Ideology and influence in the debate over Russian election interference

Abstract

The salience of the debate over Russian political interference in the USA has increased significantly during the Trump administration. However, there is no consensus over how to respond to the interference of this openly illiberal power. This paper argues that we need to reconceptualize our understanding of Russian influence to understand this high level of contestation. While the current understanding of Russian influence is characterized as a problem of unwanted information flows, we argue that we also need to take seriously the ideological influence that the Russia regime has in the USA—that the appeal of the Russian regime’s conservative and populist ideology can help to explain this division. By taking ideological attraction seriously, we can explain why it is currently difficult for the USA to respond to this threat and why solutions to Russian interference based on the information flow models need to be reconsidered.