Over the past decade there is a growing concern about how state governments could exert political control upon the Internet system. Most explanations on Internet control point to the authoritarian nature of political system. It is true that in general Internet control practices are more evident in politically closed regimes and less so in fully liberal democracies. A clear match between the level of democracy and the degree of Internet freedom, however, could hardly be found in the middle of political regime continuum that contains various sorts of hybrid polities. This paper tries to look beyond the regime factor and identify the major determinants that shape Internet control outcomes in competitive (yet not fully democratic) political systems. It chooses to investigate three Southeast Asian countries, Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia, which constitute a clear mismatch between their regime types and the level of Internet control. Pointing out the indeterminacy of regime type, this paper constructs an alternative model that addresses the intensity of online transgressiveness and the capacity of online civil society. While online transgressiveness propels governments to seek Internet control strategies, online civil society represents an inhibiting force, the cohesiveness of which determines the extent to which societal resistance against Internet censorship might succeed.

As an antithesis of “authoritarian enclave” which has been well-established in the comparative politics literature, “democratic enclave” points to the institution of a state or the unambiguous regulatory space in society “where the authoritarian regime's writ is substantively limited and is replaced by an adherence to recognizably democratic norms and procedures” (Gilley 2010). In this sense, the Internet space, embodied by information and communication technologies, has great potential to play such a role, since its “inherited” properties of decentralization and anonymity would inevitably breach the authoritarian rules. However, a closer look at three Southeast Asian states, Malaysia, Singapore and the “New Order” Indonesia whose regimes were characterized by authoritarianism when Internet was initially developed, reveals different trajectories. In the “New Order” Indonesia and Malaysia, the governments consciously left the Internet space uncontrolled; the online media developed independently, vibrantly, and professionally, especially in the Malaysian case; and there were strong connections between online and offline contentious politics. These elements made the Internet space in Indonesia and Malaysia a successful case of democratic enclave. Based on these criteria, however, the Internet space in Singapore has not achieved similar status. This paper analyses the different outcomes of enclave creation on the cyberspace among these countries. It argues that elite conflict and the strength of civil society are the two major factors that shape the differences. In this sense, the political contexts are of great importance for the understanding of Internet's political impacts.

A BSTRACTThis paper examines how Internet control strategy in Malaysia was shaped by particular forms of online political contention and by a well-coordinated online civil society. It also traces the shift of this strategy to more covert means in the 2011 Sarawak State election.Malaysia is increasingly referred to as a positive example when political scientists (re)emphasize the democratic powers of the Internet. 1 To a large extent, the historical elections in 2008 substantiated this argument. The stunning outcome for the first time since 1969 deprived Malaysia's ruling Barisan Nasional (National Front, BN) coalition of its two-thirds parliamentary majority. The loss was widely attributed to the effective use of the Internet by opposition forces. 2 Specifically, their use of cyberspace in Malaysia not only weakened the government's monopoly on media and information but also empowered opposition parties in facilitating and financing political campaigns.This scenario of cyber-empowerment and its related (potential) democratic transition is by no means unique to Malaysia-consider the recent, LIU YANGYUE is a Lecturer in the

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