Transnational Information Manipulation: How Authoritarian Regimes Influence Europe and Its Diasporas

Join us for a panel discussion that brings together practitioners to discuss results from the ARM Project (funded by Horizon Europe) to explore strategies of transnational information manipulation, their impact on democratic societies, and practical ways to counter them. This event is co-hosted by the Centre for Digital Governance and the Berlin Social Science Centre.

Foreign influence in Europe is no longer limited to Russian disinformation. Authoritarian regimes—including countries as diverse as China, Russia, Rwanda, or Ethiopia—actively shape narratives, target diaspora communities, and attempt to guide, manipulate, and control independent voices. This panel brings together practitioners to discuss results from the ARM Project (funded by Horizon Europe) to explore these strategies, their impact on democratic societies, and practical ways to counter them. 

Recent research shows that various authoritarian regimes seek to guide, manipulate, and control information and independent voices across Europe. These strategies not only target European audiences but also reach diaspora communities. For example, China has invested heavily in rebranding its international media outlets and delivering tailored messaging through social and commercial platforms. Smaller authoritarian regimes, such as Rwanda and Ethiopia, actively attempt to influence diaspora organizations in Europe to promote narratives favorable to their governments.  

On this panel, Lovise Aalen will briefly present the results of the project, and a panel of practitioners will discuss these results in light of their various perspectives, including the German Intelligence Service, the German Foreign Office, and Civil Society. We will examine the challenges these strategies pose for democratic societies and explore approaches to prevent, counter, and respond to foreign influence operations effectively.  

  Some of the key questions we will discuss in the panel include:  

- How do strategies of influence differ between large authoritarian powers like China or Russia and smaller regimes such as Rwanda or Ethiopia?  

- In what ways do these strategies target European audiences and diaspora communities? 

- How can civil society, journalists, and policymakers identify and respond to subtle forms of manipulation or suppression?  

Registration is required for this event. 

The event is co-organised with Lisa Garbe, Research Fellow, Berlin Social Science Center, and Danie Stockmann, Director, Centre for Digital Governance, Professor of Digital Governance, Hertie School.

Speakers:

• Lovise Aalen, research professor at CMI,  has researched African politics for  more than  two decades (including several long term fieldworks), and has developed an extensive knowledge of the social, economic and political conditions of the wider Horn of Africa region, with an emphasis on Ethiopia and Sudan. Her work focuses on authoritarian politics, politics after war, decentralisation and federalism,  youth's and women's political participation in autocratic settings, and diaspora politics. Her PhD dissertation explored the Ethiopian ethnic based federal system (published by Brill, 2011). For her post doc, (including a visiting fellowship at the African Studies Centre at the University of Oxford), she conducted research on the post war power sharing in Sudan and Ethiopia.  In 2015, she received the prestigious Young Research Talent grant from the Research Council of Norway (RCN). She is currently leading  one research project funded by the NORGLOBAL programme at the RCN ('Women in Transition', Ethiopia). From January 2024, she will be the scientific coordinator of the EU Horizon project 'ARM: The Long Arms of Auhoritarian States', focussing on information supression as a tool for authoritarian states' foreign policy and towards diasporas in Europe.  

• Sophia Armanski is the Head of Division 607-Strategic Communication at the Federal Foreign Office since July 2024. The Division works on Germany’s communication abroad with a special emphasis on countering Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) through open-source analytics and monitoring, international partnerships, dedicated communication products for missions as well as resilience projects in selected regions. Previously, Sophia has worked on stabilisation and peacebuilding in Berlin and Washington DC during a secondment to the World Bank’s Fragility, Conflict and Violence Unit. Other postings include the Desk for the Sahel region, Afghanistan-Pakistan and the German Embassy in Abuja 2010-2012. Sophia’s academic background is Public Policy, History and Economics.

• Dr. Andreas Fahrner is the Head of the Analysis Division Department at the German Federal Intelligence Service, BND, where he is responsible for the evaluation of strategic foreign intelligence. He has previously held various leadership roles within the BND, including positions in the executive staff.

• Marcel Rosenbach is a journalist and author at the news magazine Der Spiegel, where he has worked since 2001 on a wide range of digital topics and national security. He studied Political Science and Journalism at the University of Hamburg and later attended the Henri Nannen School of Journalism in Hamburg. He has focused on issues such as the digital economy, digital policy, surveillance, IT security, hybrid warfare, and information campaigns. He co‑authored two Spiegel non‑fiction books on WikiLeaks and the NSA and has received several journalism awards for his work.

• Prof. Daniela Stockmann is Director of the Centre for Digital Governance and Professor of Digital Governance at the Hertie School. Her current research focuses on the interaction between government, platform firms, and citizens in the area of social media governance. She studies these interactions both in China and in Europe. She holds degrees from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (PhD 2007), the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London, and the University of Rochester. Before joining the Hertie School faculty, she was Associate Professor of Political Science at Leiden University. Her book, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (Cambridge University Press, 2013), received the 2015 Goldsmith Book Prize awarded by the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy. Beyond her academic work, she has served as advisor on Chinese foreign policy and European social media governance to policy-makers in the Netherlands, Germany, and the United States.