"Dictating the Agenda: Authoritarian Resurgence and Influence in the World examines how authoritarian states have repurposed tools, norms, and actors previously used to promote U.S.-backed liberalism, now turning them against liberal ideas. After the Cold War, democratization appeared to signal the decline of authoritarianism, but recent developments show a significant shift. The authors introduce the concept of "authoritarian snapback," in which non-democratic states curb the spread of liberal ideas domestically while promoting anti-liberal norms globally. Drawing on interviews, case studies, and databases, the book demonstrates how authoritarian states challenge Western influence through media agreements, consumer boycotts, and restrictions on foreign journalists. It also offers a fresh perspective on the shifting global political landscape and the limits of liberal influence"-- Provided by publisher.
This is a story not just of the limits of liberal influence across the world, but of how authoritarian governments came to dictate the global agenda by repurposing the very actors, tools, and norms that once afforded US-backed liberalism such global prominence.
Following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced a remarkable wave of democratization. Over the next two decades, numerous authoritarian regimes transitioned to democracies, and it seemed that authoritarianism as a political model was fading. But as recent events have shown, things have clearly changed.
In Dictating the Agenda, authors Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis reveal how today's authoritarian states are actively countering liberal ideas and advocacy surrounding human rights and democracy across various global governance domains. The transformed global context has unlocked for authoritarian states the possibility to contend with Western liberal soft power in new, traditionally "non-political" ways, including by plugging or even reversing the very channels of influence that originally spread liberalism. Cooley and Dukalskis ultimately advance a theory of authoritarian snapback, the process in which non-democratic states limit the transnational resonance of liberal ideas at home and advance anti-liberal norms and ideas into the global public sphere.
Drawing from a range of evidence, including field work interviews and comparative case studies that demonstrate the changing nature of consumer boycotts, a database of authoritarian government administrative actions against foreign journalists, a database of global content-sharing agreement involving Chinese and Russian state media, and a database of transnational higher education partnerships involving authoritarian and democratic countries, this book doesn't just reveal the limits of the liberal influence taken for granted across the world. It offers a novel theory of how authoritarian governments figured out how to exploit and repurpose the same actors, tools, and norms that once exclusively promoted and sustained US-backed liberalism.
Dictating the Agenda examines how contemporary authoritarian regimes are undermining the global influence of Western democratic liberal ideas and advocacy. They achieve this by projecting their agendas into global arenas often considered "non-political," such as consumer boycotts, global media, transnational higher education, and international sports. While globalization-marked by economic exchange, technological innovation, and consumerism-was once believed to inevitably spread US-style liberalism worldwide, the past decade has proven otherwise. Authoritarian governments in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are now exploiting these very tools to discredit liberal activism, diminish the significance of liberal values in global governance, and advance their autocratic ideologies and agendas.
