This person is no longer with the Carnegie Endowment.
Shanthi Kalathil specializes in the political impact of information and communication technology (ICT). Her research focuses on the impact of ICT in authoritarian regimes, the global digital divide, and security issues in the information age.
Prior to joining the Endowment in 2000, she was a Hong Kong-based staff reporter for the Asian Wall Street Journal, where she covered Asian financial markets and Chinese market reform. She has written extensively on Hong Kong’s transition to Chinese rule and the 1997 Asian economic crisis. Kalathil is a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Foreign Languages: Mandarin Chinese
Education: B.A., University of California at Berkeley; M.Sc., London School of Economics
Selected Publications: Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, with Taylor C. Boas (Carnegie, 2003); “Community and Communalism in the Information Age,” Brown Journal of World Affairs (Spring 2002); “Chinese Media and the Information Revolution,” Harvard Asia Quarterly (Winter 2002)
A freer flow of information and a more critical media in China would help sustain economic growth and strengthen prospects for democracy. The global spread of SARS shows that they could also help to save lives - both in China and abroad.
Discussants debate the impact of the internet revolution in China on the future development of politics and bureaucracy.
In a discussion titled "The Internet: Virus of Freedom?" authors Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor Boas present the findings of their new book.
Friday, January 31: A panel discussion to launch the new Carnegie book by Shanthi Kalathil and Taylor C. Boas.
With case studies from China, Cuba, Singapore, Vietnam, Burma, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, this book tests the assumption that the Internet poses a threat to authoritarian regimes.
As the birthplace of the Internet, the United States has grown accustomed to its role as the world's leading information aggregator and disseminator. Many have extolled America's ability to wield not only hard military power but soft power, the less easily quantifiable ability to influence, persuade and shape opinion through culture, diplomacy, and diffuse information flows.
It is clear that the role of the Chinese media has changed dramatically from the days when it functioned strictly as an ideological Party mouthpiece and government cheerleader. At the same time, its evolutionary trajectory remains unclear.
