As democratic processes show cracks around the world and authoritarian regimes gain strength, the global order is changing to a world where undemocratic actors are setting the rules for global issues including information, technology, and the economy. Using economic and technological tools once thought to be democratizing forces, authoritarian regimes are attempting to undermine democratic institutions and strengthen their own structures. Democratic states must invest in peace building and democratic strengthening within their own countries and globally where appropriate and welcomed.
At the time when many commentators assumed technological developments, trade and investment would spread democracy, we see that many regimes continue to see democracy as a threat to their power, and have invested in attempts to halt this progress. Many examples abound including Russian use of information-warfare tactics online to control and manipulate public perception in support of the regime since at least 2009.
Similarly, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has shown that its Great Internet Firewall is now supplemented by indigenous platforms and apps that allow it to police its users’ activities online, shaping their information reality and tracking their daily routines. This is combined with an artificial-intelligence-powered system of surveillance and facial recognition that monitors offline activities, enabled by monitoring mechanisms that are spread throughout Chinese cities.
Leaders in Moscow and Beijing have taken advantage of economic markets to strengthen their power. The CCP has developed a directed form of state-backed market economy, and exploited asymmetries between its system and the international economic system in which it has enabled favorable positions for Chinese companies and interests. Rather than greater economic openness generating a push against the party-state for political freedoms, the party-state has instrumentalized corporate entities, using them as a means for economic growth, and political leverage. President Putin and his supporters used the privatization period in Russia to enrich themselves and now rely on the international financial system to protect these financial gains.
In the case of Russia, many commentators argue that Moscow has used a strategy of undermining democracies to gain relative power and diminish the appeal of democracy at home. Seeing vulnerabilities in democracies as opportunities to boost his position, Putin has turned his information weaponry outward, using his intelligence apparatus and proxies to exploit divisions and weaknesses to create chaos and damage democratic governments and institutions across the transatlantic space. Russia is also believed to have used state-owned companies, particularly in the oil and gas sectors, to create and exploit dependencies, cultivate influencers, and coerce governments to adopt policies favorable to Moscow.
The combined effect of these tactics is the weakening of democracies from within and without. China’s assertive foreign policy, growing political and economic power, and focus on technological development is shaping markets and governance globally. Many of these emerging technologies will shape and govern our daily lives – online and offline – in some cases defining the information architecture and societal structures of the future. When authoritarians define the systems, rules, and standards that constitute and govern the information architecture, the information domain may become more authoritarian and less democratic.
The democratic response needs to remain consistent with democratic values and involve humility and a powerful push for renewal. Democracies should present a competitive offer to their populations. We must renew our democratic edge through civic education and investing in infrastructure and our education system. Politicians must recognize the vulnerabilities and weaknesses that have made them less responsive to citizens’ demands, driven polarization, and opened space for undemocratic systems. Outdated institutions need to be updated to reflect the current populace’s needs and tailored to the needs of the citizenry that democracy is meant to represent. Democracy is not self-perpetuating, and reinvesting in it is the best way to ensure its continuation.
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