Abstract
The elections in the US in 2016, in France in 2017, and in Germany in 2017 indicate an emerging practice whereby autocracies can and do meddle in democratic elections by hacking data, scandalizing it through leaks, and amplifying the effect by creating intense cognitive flows of disinformation and distrust across social media. Election meddling can have a recognizable five-stage pattern although not all election meddling operations are based on the full use of this hack and leak pattern. Furthermore, the basic meddling toolbox is reusable in other democracies. However, growing awareness, deterrence factors, increased immunity, and regression dynamics can mitigate the impact in subsequent democratic elections. Successful meddling is more likely if democracies regress and produce societal, economic, or political cleavages that can be wedged further open by external actors. Democracies where all stages of election meddling can be carried out are close to the Thucydidean brink—i.e., their internal bonds have weakened to the point that they can be counteracted by foreign appeal.
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Notes
- 1.
On social media’s impact on trust, see, e.g., Klein and Robinson (2020).
- 2.
Secureworks (2016).
- 3.
See, e.g., Pomerantsev (2014).
- 4.
See, e.g., ThreatConnect (2016).
- 5.
The confusion can run deep and make it difficult for the law-enforcement officials to discern disinformation from real evidence, as the case of the probe concerning the so-called Clinton emails proves (see, e.g., Demirjian et al. [2017]).
- 6.
See, e.g., Howard et al. (2017).
- 7.
- 8.
See, e.g., Fisher et al. (2016).
- 9.
e.g., De Haldevang, Max (2017).
- 10.
See, e.g., Schwirtz (2017).
- 11.
Reuters (2020).
- 12.
see also Conley and Vilmer (2018).
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Aaltola, M. (2021). Stages of Digitalized Regressive Meddling in Three Western Elections. In: Democratic Vulnerability and Autocratic Meddling. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-54602-1_6
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