Recently, Yana
Gorokhovskaia and Isabel Linzer of Freedom House published a piece with Foreign
Affairs magazine on the topic of Transnational Repression.[1] Transnational
Repression can be understood as “the efforts of governments to reach across
borders to silence their critics.” Is this too broad a definition? Could this
be extended to include critical foreign nationals who are not citizens
of the critiqued state but could be repressed in their own state? Has this ever
happened? Does this include collateral damage - or maybe 'secondary', or
'second level' transnational repression. For example, Dawn Sturgess, who was
killed in the 2018 Amesbury Poisoning and attempted assassination by Novichok
poisoning of former Russian officer and double agent Sergei Skripal.
In a new Freedom House report,
Gorokhovskaia and Linzer find that safe spaces for dissent are rapidly
shrinking around the world. Their report is based on a data set of 735
documented incidents of explicit transnational repression that occurred between
2014 and 2021. This is a huge and somewhat surprising amount from 2014-2021.
Interestingly, these are only the "explicit" examples of
transnational repression. I wonder what the criteria for an 'explicit' example
of transnational repression, as opposed to an implicit or implied example? In
their report, they show that authoritarian governments are increasingly working
together to help locate, threaten, detain, and expel their critics.
The purpose of the article
is to elucidate this and examine ways that such an illiberal cooperation can be
offset. Is Illiberal international cooperation a different kind of
collective/self-interest where the borders between the two are somewhat
blurred? Does this defy the notion that, as some Liberal internationalists have
claimed, that states can only find common interest in liberal or rational ends?[2]
The central argument of
their piece, overall, is that: “If democracies want to shore up liberal values
and human rights worldwide, they could start by welcoming those who are risking
their lives to stand up to authoritarian regimes.” The central kernel of this
claim is that asylum extension goes hand in hand with the upholding of human
rights, housing dissidents. Would this not fall back on the age-old problem of
eroding inter-state relations as a result of who asylum is granted to? E.g. (a)
Pressure placed on the UK by the USSR over the Polish Government in Exile after
critique following the 1943 uncovering of the Katyn Massacre, or (b) perhaps
even the relations between the US and Ecuador over Julian Assange's long-term
asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. Would a realist logic not
eventually follow? i.e., Asylum would be given so long as it didn’t hinder the
prudence of national interest. The cases of Assange and Polish Government in Exile
are good illustrations of this, as both host states were eventually required to
succumb to the necessities of national interest and power politics.
“In 2021, the vast
majority of incidents of transnational repression - 74 percent - were committed
by authoritarian governments on the territory of other authoritarian states.” This
undermines the self-determinate notion of territorial and jurisdictional
integrity that illiberal democrats often demand be respected of their own
states. Thus, even though (as shown above) the logic of sovereignty may will
out, the very action of transnational repression undermines it. Thus, perhaps
for the sake of sovereignty and its integrity, such repression should be
reprehensible?[3]
Of course, Illiberal democracies would not see an issue of agreeing to
eliminate one another's critics, and this stems back to common/individual
'self'-interest. Beyond this, on a post-structural level, the aims of illiberal
democratic regimes thus mutually construct both self and collective interest
for the sake of their attempt at mutual perpetuity.
“In one notable case,
Russia deported a mixed martial arts fighter who, according to Radio Free Europe,
had already been beaten and shot with rubber bullets while in police
custody in Belarus, even after the European Court of Human Rights (ECrtHR)
issued an opinion prohibiting his repatriation because of concerns about
torture. His was only one of 22 incidents last year in which Belarusians in
Russia were detained, extradited, or threatened with extradition.” In no
uncertain terms does this demonstrate the practical ineffectiveness of the
ECrtHR and the manner in which authoritarian illiberal democratic states can,
when engaging cooperatively to uphold their shared revisionist norms,
outmanoeuvre the corpus of human rights law to the benefit of their respective
regime. The question that must be asked perhaps, is if this plane on which a phenomenal
emergence of a transnational Raison des gouvernants manifests?
Turkmenistan example. Can
transnational repression become a tool of the regional politics of assistance
in order to sure up regional order and strength in an increasingly multipolar
world? Or even in Acharya’s ‘Multiplex Order’, whereby regional stability and
strength are significant factors which contribute to the character of global
order broadly?[4]
In May 2021 the
government of the United Arab Emirates detained a teenage Chinese activist for
some time who was simply in transit, i.e., going through the Dubai airport, and
consequently the UAE allowed Chinese consular officials to try to coerce him
into returning to China. Yet, complex interdependence should undermine the
Necessity for UAE to will to do this though? If the Liberal Assessment is
correct? No? Especially given the extent to which the UAE is plugged into the
web of interconnectedness that complex interdependence creates. Or can you have
competing complex interdependences which are not necessarily all of a liberal
nature?
Turkey is very much
becoming a convergence site for such kind of activity, where we are even now
seeing a reversal of what we would consider traditional Turkish foreign policy
in the normative sense. “For instance, Turkey was a long-time safe haven for
Uyghurs, but it has recently become a dangerous place for the Uyghur diaspora.
In 2021, Turkish authorities harassed groups of Uyghur activists by arresting
them and threatening them with deportation to China.” This is a qualitative
change therefore. Turkey has transpired to be not quite the haven for Islam it
preaches itself to be. This means, or at very perhaps reveals or teases, that
Turkey sees its national interest as lying closer to China and good relations
with China than with the normative dimension of the Muslim world perhaps?
“Autocrats are
increasingly working together to help locate, detain, and expel their critics.”
This quotation entails within it all of the questions discussed already concerning
an inverted liberal internationalism. By this I intend to mean an illiberal internationalism,
which is a new phenomenon in itself - as the revisionist powers of the 1930s
were connected by a loose ideological framework - as opposed to 'strongman
politics', which is less ideological than it is merely illiberal. Although they
do share illiberal values, the extent to which this is more of a bind than
political expediency and convenience as an extension of Raison des
gouvernants, remains questionable.
In April 2021, a Turkish
court agreed to transfer the trial being held in connection with the 2018
murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi Arabian dissident and journalist, to the
same Saudi authorities who had been implicated in his killing. This was a
turning point and illustrated the selective use of sovereignty and intervention
- but perhaps this is the world that was opened with an international politics
defined by intervention in the 1990s, as Phillip Cunliffe explores with his
discourse concerning ‘inverted revisionism’?[5]
Intervention by friendly regimes is not considered intervention, or, rather, is
considered as transactional - gaining power or influence for the self-erosion
of territorial sovereignty.
“These parallel trends
converge to form an ominous forecast: autocrats will have more and more
opportunities to cooperate moving forward.” The question that I would put to the
authors of the article however, would be: is this not the world that Liberalism
willed to create - a world of cooperating states - no? Cooperation is often pre-emptively
conceptualised as liberal cooperation, based upon the egotistical individualism
of nation states to bettering their condition of democracy, liberty and
prosperity in itself; as opposed to cooperation based on a Raison des
gouvernants, or rather, the egotistical traits of an administration to
either remain in power or silence opposition, at almost any cost.
“Citizens of Belarus and
Central Asia go to Russia, where they do not need a visa to enter. People
escaping Cambodia, Laos, or Vietnam often cross the border into neighbouring
Thailand. Uyghurs leave China by escaping to Egypt or Turkey. These places are
attractive because they are accessible—but although they may provide short-term
refuge, they do not offer long-term protection.” The claim here is that
granting accessibility is what is required by liberal states, i.e., to make the
dissenters of other states’ entrance into one’s own state: (a) increasingly
possible, (b) increasingly likely, and (c) the process that permits (a) and (b)
increasingly fluid. Again, this could cause issues in relations with such
states engaging in acts of transnational repression. Illiberal democracies are
not 'small states nobody has heard of', they are states which cannot be
ignored, and so this tension will come to define the coming era(s).
“Living in a robust
democracy, with strong legal systems and high levels of security, is by far the
best protection against transnational repression.” Is this conception of a ‘robust
democracy’ too loose? What is robust democracy? Is Hungary a Robust Democracy –
with an aggregate score of 69/100, deemed only ‘Partly Free’? Is Ukraine –
gaining only 61/100? Or India for that matter – scoring only 66/100? Is this
not a short-hand for simply suggesting that any non-western democracy, or any
semi-democracy for that matter, is not a 'robust' democratic system?
“To meet the challenge of
global authoritarianism, democracies must change their approach to asylum.”
Here we see the core of the argument. Accessibility of migration to liberal democracies
appears to serve as a mechanism towards the protection of dissent against the threat
of transnational repression.
“Rwanda is controlled by
an authoritarian regime and is itself an active perpetrator of transnational
repression.” This is Interesting, as in the Latest Freedom House ‘Freedom in
The World’ Index, Rwanda has a score of 22/100: an 8 for Political Rights and a
14 for Civil Liberties.[6] Rwandans
abroad experience digital threats, spyware attacks, family intimidation and
harassment, mobility controls, physical intimidation, assault, detention, rendition,
and assassination. The government has physically targeted Rwandans in at least
seven countries since 2014, including the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
and Kenya, as well as farther afield in South Africa, the United Arab Emirates,
and Germany.[7]
This is a significant
point. In light of this recent history concerning the attempted extradition and
outsourcing of asylum seekers who had illegally crossed the channel on small
boats to Rwanda, the United Kingdom should be fully aware that its decision to offshore
its responsibility for the asylum process will only aid authoritarian
governments seeking to target dissidents by consigning political refugees to
the care of an authoritarian state, whilst equally setting a precedent for
doing so.
These tools, such as the
Red Notices issued by the International Criminal Police Organization, which
inform member countries about internationally wanted fugitives, are
increasingly being used by authoritarian governments to legally detain and
extradite dissidents. But to meet the bigger challenge of rising global
authoritarianism, especially as nondemocratic governments increasingly
cooperate to stifle dissent, democracies must first and foremost change their
approach to asylum. Discussed above, that the tools of liberal internationalism
have become part of the very toolkit of illiberal democratic systems. Is this
the condoning of a new bipolar order in the construction? A liberal or
Neoliberal will for the division of states on a structural level of power
polarity? Again, perhaps the broad warnings laid bare in Herz’s behaviourist
'Security Dilemma' are lost once again?[8]
“As long as democratic
governments enact ever more restrictive policies on asylum, they will continue
to trap vulnerable people in parts of the world where autocrats make the rules.”
A question I would pose is to the extent that such an action, openly undertaken, would
cause unintended consequences? Would this be, in the vein of the Conservative
Philosopher Michael Oakeshott, ‘a cure’ that may indeed be worse than ‘the
disease’?[9]
I mean this not in
regards to the level of 'Slippery Slope argument' or the straw-man of 'open
borders', but the effect that such an act could have: (a) diplomatically - on
individual relations with other states, (b) systemically - as to the extent
this could adapt the development of the global power structure into a distinct
and unfamiliar structural, or even security, constellation [NATO and Turkey
might be key in this, to prevent a bloc of revisionist powers from erupting in
response and thus eschewing in a new Manichean era of bipolarity. Turkey's
security must be ensured by NATO to keep it on side, but then becomes the weak
link that can allow itself to be abused for influence]; (c) economically - collapsing
trade and production that the Core states have made (interestingly) themselves
dependent on, by making others dependent on their dependence; and, lastly (d)
domestic 'blow-back' - the Trump and Putin effect, whereby illiberal democrats
gain political traction by exploiting the situation caused by a lack of
connection with those illiberal authoritarian states, arguing that such a
policy is 'madness' or 'limits opportunity', causing many to, in turn, gain a
sense of sympathy for illiberal in a tribal or reflective way, as we can see has
happened somewhat with the war in Ukraine and misinformation/sympathy for the
Russian State on Social Media by Republicans and Right Wingers in the UK or
those in Europe that depend on Russian energy and product imports.[10]
[1] Yana Gorokhovskaia and Isabel Linzer (June
2nd 2022) ‘The Long Arm of Authoritarianism: How Dictators Reach
Across Borders to Shut Down Dissent’. foreignaffairs.com. Available at: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2022-06-02/long-arm-authoritarianism.
(Accessed 2nd July 2022). All quotations un-referenced in this text
are drawn from this reference.
[2] My mind is drawn to Liberal or Positivist
thinkers of state cooperation within the state-system. See: Robert O. Keohane
and Joseph S. Nye (1989) Power and Interdependence. Second Edition. London:
Harper Collins; Robert Axelrod (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation, New
York: Basic Books; Paul Samuelson (1961) Economics. New York: McGraw
Hill, pp.506-507. See also: David E. Spiro (1988) ‘The State of Cooperation in Theories
of State Cooperation: The Evolution of a Category Mistake’. Journal of
International Affairs, 42(1): 205-225 [Especially 208].
[3] My mind is taken to Karl Popper’s
‘Paradox of Toleration’, whereby Popper claims an open society should not
tolerate the kind of intolerance that seeks to expel the very notion of
tolerance from the values of political society as a whole. To defend tolerance,
one must be intolerant of those who seek to rid us of tolerance altogether.
See: Karl Popper (2012) The Open Society and Its Enemies, London:
Routledge, p. 581. In international relations, such a discussion of precisely
such a paradox becomes manifests most cogently in discussions of ‘The
Responsibility to Protect’ and the manner in which such a principle seeks to
uphold a given conception of sovereignty through its very undermining or overturning.
[4] Amitav Acharya (2014) The End of
American World Order. Cambridge: Polity Press. [Especially Chapter 1];
(2017) ‘After Liberal Hegemony: The Advent of a Multiplex World Order’. Ethics
and International Affairs, 31 (3): 271-285.
[5] Phillip Cunliffe (2020) Cosmopolitan
Dystopia: International Intervention and The Failure of The West. Manchester:
Manchester University Press.
[6] Freedom House (2022) ‘Global Freedom
Scores: Countries and Territories’. freedomhouse.org. Available at: https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores
(Accessed 2nd July 2022).
[7] Freedom House (2021) ‘Rwanda:
Transnational Repression Origin Country Case Study’. freedomhouse.org. Available
at: https://freedomhouse.org/report/transnational-repression/rwanda
(Accessed 2nd July 2022).
[8] John H. Herz (1950) ‘Idealist
Internationalism and the Security Dilemma’. World Politics, 2(2):
157-180.
[9] Michael Oakeshott (1962) Rationalism
in Politics and Other Essays. London: Meuthen. p. 169.
[10] Lauren Fedor (March 26th 2022)
‘Pro-Putin Republicans break ranks by heaping praise on Kremlin’. Ft.com.
Available at: https://www.ft.com/content/fd870fa9-007a-4cd4-bffc-d72aa2a35767
(Accessed 2nd July 2022); Holly Baxter (February 25th
2022) ‘Nigel Farage made the most awkward speech of his career as Russian tanks
rolled into Ukraine’. independent.co.uk. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/nigel-farage-cpac-speech-putin-ukraine-b2023741.html
(Accessed 2nd July 2022); William Wilkes, Vanessa Dezem, and Alexander
Weber (25th June 2022) ‘Putin Is Pushing Germany’s Economy to the
Breaking Point’. bloomberg.com. Available at: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-06-25/germany-risks-major-economic-disruption-from-russia-s-gas-squeeze
(Accessed 2nd July 2022).