Foreign Election Interference and Open-Source Anarchy

Abstract

Russian meddling in the 2016 elections in the United States sparked debates in liberal democracies about how to counter foreign election interference. These debates reveal the seriousness of the threat and the complexity of responses to it, including how to protect voting systems and what actions social media companies should take against disinformation. This chapter argues that international anarchy changes in ways that leading theories of international relations do not capture. The chapter develops the concept of “open-source anarchy” to understand how anarchy changed after the Cold War and to analyze why foreign election interference has gained prominence during the second decade of the twenty-first century. In open-source anarchy, changes in the structure of material power, technologies, and ideas permit less powerful states and nonstate actors to affect more directly and significantly how anarchy functions. The concept helps explain how Russia exploited the internet and social media to interfere in elections in the United States—the world’s leading democracy, foremost source of technological innovation, and most powerful country. Open-source anarchy also illuminates the struggles that the United States and other democracies have experienced in preventing, protecting against, and responding to foreign election interference.