The cost of silence: is information control a potential pathway to armed conflict?

This paper examines how state propaganda, censorship, and internet filtering shape the likelihood of government involvement in armed conflict. We argue that information control weakens public oversight, restricts dissent, and enables leaders to reinterpret domestic failures as external threats. Using a global panel of 173 countries from 1991 to 2024, we combine indicators from the Varieties of Democracy project with Firth rare-events logit estimators and discrete-time survival models. The results show that information control is associated with conflict involvement and onset, although relationships vary across instruments and specifications. Internet filtering is the most consistent predictor in fully controlled global models, while censorship is positively associated with conflict in baseline models and some regional specifications. Propaganda exhibits a more conditional pattern, potentially stabilizing routine politics while enabling leaders to justify escalation. Evidence from the Sahel, the Middle East and North Africa, and the post-Soviet space highlights regional variation. Therefore, rising information control should serve as a warning sign for citizens, civil society, and international organizations, as it may weaken political accountability and signal an increased likelihood of conflict involvement.