Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis, "Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Dec 3, 2025

Political scientist Alexander Cooley, known for his expertise in post-Soviet politics, joins forces with colleague Alexander Dukalskis to discuss their groundbreaking book on the rise of authoritarianism. They explore the fascinating concept of 'authoritarian snapback,' detailing how non-democratic states are countering global liberal norms. Hear them delve into the impact of the 2008 Olympics as a turning point, the role of media propaganda, and how consumer boycotts shape political landscapes. They also warn that no societal domain is safe from authoritarian influence.

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INSIGHT

Olympics As A Liberal Pressure Point

Beijing 2008 exposed how liberal advocacy used mega-events to press authoritarian states on rights and access.
That pressure infrastructure seemed potent enough to shape host-state behavior and global attention.

INSIGHT

Authoritarian Learning Between 2008 And 2022

By 2022 Beijing had rebuilt narrative control and muted human-rights activism around the Games.
The drop in global media attention shows authoritarian learning and improved messaging leverage.

INSIGHT

Five-Stage Snapback Playbook

Authoritarian snapback follows five stages: stigmatize, shield, reframe, project, and dictate the agenda.
The end state flips liberal socialization by making domains conform to authoritarian preferences.

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Following the end of the Cold War, the world experienced a remarkable wave of democratization. Over the next two decades, numerous authoritarian regimes transitioned to democracies, and it seemed that authoritarianism as a political model was fading. But as recent events have shown, things have clearly changed.
In Dictating the Agenda: The Authoritarian Resurgence in World Politics (Oxford UP, 2025), authors Dr. Alexander Cooley and Dr. 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. Dr. Cooley and Dr. 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 doesn't just reveal the limits of the liberal influence taken for granted across the world. It 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.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars. You can find Miranda’s interviews on New Books with Miranda Melcher, wherever you get your podcasts.

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