Perspectives on “Everyday” Transnational Repression in an Age of Globalization

Perspectives on “Everyday” Transnational Repression in an Age of Globalization Editors: Nate Schenkkan, Isabel Linzer, Saipira Furstenberg, and John Heathershaw PERSPECTIVES ON “EVERYDAY” TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction by Nate Schenkkan .................................................................. 1 The Digital Transnational Repression Toolkit, and Its Silencing Effects by Marcus Michaelsen .............................................................. 4 At Home and Abroad: Coercion-by-Proxy as a Tool of Transnational Repression by Fiona B. Adamson and Gerasimos Tsourapas ................................. 9 The Importance of Defending Diaspora Activism for Democracy and Human Rights by Dana M. Moss .................................................................... 14 The Internationalization of Universities and the Repression of Academic Freedom by Tena Prelec, Saipira Furstenberg, and John Heathershaw ................... 18 This report is made possible with the support of the Achelis and Bodman Foundation ON THE COVER Activist at a demonstration in Makassar, Indonesia holds a poster Find this report online at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/special- with a picture of Jamal Khashoggi. Editorial credit: Herwin Bahar / report/2020/collected-essays-transnational-repression-age-globalization Shutterstock.com. PERSPECTIVES ON “EVERYDAY” TRANSNATIONAL REPRESSION IN AN AGE OF GLOBALIZATION July 2020 Introduction by Nate Schenkkan, Director for Special Research, Freedom House People gather in Paris in protest of Rwandan president Paul Kagame. Editorial credit: Ian Langsdon/ EPA/ Shutterstock ransnational repression is a term used to describe how and citizenship, and via digital technologies that enable T countries silence their exiles and diasporas abroad. instantaneous and constant communication across borders. It encompasses a spectrum of tactics, from assassinations, to renditions, to spyware, to intimidation of exiles’ family This means that transnational repression is also embedded members who have stayed behind. As a transnational in “global authoritarianism”: the adaptation of authoritarian phenomenon, it is inseparable from broader trends of states to global capitalism and the existing international globalization. States employ the tactics of transnational order following the shock of the end of the Cold War.1 Unlike repression within patterns of international mobility and during the Cold War, modern authoritarianism does not seek finance, through legal institutions that regulate migration to shield itself from the international order but to integrate freedomhouse.org 1 TRANSNATIONAL Perspectives on “Everyday” Transnational REPRESSION Repression in an Age of Globalization with it and rebuild it from the inside.2 One of the purposes of plot on his life. Michaelsen’s contribution also highlights the this integration for states that explicitly sabotage demands role that private spyware companies have played in enabling for accountability and transparency from their citizens within transnational repression, extending the opportunity for their borders is to impose authoritarian controls upon them abuses to countries that would otherwise have lacked the beyond their borders. Through transnational repression, technical capacity to target their enemies abroad. authoritarian states seek to maintain control over diasporas and exiles, migrants, international students, and others, In the second essay, Fiona Adamson and Gerasimos extending the sphere of authoritarian governance beyond Tsourapas lay out a typology for understanding another their sovereign boundaries. widespread form of transnational repression: coercion-by- proxy, or pressure on exiles’ family members, associates, or acquaintances who remain in the origin country. Adamson and Tsourapas divide coercion-by-proxy into the categories of punishment, deterrence, and compellence, which feed Through transnational repression, into “the creation of a climate of fear and control in the authoritarian states seek to diaspora.” Such a method is “low-cost” for authoritarian regimes because it does not require violating another maintain control over diasporas state’s sovereignty, and frequently escapes the same level of and exiles, migrants, international international scrutiny that other methods might attract. students, and others. In the third essay, Dana Moss elaborates on the effects of transnational repression on the role that exiles and diasporas play in support of democracy and human rights in their origin countries. Diaspora activists can be important This collection of essays seeks to elaborate on the issues advocates for their communities by holding their origin states raised by transnational repression as a widespread accountable, spreading information, assisting dissidents, phenomenon embedded within globalization. The purpose and even pressing for legal redress in international forums. of the collection is to provide policymakers, human Yet, transnational repression tactics can be effective in rights activists, and journalists with perspectives on the intimidating diasporas from engaging in activism. Even where pressures that emigrants, exiles, and diasporas experience diasporas become mobilized, often at times of national crisis, from their countries of origin, the lesser-known tactics transnational repression techniques sow mistrust among they face, and to provoke thinking about how to address groups, splintering their efforts and making coordinated transnational repression. action harder to sustain. The result, Moss writes, is that origin states “effectively cow the majority of the diaspora into The first and second essays explore the most widespread, silence.” In line with Adamson and Tsourapas, Moss argues but somewhat underdiscussed, mechanisms of transnational that transnational repression is widespread because it is low- repression—what one might call “everyday” transnational cost in terms of political capital and actual expenditures, and repression, because of how ubiquitous it is. In his essay, because it works. Marcus Michaelsen explains the importance of digital tools in this discussion. All activists in the twenty-first century rely on Finally, in the last essay, Saipira Furstenberg, Tena Prelec, digital media and tools, but exiles and diasporic communities and John Heathershaw widen the discussion by placing are even more reliant on these due to their physical transnational repression within the larger framework of estrangement from their origin countries. Digital repression is authoritarian influence, through an examination of the ways a serious risk in an era where activists must use social media that authoritarian states are able to use higher education as a and digital communication tools to conduct their work, and means to control discourse and dissent beyond their borders. where a person’s private life is fully intertwined with other The internationalization of higher education—in many facets of their digital existence. Even in the infamous case of ways a positive development through the opportunities it Saudi Arabia’s murder of the international journalist Jamal presents for international research, exchange, and knowledge- Khashoggi, sophisticated digital spyware deployed across sharing—also is a vehicle for transnational repression and borders was an underappreciated component of the violent authoritarian influence. International students and faculty 2 @ FreedomHouse #TransnationalRepression Freedom House abroad become both targets of pressure and tools for its Instead, the essays in this collection point to the importance use against others, resulting in self-censorship on sensitive of deepening and strengthening solidarity across borders. topics even among people not affiliated with the diaspora Better defenses against transnational repression are a matter in question. Fieldwork in authoritarian environments can of strengthening and increasing connections, not cutting become a vehicle for repression that, in turn, shapes how them. Building networks of support and trust, especially the broader academic community engages with a topic. And among civil society groups, strengthens the sources of lucrative satellite campuses opened in authoritarian states resilience that diasporas rely on to push back against often come packaged with implicit restrictions on speech transnational repression. Michaelsen’s and Moss’s pieces that, in turn, circulate back to the university’s home country. emphasize the importance of longer-term interventions and All of these components work together to degrade the quality support for exiles and diasporas in order to protect them of academic freedom on topics sensitive to authoritarian against digital forms of transnational repression. Adamson states that involve themselves in higher education. and Tsourapas, in their essay, emphasize how transnational repression challenges the current country-based reporting As raised in this fourth essay, the enmeshment of of human rights groups (including Freedom House) by transnational repression in globalization raises difficult policy- calling for more investigations based on “practices” rather response questions. An attractively simple solution to global than country studies. Regarding higher education, a group of authoritarianism would seem to be decoupling: separating parliamentarians, civil society groups, and academics in the democracies from authoritarian states, economically, United Kingdom—including those who have been

Load more