Description
This paper examines when civil society challenge government-ordered internet shutdowns in Af-rica. I argue that CSOs go to court even in unfavourable autocratic contexts when they engage in supportive alliances, both domestically and across borders. Using fuzzy-set qualitative compara-tive analysis, I systematically link documented internet shutdowns in African countries between 2011 and 2023 to configurations of relevant hard and soft organizational capacity characteristics such as leadership, resources, collaboration and partnerships, and solidarity networks. The results support a positive relationship between leadership, collaborations and partnerships as well as solidarity networks in countries that experienced an internet shutdown lawsuit. The study also shows that independence, proximity, and speed are key reasons why CSOs decide to file internet shutdown cases in sub-regional courts. Overall, it underlines the importance of supportive alli-ances (soft capacity characteristics) as key factors in CSO decision to challenge incumbent gov-ernments` extra-legal digital rights reaches.
