Authoritarian Actors and Strategic Digital Information Operations: The New Age of Manipulation

This edited volume addresses a gap in the literature: while Russian and Chinese information operations have generated extensive scholarship, the wider ecology of authoritarian digital influence — across the Middle East, Central Asia, South and Southeast Asia — remains comparatively understudied. Yilmaz and Akbarzadeh have assembled contributions examining state-sponsored digital manipulation across a range of regimes and target environments, providing comparative traction that single-country studies cannot.

The volume is strongest when it examines the structural conditions that make digital manipulation effective: the capture of platform infrastructure, the role of pro-regime influencer networks, and the exploitation of information voids created by weak independent media. For analysts who need to think about authoritarian information operations beyond the Russia-China dyad, this is an important reference.