Foreign Influence by Authoritarian Governments: Introducing New Data and Evidence, 2024. Springman et al

2 comments

Very interesting read! And looking at the chart, it's easy to see which countries are most targeted by these influence campaigns.
This manuscript introduces the Resurgent Authoritarian Influence (RAI) dataset, a pioneering effort to quantify foreign influence by Russia and China on aid-receiving nations. RAI provides a comprehensive view of influence activities across multiple dimensions, including the exercise of economic and military power, diplomatic efforts, and domestic interference, allowing for unique insights into the specific tools used to shape global dynamics. This represents a significant contribution for the empirical study of foreign influence by major powers.
Edit: it's just a shame they only show Chinese and Russian influence campaigns. What about other countries (e.g., the US)?
- I don’t know much academic censorship there is in the US but I imagine the authors being american probably has some relation to this.
  Also to be completely fair to the authors, Russia and China are the two most studied in this regard (and very likely the two biggest offenders) so if you had to limit the scope of the study to two nations russia and china would be the obvious choice.