ASD contributes long and short form research products and analysis to inform and engage our audience on a range of issues related to malign foreign interference. In addition, we develop policy recommendations and strategies to close vulnerabilities and safeguard institutions from authoritarian threats.
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April 2022
Interference in the 2022 French Presidential Elections: Where Things Stand Ahead of the First Round
On Sunday, April 10, French voters will choose which two of the 12 presidential candidates will proceed to the second-round runoff. Most polls predict incumbent Emmanuel Macron to come in first, with far-right candidate Marine Le Pen or far-left can [...]
French Voters Should Consider Election Integrity Issues as They Vote in 2022
ASD's David Levine and GMF's Gesine Weber lay out four questions French voters should ask ahead of the presidential election. In its 2017 presidential election, France withstood one of the most significant efforts by the Kremlin to interfere in a [...]
Hamilton Toplines: March 28–April 3, 2022
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week spread disinformation to discredit reporting on Russia’s alleged war crimes in Bucha, Ukraine. With images of destruction and death in Bucha coming to light as Russian troops leave the area, Kremlin [...]
Key Narratives to Watch Before Sunday’s Hungarian Elections
This piece was written by Zsuzsanna Vegh and Bret Schafer with support from Logically AI. Hungary is holding parliamentary elections on April 3 that will decide whether the Fidesz-led Orbán government continues in office for a fourth consecutive te [...]
March 2022
Hamilton Toplines: March 21–27, 2022
Russia Last week, “Biden” was the third most used phrase by Russian diplomats and state media on Twitter, as Kremlin-linked accounts attacked the U.S. president for saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin was a “butcher” who “cannot remain in p [...]
French Election Dashboard Toplines: March 14–20, 2022
Highlights Despite being less than a month away from the first round of the presidential election in France, the elections have received far less coverage in state-backed media outlets than the war in Ukraine and other topics. None of the top 10 key [...]
Democratic States Impose Strong Sanctions on Russia
For years, the United States has sought to use sanctions to achieve several aims related to Russia, including preventing, deterring, and punishing 1) the strategic corruption that President Vladimir Putin uses to advance Russian foreign policy, 2) h [...]
Hamilton Toplines: March 14–March 20, 2022
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week promoted new evidence to support their conspiracy narrative about the presence of U.S.-funded bioweapon labs in Ukraine, though the number of tweets from Russian propagandists with the term “biologi [...]
Russia’s War in Ukraine: Lessons for Taiwan
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine serves as a reminder for democracies big and small of the stakes of maintaining free and open societies in the face of rising illiberalism, autocracy, and totalitarianism. And despite the seemingly insurmountable odds fo [...]
Hamilton Toplines: March 7–13, 2022
Russia Russian diplomats and state media last week tweeted the word “biological” nearly 600 times as they advanced their disinformation campaign about U.S.-funded bioweapon facilities in Ukraine. U.S. officials and independent reporters have stated [...]
How More Robust Election Observation Could Help Save U.S. Elections
The Alliance for Securing Democracy’s David Levine and the Carter Center’s Avery Davis-Roberts make the case that more nonpartisan observation is critical to ensuring the integrity of future elections and provide steps for improving nonpartisan obs [...]
China’s State Media and Government Officials Are Backing Russia on Ukraine
On February 4, 2022, Russia and China surprised many observers by releasing a joint statement promising a “no limits” friendship, which they described as “superior to political and military alliances of the Cold War era.” Just after the Beijing Olym [...]