Description: Dictating the Agenda examines how contemporary authoritarian regimes are undermining the global influence of Western democratic liberal ideas and advocacy. They achieve this by projecting their agendas into global arenas often considered "non-political," such as consumer boycotts, global media, transnational higher education, and international sports. While globalization-marked by economic exchange, technological innovation, and consumerism-was once believed to inevitably spread US-style liberalism worldwide, the past decade has proven otherwise. Authoritarian governments in Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia are now exploiting these very tools to discredit liberal activism, diminish the significance of liberal values in global governance, and advance their autocratic ideologies and agendas.
Review Quotes: "Few works in international relations are simultaneously major contributions to the scholarship and to urgent debates in the public sphere concerning the very future of our open societies. Dictating the Agenda is exactly that. This compelling, deeply researched book couldn't be timelier. It will change the way we think about authoritarian influence in global politics, and especially in liberal democracies" -- Ricardo Soares de Oliveira, University of Oxford
"Dictating the Agenda reveals how effectively authoritarian states have countered liberal soft power and transnational advocacy related to democracy and human rights in the 21st century. Cooley and Dukalskis combine a persuasive theory of "authoritarian snapback" with engaging case studies of how it operates in diverse empirical domains, including transnational sports and higher education. This is a timely and important read for anyone interested in the global politics of democracy and authoritarianism" -- Sarah Bush, University of Pennsylvania"Cooley and Dukalskis offer the best account to date of the ways in which authoritarian regimes have used of avenues provided by the globalized, liberal international order to undermine that order and its norms." -- Miles Kahler, American University and Council on Foreign Relations"Alexander Cooley and Alexander Dukalskis offer one of the most penetrating and original accounts yet of how authoritarian regimes are reshaping the global order. âWhat gives the book its urgency is not alarmism but clarity. Cooley and Dukalskis do not lament democracyâs decline as fate; they expose the mechanisms through which illiberal regimes exploit liberal vulnerabilities." --Moises Naim, Lawfare"Throughout, the authors use a sophisticated mixed research methodology and highly accessible language to provide a timely addition to contemporary debates over the nature of change in the international order. As such, this book provides valuable material for all levels of undergraduate and graduate engagement with global politics." -- L. J. Smythe, CHOICE