Autocratic Advantage: Overseas Propaganda and Great Power Competition

• In Event: Crisis, Disinformation and Authoritarian Narratives in Russia and China

Abstract

Authoritarian regimes are increasingly using informational tools to reshape global narratives in support of their strategic goals – what I call informational statecraft. While Russia attempts to sow chaos in democratic systems, China’s approach to informational statecraft is driven more by incentives to legitimize and consolidate its rise in international influence. Drawing on a corpus of English-language Facebook posts by Chinese state media and diplomats, this paper examines the content and timing of China’s overseas propaganda and disinformation, using both automated text analysis and qualitative human validation. I find that China more commonly employs strategies of “Autocratic Advantage” – highlighting the capacity of centralized government to deliver better results – than “Democratic Dysfunction” – how democratic institutional failings lead to poor governance outcomes, with the latter strategy opportunistically concentrated around key events in U.S. politics. At the same time, touting the success of China’s model often entails subtly emphasizing distinctive traits of its political system and couching performance in the language of liberal values, rather than explicitly calling for authoritarianism. Moreover, disinformation is usually used on issues seen as threatening China’s key national security interests. These findings underscore how authoritarian regimes can use informational narratives to gain geopolitical influence short of war.

Author

• Audrye Wong, University of Southern California