Alexander Cooley — Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics

In “Dictating the Agenda,” authors Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis reveal how today’s authoritarian states are actively countering liberal ideas and advocacy surrounding human rights and democracy across various global governance domains. The transformed global context has unlocked for authoritarian states the possibility to contend with Western liberal soft power in new, traditionally “non-political” ways, including by plugging or even reversing the very channels of influence that originally spread liberalism in the 1990s and 2000s. Cooley and Dukalskis ultimately advance a theory of authoritarian snapback, the process in which non-democratic states limit the transnational resonance of liberal ideas at home and advance anti-liberal norms and ideas into the global public sphere. Drawing from a range of evidence, including field work interviews and comparative case studies that demonstrate the changing nature of consumer boycotts, a database of authoritarian government administrative actions against foreign journalists, a database of global content-sharing agreement involving Chinese and Russian state media, and a database of transnational higher education partnerships involving authoritarian and democratic countries, this book offers a novel theory of how authoritarian governments figured out how to exploit and repurpose the same actors, tools, and norms that once exclusively promoted and sustained US-backed liberalism. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Alexander Cooley is the Claire Tow Professor of Political Science at Barnard College, Columbia University. From 2015-21 he served as the 15th Director of Columbia University’s Harriman Institute for the Study of Russia, Eurasia and Eastern Europe and from 2022-2025 as the Vice Provost for Research and Academic Centers at Barnard. Professor Cooley’s research examines how international actors have influenced the governance, sovereignty, and security of the post-Communist states. In addition to his academic publications, Professor Cooley’s commentaries have appeared in Foreign Affairs, New York Times, and Washington Post and he has testified for the US Congress, UK Parliament and the Parliament of Canada.