Week 10

Authoritarian Public Diplomacy and Its Audience

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Lecture Readings

ARTICLE

Chinese State Media Persuades a Global Audience that the “China Model” Is Superior: Evidence from a 19-Country Experiment

Daniel Mattingly, Trevor Incerti, Changwook Ju, Colin Moreshead, Seiki Tanaka and Hikaru Yamagishi

American Journal of Political Science (2025)

BOOK

Russia, Disinformation, and the Liberal Order: RT as Populist Pariah

Stephen Hutchings, Vera Tolz, Precious Chatterje-Doody, Rhys Crilley and Marie Gillespie

Cornell University Press (2024)

Reading guidance: Read Chapters 6 and 7.

ARTICLE

Does Analytic Thinking Insulate Against Pro-Kremlin Disinformation? Evidence from Ukraine

Aaron Erlich, Calvin Garner, Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand

Political Psychology (2023)

ARTICLE

Falling for Russian Propaganda: Understanding the Factors that Contribute to Belief in Pro-Kremlin Disinformation on Social Media

Felipe Bonow Soares, Anatoliy Gruzd and Philip Mai

Social Media + Society (2023)

ARTICLE

Autocracies Win the Minds of the Democratic Public: How Japanese Citizens Are Persuaded by Illiberal Narratives Propagated by Authoritarian Regimes

Tetsuro Kobayashi, Yuan Zhou, Lungta Seki and Asako Miura

Democratization (2025)

Further Readings

David Gilbert
“Why China Is So Bad at Disinformation”
WIRED (2024)

Ken Dilanian and Julia Jester
“Banned AI-Generated Iran Propaganda Videos Using Legos Have Gone Viral”
MS NOW (2026)

Aaron Erlich and Calvin Garner
“Is Pro-Kremlin Disinformation Effective? Evidence from Ukraine”
The International Journal of Press/Politics (2023)

Theodore P. Gerber and Jane Zavisca
“Does Russian Propaganda Work?”
The Washington Quarterly (2016)

Lisa Blaydes
“Selling” China in the Arab Gulf States: Economic Insecurity and Attitudes Toward Chinese Growth
Studies in Comparative International Development (2025)

Jay C. Kao
“How the Pro-Beijing Media Influences Voters: Evidence from a Randomized Field Experiment”
American Political Science Review (2026)

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