Abstract

International social media campaigns orchestrated by for-profit multinational companies such as Cambridge Analytica and Strategic Communication Laboratories are not in themselves new phenomena. They are the latest iteration of patterns of international political interaction reflecting ultimately the emergence of the nuclear era and its mutual assured destruction of the so-called great powers. The use of atomic weapons in 1945 followed by the Cold War between Washington and Moscow marked a radical turning point for the first time in the history of humankind. War was no longer a viable ultimate policy option for great powers purposefully to choose to pursue their political goals vis-à-vis each other. Instead, great powers engage in competitive interference within the polities of third actors with the aim to empower their respective local political allies at the expense of the local allies of the other great power competitor. The rise of nationalism increased local resistance and thereby raised the political costs of overt external intervention, leading to the emphasis on covert intervention and the creation of national security bureaucracies for implementing it. This competitive interference also included propaganda support; the new CIA’s first covert operation was to influence Italy’s first postwar elections in 1948 to prevent Italian Communist Party entrance into government. This paper explores today’s for-profit sector, which has exploited and deployed diverse postwar personnel and expertise capacities, offering their services to government-affiliated actors seeking contractors. The 2016 US election showed that it is now part of the postmodern world that it helped create after 1945.

Presenters

Benedict Edward DeDominicis
Professor of Political Science, School of International Studies, Catholic University of Korea, Gyeonggido [Kyonggi-do], South Korea

Details

Presentation Type

Paper Presentation in a Themed Session

Theme

Politics, Power, and Institutions

KEYWORDS

covert interference image

Digital Media

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