Understanding And Interrupting Authoritarian Collaboration

The global human rights movement with its claims about the universality of human rights also poses a significant challenge to autocrats. When they abuse fundamental human rights, autocrats frequently face shaming, stigmatization, and isolation by IOs and individual democracies. For deeply authoritarian regimes, being a "pariah" in global society comes with financial and political repercussions, in addition to consequences rooted in the state's drive to establish and maintain security of their identity. Therefore, authoritarian regimes have significant interests in image management.⁶⁴ On the one hand, authoritarian regimes use shared rhetoric and messaging strategies to convey that even the most stigmatized, repressive crackdowns are actually legitimate (rightful and proper) state policies. On the other hand, many hybrid or competitive authoritarian regimes engage in deception, such as by allowing citizens to exercise voting rights for appearances' sakes but working behind the scenes to rig elections. To boost these efforts, authoritarian regimes engage in collective legitimation practices and collaborate in mock compliance, as demonstrated through low-quality election monitoring co-opted by authoritarian incumbents.

Autocrats engage in collective legitimation: collaboration not only to de-stigmatize authoritarian rule, but to promote the belief that their exercise of power is appropriate. For example, Central Asian autocrats publicly praise each other's efforts to maintain "order and stability," contrasting the virtues of strong, centralized power with the more "disorderly and unstable" politics of the U.S. and other democracies.⁶⁵ These shared claims evoke performance-based legitimacy, suggesting that if their authoritarian counterparts were not in power, Central Asian societies would be destabilized. Authoritarian regimes' legitimation efforts are often rooted in cultural relativist claims about incongruence of supposedly western values with local practices and beliefs. Claiming to be protectors of "tradition" and "family values," autocrats in Africa, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia have tried to legitimize their rule and rally voters--particularly by copying each other’s laws targeting LGBTQI groups and reproductive rights. For example, authoritarian regimes tap into international conservative movements and homophobia not only to acquire legitimacy, but also to foster tolerance for broader contractions of citizenship rights and weakening of the judiciary.⁶⁶ The resurgent popularity of rallying against western immorality to protect the family unit is often attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin.⁶⁷

Authoritarian regimes also collaborate to cast suspicions on dissident and minority groups capable of threatening collective action, countering claims that dissidents are engaged in legitimate free speech and protest activities. Authoritarian regimes' claims that dissidents are terrorists or foreign agents may be more believable if allied countries offer corroboration. Therefore, autocrats repeat each other's claims that crackdowns combat terrorism or Western-backed agitation.⁶⁸ For example, although the vast majority of Uyghurs have no connections to terrorist groups, autocracies such as Saudi Arabia have expressed approval of China's crackdown on Uyghurs.⁶⁹ In 2019, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman stated that the Saudis "respect and support China’s rights to take counter-terrorism and de-extremism measures to safeguard national security."⁷⁰ Saudi Arabia, along with 44 other countries – including Cuba, Bahrain, Belarus, Cambodia, Eritrea, and Iran – endorsed China's Xinjiang policies in a letter read aloud by Cuba’s representative at the UN General Assembly's Third Committee (on Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural Issues) in 2019.⁷¹

Officials in authoritarian ROs have directly participated in the production of member states' pro-regime propaganda. Perhaps most famously, the Secretary-General of the SCO participated in heavily publicized tours of Xinjiang, praising the Chinese government's development of Xinjiang in several scripted, televised interviews.⁷² In one segment on China's state-owned broadcaster CGTN, SCO Secretary-General Vladimir Norov can be observed reading directly off a teleprompter while offering praise and listing economic growth figures for Xinjiang.⁷³

Particularly in the last ten years, China has shifted from defense to offense, not only countering criticisms of its human rights record, but also attempting to re-write the rules of the human rights monitoring system.⁷⁴ With support from the informal "Like-Minded Group" (LMG) of predominantly low- and middle-income regimes with blemished human rights records, China has focused its attention on undermining the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) in particular. In the HRC, China and its allies attempt to keep China's human rights record off the agenda, and promote its vision centering the right to a "harmonious society" and economic development while de-emphasizing democracy and civil and political rights.⁷⁵ The LMG has coordinated to defeat resolutions in the UN General Assembly that would strengthen the global human rights architecture and resolutions condemning repressive regimes, while promoting illiberal counter-messaging.⁷⁶ China and its allies also nominate officials for key human rights committees, and have worked to limit the access of pro-democracy non-governmental organizations (NGOs) throughout the UN system. Through their position on the UN Economic and Social Council's (ECOSOC) Committee on Non-governmental Organizations, which grants UN consultative status to NGOs, China and Russia block applications from civil society organizations focused on human rights and other sensitive topics.⁷⁷

Authoritarian regimes have also collaborated through technically-oriented, or "functional," multilateral organizations to promote the legitimacy of illiberal practices and displace liberal norms. Recent studies have focused, for example, on authoritarian regimes' efforts to challenge established norms of decentralized internet governance and freedom of expression online. In 2011, China, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan submitted a joint proposal for an "International Code of Conduct for Information Security" at the UN General Assembly (which did not pass). In 2012, at the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) World Conference on International Telecommunications in Dubai, China and Russia spearheaded efforts to advance a multilateral model of internet governance and to establish new content control norms.⁷⁸ Scholars and officials from democracies initially raised alarms about these proposals representing statist, authoritarian revisions to what is currently a decentralized, multi-stakeholder system of internet governance.⁷⁹ However, the authoritarian-backed multilateral model, which aims to transfer power back to states and move away from private involvement in internet governance, has gained popularity with policy-makers in backsliding democracies, including India.⁸⁰

Authoritarian regimes sometimes cooperate to mimic well-established democratic practices and institutions, known as mock compliance. In the wake of the third wave of democratization, western countries increasingly conditioned access to foreign aid on signals of intent to democratize, including through holding elections and inviting international election observers.⁸¹ The rise of disingenuous, so-called "zombie," or "shadow" election monitoring groups is emblematic of authoritarian cooperation to mimic and benefit from these democratic practices without submitting to meaningful accountability.⁸² Low-quality (or disingenuous) election observers are defined as those that lack the willingness or the capacity to detect and report irregularities and fraud during the election cycle.⁸³ Low-quality observer missions from authoritarian-backed groups often deliberately resemble credible, professionalized monitoring organizations.⁸⁴ Some low-quality international observer missions also include credible-seeming officials from election management bodies and former politicians from well-established democracies.⁸⁵ Voters without enough information to distinguish credible observers from low-quality observers wearing similar uniforms may view the presence of the low-quality observers as a positive signal about an election’s integrity.

Since the early 2000s, authoritarian-led ROs deploy a growing number of low-quality monitors to their members' elections, while the number of observers from monitoring groups with high standards has plateaued.⁸⁶ ROs ranging from SCO to the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS) have deployed observers to validate elections with obvious, serious flaws.⁸⁷ Although cross-national research on the effects of low-quality observers is limited, one survey found that voters in Tunisia viewed observers from the Arab League as more credible than observers from other regions, including observers from the EU.⁸⁸ Researchers contend that EU observers apply more rigorous election monitoring methodologies and can speak more freely than Arab League observers; however, Tunisians consider Arab observers to be less biased.⁸⁹ Recent research finds that when these low- and high-quality observers issue contradictory statements about the quality of elections, voters are less likely to protest; this indicates that autocrats benefit from low-quality observers muddying the information environment.⁹⁰

Finally, authoritarian regimes also collaborate with illiberal non-state actors to legitimize their rule and imitate compliance. This includes collaborating with public relations firms, lobbying groups, think tanks, accounting companies, private security companies, and other opportunistic businesses that are often headquartered in democracies.⁹¹ Autocracies around the world, from Equatorial Guinea⁹² to Rwanda⁹³ to Azerbaijan⁹⁴ have learned from each other's successes with American and (to a lesser extent) European public relations firms, copying this international image management strategy. The United Arab Emirates has reportedly co-opted American think tanks for similar purposes: to write pieces that present the regime in a positive light.⁹⁵ The target audiences of authoritarian regimes who hire PR firms are often policymakers in democracies, who autocrats hope to convince of their respectability to access economic opportunities or military aid. While PR firms launder authoritarian regimes' reputations, accounting companies and real estate brokers in democracies have worked to launder authoritarian regimes' ill-gotten financial gains, including money earned from smuggling natural resources.⁹⁶ Given that some authoritarian regimes pay tens or hundreds of millions of dollars to foreign PR and accounting firms (based on disclosures required under U.S. law), authoritarian collaboration with western firms is an issue that deserves greater attention from political scientists and practitioners alike. These firms are now important enablers of authoritarian learning and strategic innovation.

Authoritarian collaboration to legitimate illiberal norms is less likely to succeed when democracy champions--supported by the international democracy support community--can provide compelling counter-narratives and debunk disinformation. One way to strengthen such messages is through media trainings for journalists, CSOs, and autonomous bodies such as EMBs. International democracy support organizations should support local journalists and media to produce and disseminate information campaigns that pre-empt if not challenge authoritarian regimes' mis- and disinformation more effectively. Well-meaning EMBs can and are increasingly engaging in crisis communication planning to anticipate threats, identify effective counter messages, and build multi-stakeholder networks to disseminate and amplify counter narratives. This planning is critical to secure the buy-in, networks, and, ultimately, the trust necessary for such counter messages to be effective. Anticipating threats also helps EMBs proactively reinforce key messages to build resilience in advance of damaging disinformation narratives.

Addressing mock compliance also requires broader public information campaigns. As of the time of writing, democratic governments and most democracy support organizations have not produced coherent, public-facing messaging or educational materials regarding how to identify low-quality observer groups. As such, information is seldom available to inform voters in countries where low-quality "zombie" observer groups rubber-stamp flawed elections. Civic education campaigns that give people the tools to differentiate between election monitoring groups can be beneficial where authoritarian regimes collaborate to produce disinformation around elections through deployment of low-quality election monitors. There are a few notable interventions in the realm of election monitoring that offer lessons for practitioners. As previously mentioned, the European Platform for Democratic Elections (EPDE) database of politically biased election observers demonstrates one way to raise awareness of co-opted observer missions and the threats they pose to democracy.¹³³ With databases like this, democracy support groups can name and shame individuals or groups involved in subverting democracy, raising the costs to these groups of rubber-stamping authoritarian elections. The EPDE database only includes individuals, but it would be helpful to create a similar list of organizations that deploy at the bidding of authoritarian sponsors.¹³⁴

Democratic countries can also sanction the "worst of the worst" among politically biased observer groups. Without sanctions that send a clear signal, voters may perceive observers from "local" or geographically close ROs as less biased than observers from outside the region, regardless of methodology, and positive reports from these observers may be able to persuade voters that autocrats' stolen victories are legitimate.¹³⁵ When individuals affiliated with the Russian government set up the deceptive faux-election monitoring organization Association for Free Research and International Cooperation (AFRIC) in Southern Africa, the U.S. sanctioned and discredited the individuals involved, leading to AFRIC's dissolution.¹³⁶ Similar steps could be taken to crack down on other low-quality monitoring groups and meddlers that attempt to legitimate disinformation. Regional election monitoring organizations that have authoritarian members they are unable to expel can also consider dissolving and reconstituting themselves without inviting autocrats. The Association of European Election Officials (ACEEEO) took the drastic step of dissolving after Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine due to its inability to otherwise remove Russia and Belarus, two states that threatened ACEEEO's integrity.¹³⁷

In the realm of global IOs, democracies and the democracy support community can continue to call for membership standards that prevent repressive regimes from sitting on committees dealing with the protection of human rights--particularly the UN HRC. Attempts to change these rules will undoubtedly meet stiff resistance. A more attainable goal is for democracies to coordinate on identifying and nominating appropriate personnel for open positions in the UN human rights system--such as positions on committees overseeing compliance with human rights treaties, including the Committee Against Torture or Committee on the Rights of the Child.¹³⁸ Democracies can also coordinate to support each other's bids for positions on the HRC whenever possible. Experts have noted that when democracies stop elevating nominees for various committees, it is easy for autocrats to fill the void they leave behind, taking control over IO agenda-setting.¹³⁹ Authoritarian collaboration through IOs is more likely to fail when democracies resist the promotion of illiberal personnel and proposals at every turn.