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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May 2023
Turkish Elections: Cloudy with a Certainty of Absolute Reign
In the end, it was not so close. Turkey’s most tightly contested election in a generation ended up giving the country’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, a new mandate to extend his unbroken and unprecedented 20-year hold on power. This victory will [...]
What to Watch in Turkey’s Run-Off Election
What happened in the first round? In Turkey’s first round election held on May 14, tens of millions of voters turned out for both sides. There was intense competition on a playing field that the incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan skewed heavi [...]
Donors Should Get Businesses to Invest in Ukraine by Committing to Muscular Reform Coordination
This blog is an adaptation of the chapter on transparency and accountability from “Toward a Marshall Plan for Ukraine: New Ideas and Recommendations”, by Norman Eisen, Alina Inayeh, Jacob Kirkegaard, Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Josh Rudolph, and Bruce [...]
Greek Elections: Three Fundamental Contradictions in the Country’s Path Towards Political “Normalcy”
For a country long inured to hardship and crisis management, the upcoming election taking place in Greece on May 21st feels like a transition back to “normal”. Gone are the extraordinary conditions of supervision and oversight by the troika of inter [...]
Turkey’s Election: Mostly Free, Anything but Fair
Elections in Turkey had high turn-out, meaningful results, and little violence, but that doesn’t mean they were free from autocratic manipulation on the part of the regime. On Sunday, Turkish voters went to the polls in a mostly free but highly unf [...]
The Tweet Is Coming from Inside the House
In Erdoğan’s Turkey, anti-government trolls get arrested, while pro-government trolls get paychecks. Social media has become a major source of information for Turkish people, thanks in large part to the Turkish government’s strict control of tradit [...]
April 2023
Autocrats Within
Executive Summary The greatest threats facing the two most consequential elections in and around Europe in 2023—Turkey in May and Poland in the fall—come from autocratic corruption within these two backsliding democracies. Both these countries are [...]
Russia Didn’t Know How to Frame the Discord Leaks
Overview On April 13, the FBI arrested Jack Teixeira for his alleged involvement in leaking hundreds of classified documents. Teixeira, a member of the Air National Guard, reportedly shared the US intelligence assessments with his friends over the c [...]
Chinese State Propaganda Goes to Bat for TikTok
TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew appeared on Capitol Hill on Thursday 23 March to testify in front of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, where lawmakers peppered him with questions about TikTok’s Chinese ownership, effects on youth, and practices aroun [...]
March 2023
TikTok’s Russia Challenge: Kremlin-Funded Media Reaches Millions on the App
Overview TikTok has been central to the world’s understanding of Russia’s war in Ukraine. It was particularly valuable in the conflict’s early days when people were desperate for news and able to find real-time updates about military maneuvers and o [...]
Securing 2024: Defending US Elections through Investment and Reform
Introduction As a result of the 2020 and 2022 federal elections, the job of administering elections has dramatically changed in the United States, and the demands on the dedicated officials that run our elections have also increased. The people wh [...]
China’s Propaganda Looks to Japan’s G7 Presidency
At the beginning of 2023, Japan assumed the presidency of the Group of Seven (G7) from Germany. This puts Tokyo, already a prime target of Chinese information manipulation, at the helm of a body that has drawn significant and sustained criticism fro [...]