corporations. Along with a thorough discussion of the conceptualization and operationalization of ownership as a variable, the TOSCO dataset enables comparative large-N analysis of the determinants and effects of varying ownership structures and identities in the transforming context of 49 African countries, 2000–2019. We demonstrate its usefulness with descriptive statistics and regression analyses using replication data from research on the internet’s democratizing and corruption-reducing effects. In allowing for a more realistic account, TOSCO supports scholars and practitioners concerned with the determinants and effects of internet service provision, use and control in Africa and beyond.
    Type:journal article
    Journal:The Review of International Organizations
    Volume:18
    URL:https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11558-022-09483-z
    DOI:10.1007/s11558-022-09483-z
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/109294
    Scopus© Citations 12
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    Scopus© Citations 115
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    Scopus© Citations 66
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    Item type:Publication,
    Leapfrogging the EU: Telecommunications Regulation in Morocco
    (University of Michigan Press, 2020-10)
    Wavre, Veronique  
    ;
    Freyburg, Tina  
    ;
    Del Sarto, Raffaella
    ;
    Tholens, Simone
    The European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) is aimed at strengthening bilateral relations on a negotiated basis through extending parts of the EU’s acquis communautaire to immediate neighbours. Yet, in order to reach adjustment to its rules and regulations, the EU relies on the third states’ political engagement to introduce internal reforms on the EU model. This chapter zooms into a case of non-compliance, namely Morocco’s refusal to align its universal service obligations (USO) with the EU model. Universal service obligation is about ensuring that Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) are reasonably accessible to all people in a territory. Since the early 2000s, the EU has tried extending its model to its neighbouring countries in the south, notably through bilateral workshops and multilateral practice-sharing groupings such as the Euro-Mediterranean Group (EMERG) bringing together national regulatory authorities in the field of telecommunications. Yet, Morocco – the largest recipient of EU funds in the framework of the ENP and commonly portrayed as ‘model country’ – did not adopt the EU model; instead, it turned toward Latin American countries and learnt from the Chilean and Peruvian models through membership in international organizations such as the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and World Bank. Drawing on theories of emerging power and based on 34 interviews of key experts in the field, we argue that USO, a low politicized sector, presented an ideal opportunity for the Moroccan government to show emancipation from the traditional dominant EU power. Morocco hence developed a model based on competitive allocation (similar to Chile and Peru) and on the use of a variety of technologies (including mobile services) while the EU still defends a model based on direct allocation to the incumbent operator focusing uniquely on fixed lines and functional services. By gearing its USO regulations to the Latin American models, the Moroccan government selected not only the policy solutions that best suited its national context but also leapfrogged what the EU had been doing in the field so far. Overall, this study presents not only an example of contestation to the transfer of EU policies, it also demonstrates how contestation can be successful in cases where an ENP-country decides to develop its own model inspired by alternatives that are better suited to its problem situation. It thus presents a case for policy learning based on the similarity of conditions rather than the institutionalised commitment to a traditional partner.
    Type:book section
    URL:https://www.press.umich.edu/9965409/resisting_europe
    URI:https://www.alexandria.unisg.ch/handle/20.500.14171/111754