Wrapped up my fieldwork earlier this month with a presentation on disinformation Taiwan Foundation for Democracy, moderated by Bethany 貝書穎, with Adrian Rauchfleisch as discussant. Grateful to everyone I connected with over the past 4 months - hit me up if you ever swing by Dublin!

#TransnationalRepression : 'A more general underlying cause of it becoming more well-known is the revival of authoritarian rule globally.'

Alex Dukalskis writes on how technology & geopolitics are eroding the safety of borders for overseas dissidents.

journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.11…

'The case underscores what many view as a flaw in the global anti-doping system — that a country’s own anti-doping organization is often the first line of defense in catching drug cheats and those organizations have different levels of motivation to fulfil that role.'

AI please generate for me some fascist-looking banners and flags for my upcoming speech.

23 🇨🇳 swimmers tested positive before Tokyo Olympics due apparently to accidental contamination.

I’m guessing there’s…. more to it than that.

espn.com/olympics/swimm…

Honored to have written an introductory essay on the theme of transnational repression for a collection of excellent contributions in Index on Censorship

Many thanks to Jemimah Steinfeld for making it happen.

For those wanting to learn more about this topic, I recommend picking up Alex Dukalskis's book, Making the World Safe for Dictatorship, which also has data on all instances of authoritarian states repressing critical exiles abroad (1991-2019).

global.oup.com/academic/produ… Oxford University Press

Dictators in Africa and elsewhere have long relied on lobby firms, and have paid huge sums of money, to burnish their images. We began our work precisely to push back against this.

Here, our director Jeffrey Smith speaks to Alex Dukalskis and Farida Bemba Nabourema: youtube.com/watch?v=mv11NQ…

The biggest spenders on lobbying in Washington are typically the most oppressive. Recently, the regime in #Togo hired a firm to do damage control after a constitutional coup. I spoke to Alex Dukalskis and Farida Bemba Nabourema about this topic and why we should care.

youtube.com/watch?v=mv11NQ…

PR work for repressive regimes in Africa and elsewhere is now mainstream. We hosted Alex Dukalskis, who literally wrote the book on this, and activist Farida Bemba Nabourema from Togo, where the government recently hired JDA Frontline Partners. Watch our exchange here: youtube.com/watch?v=mv11NQ…

This is extremely odd. Three Kenyans in today's Beijing Half Marathon clearly let China's He Jie - current Asian Games marathon champion - win the race, all the while coasting themselves, waving him through and congratulating him after the race. Appears to be a tacit agreement?

🙌 Fresh out in PRX!

🇨🇳 Using 1.5m newspaper statements mentioning #China & #C19 📰, Stefan Müller, Samuel Brazys & Alex Dukalskis investigate whether China’s ‘mask diplomacy' efforts influenced its portrayal in the early days of the pandemic

👉 bit.ly/3VYzxqa #OA

I know for many covid seems like the ancient past and due to the vagaries of the academic publishing process this paper doesn't seem 'timely', but actually I really like this paper and think it still has plenty of relevance for understanding authoritarian politics.

New paper in PRXJournal w/ Stefan Müller & Alex Dukalskis on China's #Covid image battle. Using novel measures of #maskdiplomacy & media tone, we find causal evidence that Chinese mask diplomacy efforts improved reporting about China. Open Access! tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Delighted to share our latest publication: 'Reaching for the Past: North Korea's Engagement with Koreans in Japan'. This study delves into Chongryon's enduring influence, exploring its unique role within the Korean diaspora in Japan since WWII. tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.10…

Today the book tour goes to University College Dublin UCD Politics and International Relations. Thank you to Alex Dukalskis & Caitriona Dowd for the opportunity!

🧵1/2 In this International Studies Quarterly article, Lorena Balardini 💚💪 and I analyze why states cooperate to persecute political opponents abroad. We propose a theory of cooperation in transnational repression, using the case study of Operation Condor to test it

📖 doi.org/10.1093/isq/sq…

Meanwhile in Ireland...

'Man appears in court naked in protest at loss of ‘emotional support’ cat during arrest'

irishtimes.com/crime-law/cour…

We must reform this culture of greed and hypocrisy. PR and lobby firms that enjoy the comforts of democracy make big bucks propping up autocrats by whitewashing their crimes. It is a subtheme of my book #Strongmen but read Alex Dukalskis and others on the subject.

Super cool new paper by Adam Scharpf, Christian Gläßel (@Hertie_Security) and Alex Dukalskis 👇