{"id":82038,"date":"2023-09-01T11:30:36","date_gmt":"2023-09-01T01:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=82038"},"modified":"2023-09-01T11:27:20","modified_gmt":"2023-09-01T01:27:20","slug":"defending-democracy-a-losing-strategy-against-authoritarian-narratives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/defending-democracy-a-losing-strategy-against-authoritarian-narratives\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Defending democracy\u2019 a losing strategy against authoritarian narratives"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

Not so long ago, the consensus around defending democracy on the internet was nearly a settled matter. A sort of de facto understanding held that to fight disinformation and defend democracy, we should resist the impulse to try to control information or the behaviour of authoritarians we oppose.<\/p>\n

The statement of values, though, does little to blunt the power of illiberal narratives on the democratic imagination.<\/p>\n

If anything, Elon Musk\u2019s takeover of Twitter (now X) highlights the folly of approaches that rely on simply policing social media\u2014because what happens when the mind of one of those policing (in this case, the platform\u2019s owner) is won over by the\u00a0Kremlin\u2019s narratives on Ukraine<\/a>?<\/p>\n

Musk\u2019s invocations of \u2018free speech\u2019 actually make the platform more accommodating to the sorts of voices that embrace Kremlin propaganda with gusto.<\/p>\n

But X is just one platform among a growing array of communication options.<\/p>\n

And it\u2019s across this galaxy that the Kremlin, its proxies and its friends level accusations at Western democracy (\u2018imperialism!\u2019), frame events (\u2018NATO expansionism!\u2019) and draw ominous conclusions (\u2018deep state-controlled propaganda media!\u2019).\u00a0Opponents are told we\u2019re \u2018Russophobic\u2019 and that our values threaten\u00a0their\u00a0\u2018traditional\u2019 civilisations.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the People\u2019s Republic of China racialises political debates, accusing critics of xenophobia. This muddies the real issue of racism in democracy, while falsely presenting the Chinese Communist Party as a spokesperson for the racially vilified.<\/p>\n

These influences point back to a well-established conundrum for liberal society: how do we ensure that our own freedoms aren\u2019t used by adversaries to undermine our society and its interests?<\/p>\n

Classifying these views as \u2018disinformation\u2019, as has become the custom, isn\u2019t entirely accurate. Many of these ideas have their origins in democracies, or at least find an audience here.<\/p>\n

We need to think less about how to police content on networks to \u2018defend democracy\u2019 and consider how to defend our minds and political culture against the arguments, views and ideas that dismember and neutralise liberal democracy\u2019s values.<\/p>\n

Ideas rarely stand alone; they are inevitably linked to other ideas.<\/p>\n

So, when the Russian foreign ministry claimed last year that Russia would be \u2018forced to take retaliatory steps\u2019 if Finland joined NATO, Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Zizek correctly noted<\/a> that the \u2018decision appears \u201cforced\u201d only if one accepts the whole set of ideological and geopolitical assumptions that sustain Russian politics\u2019.<\/p>\n

Similarly, by defending against the accusation of \u2018Russophobia\u2019, Westerners accept the possibility that racism towards Russians is our motivation, rather than the reality that Western states (and Ukraine) are responding to the state activity of Russia.<\/p>\n

At every turn, Russian narratives seek to introduce a dissembling logic that inverts our democratic reasoning.<\/p>\n

Part of why Russia can reach so deeply into democracies is its fluency with Western liberal culture. Much of the Russian political class see themselves as speaking from a moral high ground on contested issues, perpetually \u2018misunderstood by the West\u2019, perpetually under attack and perpetually justified in responding.<\/p>\n

As the Australian National University\u2019s Kyle Wilson notes<\/a>, Russians\u2019 view of Russia, as formulated by the regime-controlled media, is as a \u2018repository of superior values\u2019. The Kremlin\u2019s view of Russia, he says, can be summarised as: \u2018We are different, we are unique, we are superior and we are under attack.\u2019<\/p>\n

Faced with Russia\u2019s particular complaints, we should recall an idea underpinning liberal democracy\u2014universality. Understanding our own instinct for universality is the foundation of a strategy for pushing back against authoritarians: it can help democratic citizens understand their worldview and how its impact doesn\u2019t and shouldn\u2019t end at the jurisdiction of a state.<\/p>\n

Russia\u2019s (and increasingly China\u2019s) stock in trade in the internet era is to identify voices and events inside democracies that can be co-opted to advance authoritarian narratives. Black Lives Matter protests, for example, are framed not as emphatic calls for reform, but as emblems of an irredeemably unjust society. Coordinating state messaging from overseas with the agitation of democratic citizens is a sort of card trick that authoritarian nations are adept at.<\/p>\n

When \u2018free-speech advocates\u2019 agitate against US foreign policy positions, their words are picked up in Russia\u2019s or China\u2019s state-sponsored reporting. Protesters in democracies are fed a steady diet of carefully chosen images and arguments amplified by authoritarian state-backed media and social media networks. Consequently, democracies are continually allowing their language to be shaped by illiberal voices.<\/p>\n

This is why the defence of democracy cannot be accomplished through piecemeal removal of specific content across digital networks. Nor can it be achieved through better disinformation research.<\/p>\n

Instead, citizens need their own narrative framings that ensure the language we use to describe the world reflects the world we want to live in, not the language proffered by Russia or China. When democracy is attacked, citizens shouldn\u2019t have to grasp futilely for evidence, examples or arguments in favour of our system of politics; we should be readily armed.<\/p>\n

Author Peter Pomerantsev noted that the Kremlin, through its contradictory, false narratives, is assaulting the link between facts and justice. Technology makes the rupture easier.<\/p>\n

When truth on the internet is under attack, we need to rely on our minds as a backstop.<\/p>\n

Rather than defending democracy by waiting for evidence of digital manipulation that can be \u2018called out\u2019, we should generate content from a set of assumptions that sustain democracy and compete for the attention of the global public.<\/p>\n

The first step would be to raise the volume of the debate on issues like human rights and limits on power, and raise it to a level that holds Russia and China to their own rhetoric in international affairs.<\/p>\n

Both countries cite the UN charter, for example. Both are UN Security Council members. Where are the robust voices demanding that they heed the principles of that agreement and body?<\/p>\n

To mount these arguments, democracies must be able to articulate their position in terms the global public can understand.<\/p>\n

\u2018We must become better\u2014and more agile\u2014at explaining ourselves in terms and principles relevant to others\u2019 circumstances, rather than assuming that everyone is sold on \u201cDemocracy 101\u201d,\u2019 said former Australian ambassador to Russia Peter Tesch.<\/p>\n

With that achieved, the public would then learn how to better counter, contextualise or ignore the proliferation of various Kremlin narratives.<\/p>\n

Recent revelations<\/a> that a subeditor at Radio New Zealand was adjusting copy to conform to the Kremlin\u2019s worldview show that there will always be people in liberal democracies who are willing to accept the \u2018putinoid<\/a>\u2019 view of the world.<\/p>\n

If the universality of our liberal ideals is understood, discussed, shared more widely and reflected across our institutions, such outbreaks of Kremlin counternarratives are less worrying. Facing a cascade of detail and complexity, the human mind can lean on these ideals for guidance.<\/p>\n

We can also take some comfort that this situation isn\u2019t new. Liberal nations have always struggled in the pursuit of a system that embraces freedom of thought and expression.<\/p>\n

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, democracies found to their shock that their ally of convenience, the Soviet Union, had, with no notice, turned its propaganda and espionage energies once again back against them. In those days, the stakes of a great-power contest didn\u2019t need to be explained to a public that had experienced decades of intermittent war.<\/p>\n

In that era, American diplomat George Kennan sketched out what became the US policy of \u2018containment\u2019 to support countries \u2018resisting attempted subjugation\u2019 by Moscow. Contrast that with today, when components of our society\u2014in politics, security, business, the economy\u2014have to be roused from a neoliberal dream to face the uncomfortable fact that a US\u2013Russia\u2013China great-power contest is happening, won\u2019t go away and requires a whole-of-nation defence.<\/p>\n

Today, like in 1946, there is a need for a containment strategy. But this time, in addition to helping contain attacks on countries like Ukraine, democracies need to\u00a0contain\u00a0<\/em>the subjugation of their liberal ideas and language. If we can do that, the battle against Russia\u2019s and China\u2019s messaging can move from the domain of governments to the imagination and will of the public.<\/p>\n

Once that happens, democracy will have a fighting chance against the narrative power of Moscow and Beijing in the networked age.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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