Global Autocracies: Strategies of Transnational Repression, Legitimation, and Co-Optation in World Politics

Abstract

How, when, and why does a state take repressive action against individuals residing outside its territorial jurisdiction? Beyond state-led domestic forms of control over citizens living within their legal borders, autocracies also seek to target those abroad—from African states’ sponsoring violence against exiled dissidents to Central Asian republics’ extraditions of political émigrés, and from the adoption of spyware software to monitor digital activism across Latin America to enforced disappearances of East Asian expatriates. Despite growing global interconnectedness, the field of international studies currently lacks an adequate comparative framework for analyzing how autocracies adapt to growing cross-border mobility. I argue that the rise of global migration flows has contributed to the emergence of “transnational authoritarianism,” as autocracies aim to both maximize material gains from citizens’ “exit” and minimize political risks by controlling their “voice” abroad. I demonstrate that governments develop strategies of transnational repression, legitimation, and co-optation that transcend state borders, as well as co-operation with a range of non-state actors. Bringing work on the international politics of migration in conversation with the literature on authoritarianism, I provide illustrative examples drawn from a range of transnational authoritarian practices by the fifty countries categorized as “Not Free” by Freedom House in 2019, covering much of Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and South America. I sketch an emerging field of international studies research around the novel means that autocracies employ to exercise power over populations abroad, while shedding light on the evolving nature of global authoritarianism.

Digitized diaspora governance during the COVID‐19 pandemic: China's diaspora mobilization and Chinese migrant responses in Italy

“…Gamlen argues that emigration states ‘govern’ diasporas as a ‘normal form of political organization’ (Gamlen, 2008 , p. 842), which implicitly refers to democratic states extending political, civil and social rights to diaspora populations for capacity building (Gamlen et al., 2019 ); less has been theorized about authoritarian states extending their governing power beyond territorial borders. It has mainly been argued that out of legitimation and security concerns such states restrain and repress overseas dissidents (Dalmasso et al., 2017 ; Glasius, 2018 ; Tsourapas, 2018 , 2020 , 2021 ).…”

Global development, diasporic communities, and civic space

“…The professionalisation agenda driven by the global development community may then restrict diasporic civil society engagement with development, but diasporic communities are also subjected to extra‐territorial control from state forces (Adamson, 2020; Dalmasso et al., 2018; Tsourapas, 2021). With increasing illiberalism, the need to balance emigration with the continued control of extra‐territorial communities becomes important for many states, with monitoring and surveillance a key aspect of the extra‐territorial control of diasporic civic space (Conduit, 2020; Tsourapas, 2021). The dominance of extra‐territorial state‐based authoritarianism is complicated by the role that non‐state actors may also play in the repression of diasporic communities.…”

Going after the family: Transnational repression and the proxy punishment of Middle Eastern diasporas

“…At the same time, diaspora activism is often a dangerous affair. Authoritarian regimes have long relied on ‘transnational repression’ to track and punish dissenters abroad through surveillance, harassment, and violence (Basar & Öztürk, 2020; Cooley & Heathershaw, 2017; Dalmasso et al., 2018; Furstenberg et al., 2021; Glasius, 2018a, 2018b; Jörum, 2015; Michaelsen, 2018; Moss, 2022; Tsourapas, 2021). From the 1940 murder of Leon Trotsky in Mexico City on Stalin's orders to the 2018 assassination of journalist and activist‐in‐exile Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul by Saudi agents, authoritarian rulers go to great lengths to silence their opponents abroad (Human Rights Council, 2019).…”