Summary

Authoritarian governments increasingly seek to suppress information beyond their borders: they co-opt citizens living abroad, repress activists and exiles overseas, finance large-scale image campaigns aimed at foreign publics, and deploy covert networks to influence foreign debates. These practices vary not only in the types of tactics employed, but also in their strategic goals, target audiences, timing, and degree of coercion. For instance, prior research shows both how authoritarian governments use transnational forms of repression targeting diasporas and exiled populations as well as transnational forms of persuasion, such as public diplomacy or online influence campaigns to shape international perceptions and legitimise their rule abroad through softer forms of influence. There is substantial variation across authoritarian regimes in which tactics they use, when (context and conditions), who implements them, and who they target.

Some of this variation reflects differences in what a regime is trying to achieve at a given time: a regime primarily concerned with pre-empting diaspora mobilisation against it at home pursues a different strategy than one primarily concerned with shaping how its foreign policy is received internationally or protecting an overseas investment relationship. But strategy is not always chosen freely. It is also shaped by what a regime is capable of doing: coercing a specific critic abroad requires a hold over that individual, such as consular reach or a family still resident in the country of origin, while shaping what information a foreign or diaspora audience encounters requires mostly resources but no relationship with any particular person at all. Regimes with weaker diplomatic, legal, or economic reach beyond their borders are accordingly not necessarily less active, but differently active, relying more heavily on relationship-based tactics that do not require major financial or human resources. Strategic objectives and capacity are not directly observable in the way a lawsuit or a visa denial is, and this working paper treats them as an interpretive lens for making sense of the tactics it documents, rather than as independently measured variables.

This working paper provides an overview of the different forms of transnational information suppression tactics employed by China, Russia, Ethiopia, and Rwanda and compares the types of tactics used by each regime as well their underlying strategic rationale. Specifically, this working paper seeks to answer the following questions:

• What are key differences between the four cases in their information suppression tactics?
• To what extent do smaller countries like Ethiopia and Rwanda follow the tactics by bigger regimes like China and Russia?
• What are limitations in existing data sources capturing information suppression?