In Conversation: Alex Dukalskis on his latest book 'Making the World Safe For Dictatorship'
In Conversation:
Alex Dukalskis on Making the World safe for dictatorship
IN CONVERSATION WITH ALEX DUKALSKIS
26 August 2021
We recently sat down with Dr Alex Dukalskis to discuss his recent book Making the World Safe for Dictatorship, which details how and why authoritarian countries invest in image management.
Your book focuses on what you call “authoritarian image management” — could you briefly tell us what this is and why this matters?
I argue that authoritarian states try to control their image abroad. They do this in two main ways: on the one hand, putting a positive spin on their achievements through external propaganda or public diplomacy while on the other hand, trying to tamp down criticism through targeting critical messages or messengers.
This matters because we often talk about these concepts in siloes — some people research soft power while others research censorship or transnational repression, for example. That tendency increasingly struck me as unsatisfactory, so in the book, I try to bring these ideas into one conversation to reflect what authoritarian states actually do more accurately.
More generally all this is important because the image of authoritarianism helps shape how people think about it, which in turn influences how receptive people are to non-democratic forms of rule.
In terms of data, I created a dataset of transnational repression, analysed public relations filings, conducted interviews, analysed authoritarian media and public documents, and drew on historical data. The argument is global in scope but because of China’s outsized importance and my own background researching Asian politics, China gets a lot of attention and North Korea gets its own chapter, too.
Earlier this year you became the centre of Beijing’s attention (in Ireland) — what happened and how does that link to your research?
I wouldn’t say I became the focus of attention for China in Ireland, but I’ve had a few interesting encounters. In the book, I mention that as I was beginning to work on the project, I coincidentally received an invitation from the Chinese Embassy in Ireland to participate in a junket trip to China. The expenses would be paid and logistics organised for a handful of “Irish friends” to visit China, see its accomplishments, enjoy the culture, and so on.
These trips are fairly common and not just in Ireland. They play to one’s ego (“oh, I must be an important or special person worthy of attention”) and are aimed to get the person to return the favour of the funded trip by speaking positively of China (“I was in China last year and was impressed by XYZ”). The implication is that you speak positively for China upon your return so as to not be an ungrateful guest. While I thought about accepting the invitation as a sort of ethnography for the book, I ultimately decided against it for both ethical and personal reasons.
More recently, the Chinese Embassy in Ireland ran a full-page advertisement in The Irish Times (our national newspaper of record) on the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP in July 2021. Naturally, the embassy tweeted that the ambassador published an article in the Times without noting that it was a paid-for advertisement. Regardless, it contained typical fare for the genre: China is developing well, CCP leadership can be trusted, Sino-Irish relations are win-win, and so on. The next day I published a column in the same newspaper responding to the advertorial, noting some of what was left out or misleading, and identifying the ethical problems in accepting these sorts of ads (especially as the Times had rejected a similar ad from another government that same week). I had no response from the embassy, but nor was trying to provoke or seek out a response. I was just trying to tell the truth as I see it.
How well equipped do you feel the EU and/or its member states are to manage Beijing’s increasingly belligerent attempts to police alternative or critical views of its behaviour and narrative setting agenda?
In the past year or so there has been a big change in the way China’s political system is perceived in Europe. China’s actions with regard to several smaller European states like Sweden, Czech Republic, Lithuania, for example, have alerted publics to the political risks of close relations with Beijing. China sanctioning European researchers and MEPs for speaking about gross human rights violations in Xinjiang was also a turning point. That action helped scupper the China-Europe Comprehensive Agreement on Investment.
Because of actions like this, there is a new willingness to re-think how Europe should deal with China that is underpinned by a new wariness. I think there must be continued investment in independent expertise about China, an effort to avoid being over-reliant on it economically, a recognition that key sectors that engage with China a lot become domestic lobbying forces for friendly relations with Beijing, and most generally careful thinking about multilateral strategies to protect human rights and liberal political values.
You argue that “Authoritarian states take advantage of the liberal public sphere afforded by democratic societies to disseminate their messages and viewpoints”. As you write, an example of this would be the Chinese government purchasing advertorials in newspapers like The Washington Post or The Economist. How should relevant agencies deal with and react to the diffuse ways of image management employed by autocracies?
The advertorial issue is interesting. I’ve always been curious about whether these things work or not. Everyone I know knows that they’re just propaganda and I couldn’t imagine people being fooled by them. So, for another project, I ran a small survey experiment with respondents from Myanmar and Malaysia. A control group read some newspaper articles; a treatment group read the same ones with a Chinese government advertorial inserted. I then surveyed respondents about their attitudes toward China, China’s foreign policy, democracy and autocracy, and so on. Readers in these samples didn’t seem swayed one way or the other by the advertorials. To the extent that there was any effect, though, it was among those who follow the news more, so maybe there is some logic behind the strategy. Regardless, though, the advertorial issue, while ethically dubious in my view, does not keep me awake at night.
More generally I think the biggest challenge is to respond to authoritarian image management strategies without falling into the trap of using authoritarian methods. The first instinct is to block or censor something, but that falls into the trap. Instead, the general approach I think should tend toward transparency and informational literacy. Measures like labelling CGTN as “China state-affiliated media” are useful, for example. As are lobbying and publicly available PR registers. But there are still a lot of shadows where we don’t have much light to work with.
Beyond exploiting the liberal public sphere in democracies, the PR activities of many autocratic regimes are often enabled by actors from democratic societies. This is increasingly noticeable in the case of PR firms, multinational corporations, and celebrities who seem to be putting profits over principles. This sits uncomfortably with the public calls from democratic governments for defending liberal values.
What do you make of this contradiction and how do you believe this should be addressed?
It's true, and I’m afraid I do not have a great solution. Many people — I’d say maybe even myself included — used to think that liberal values would win the day through the force of argument. What I think many didn’t take seriously enough is that profit and access are powerful motivators that often take precedence over values. It’s not just a “China” problem, but the issue of (self-)censorship to protect market access to China is at the core of how modern authoritarian states influence speech abroad. We see it in universities, Hollywood, sports, and academic publishers, among other domains. Each small act of compliance with censorship makes it easier to rationalise the next, and soon there’s a self-serving narrative (“it’s better that we’re there to change things from the inside”). It’s an issue that I did not discuss in detail in my book, but one that I’m thinking a lot about now.
In terms of PR firms and other actors that willingly choose to spin for authoritarian governments, I’m afraid the best tool we have is exposure, but it’s a discouraging scene. I saw a recent statistic from the US Department of Labor that workers in public relations outnumber journalists in the United States by six to one, a gap that is continually widening. That’s a huge disparity. And some ‘journalists’ are surely included who work for highly partisan or agenda-driven outlets. So, you have a situation where for every journalist trying to get at the truth about an issue, there are six or more PR folks trying to spin the issue. One obvious step is to subscribe to reputable journalistic outlets, and beyond that more transparency in the PR sector and more media literacy would be valuable.
You note that some international observers were disappointed when Kim Jong Un did not begin liberalising North Korea after assuming power in December 2011. This hope was based on the years Kim spent studying in Switzerland. While the West has long hoped that ‘exposure to our ways will make them more like us’, it would appear this has rarely been the case. If ‘socialisation’ does not work, how should liberal societies continue engaging with authoritarian ones, and is it time for a new approach?
This is a really interesting question. I think we have an assumption that a liberal arts style education is inherently liberalising for people. On average, that might be true, but the kind of person who is Western-educated and becomes a dictator is not an average person. Perhaps they are already elite, or perhaps they have the type of personality that is power-hungry. According to recent biographies of him, Kim Jong Un was treated differently from other children from an early age. He already knew he was royalty in a sense and so it would be hard to overcome that.
Another process that can undercut a commitment to those liberal ideas is if the person experiences discrimination or isolation or sees hypocrisy in their educational experience. They may return disillusioned. People studying abroad or encountering ‘the West’ come away with different experiences and impressions and there’s not really a way to control that, nor is it a good idea to try to do so. So, in general, I would not call for ditching a commitment to liberal arts style education — on the contrary, I would call for a renewed commitment to it in the face of authoritarian advance and the myriad self-imposed domestic problems facing higher education in several democracies.
Several European states, including Italy, Spain, and Greece maintain extradition treaties with China. Given the deteriorating human rights situation in China, is this still acceptable? As long as no agreement can be found among its 27 member states, what other possibilities does the EU have to protect activists and human rights defenders from extradition and political persecution?
Extradition law is not my expertise so there may be limits in those cases, but as a general matter, I think suspending extradition treaties with the PRC is a good idea in light of China’s transnational campaign of repression against Uyghurs and the Hong Kong national security law. My adopted home country of Ireland has suspended its treaty with Hong Kong, which I applauded at the time (it doesn’t have one with the mainland). The transnational campaign against corruption also has a troubling underbelly in which extradition agreements could be abused to target political enemies. China is also the world’s largest executioner, which adds another reason why extradition to China would be unwise in many cases.
In terms of other policies, Freedom House has several useful suggestions in its recent report on transnational repression. These include more accessible refugee/asylum processes, working to curb the abuse of Interpol, and training domestic law enforcement agencies with significant diaspora communities about the transnational reach of today’s authoritarian states so that they can better protect people in their jurisdiction.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Alex Dukalskis an associate professor in the School of Politics and International Relations. He researches and teaches on authoritarian states, Asian politics, and international human rights. His latest book ‘Making the World safe for dictatorship’ is available here.