Are ICTs Democratizing Dictatorships? New Media and Mass Mobilization * Elizabeth A. Stein, Indiana University Bloomington Objective. This article evaluates the relationship between the degree of access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) and the extent of anti-government protests and riots, accounting for the effects of past protest on subsequent ICT access, and examines direct and indirect effects of ICT diffusion on political change. Method. Using a cross-national time-series data set from 1995 through 2014, the article employs simultaneous equations using the GSEM function in Stata to assess these relationships. Results. The results indicate that ICT access at time t is conditioned on the number of anti-regime mass actions four and five years earlier. They also show greater ICT access corresponds with more contemporaneous anti-government mass actions. Conclusions. The effect of ICT diffusion on political change occurs indirectly through its effect on mass actions, but may lead to either political retrogression or liberalization. ICT diffusions’ direct effect sustains the political status quo. The conclusion that ICTs serve as liberation technology remains ambiguous. Relative to organized anti-government mass actions, such as street protests and marches, the popular use of the Internet and other new information and communication technologies (ICTs) as a means to express dissent remains in its infancy. Early research on new media and protest has generally focused on developed democracies and largely seeks to explain the Internet as an avenue for virtual protest (e.g., online petitions, denial-of-service attacks, virtual sit-ins, etc.). In 1999, protests against the World Trade Organization (WTO), known as the “Battle in Seattle,” were organized and participants mobilized predominantly online and through independent media (IndyMedia). Activist leaders illustrated on a massive scale that the Internet functioned not only as a means to reach a broad audience for news coverage but also as a tool to ease mobilization, particularly for transnational social movements. More recent research has turned to the mobilizing capacity of ICTs in developing and nondemocratic environments in the wake of the regime-destabilizing protests of the Arab Spring. Some journalistic accounts and academic studies suggest that the Information Age has spawned a new era for opposition activists, one in which regular citizens can overcome oppressive states with the clicking of computer keys or through the use of text messaging, viral videos, and the all-powerful hashtag. With the ease with which people can communicate across borders and the rapidity with which information travels, scholars noted that the Internet and other communica- tion technologies could serve as “liberation technology” (Diamond, 2010; Diamond and Plattner, 2012), transforming the nature of mass activism in authoritarian contexts. The concept of “liberation technology” implies that ICTs will help citizens to overthrow the authoritarian regimes that repress them, thus liberating themselves from autocratic rule. Larry Diamond (2010) argues that these technologies can “empower individuals, facilitate ∗ Direct correspondence to Elizabeth A. Stein, Global & International Studies Building, 355 North Jordan Avenue, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405-1105 〈eastein@indiana.edu〉. SOCIAL SCIENCE QUARTERLY, Volume 98, Number 3, September 2017 C  2017 by the Southwestern Social Science Association DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12439