FINDING · POLICY

Countries where state-owned providers originate more than 50% of domestic address space show significantly higher shutdown prevalence; this state-ownership factor predicts shutdowns but shows no discernible difference for spontaneous outages. Countries with shutdowns have a median V-Dem liberal democracy score of 0.151 (maximum 0.481), compared to 0.279 for countries with spontaneous outages and 0.465 for countries with neither.

From 2023-bischof-destination — Destination Unreachable: Characterizing Internet Outages and Shutdowns · §5.1.1, Figures 8–9 · 2023 · SIGCOMM

Implications

Use state-ISP-ownership data (CAIDA prefix-to-AS mappings combined with state-owned AS lists) and V-Dem democracy scores as pre-deployment risk signals to prioritize bridge and infrastructure placement in high-risk countries.
In state-controlled address-space environments, assume a single national operator can execute a total shutdown; design for multi-path diversity across non-state-owned ASes or out-of-band channels (satellite, cellular from non-state carrier).