While, in recent years China, and to a lesser degreeRussia, have been mooted as “models” of authoritarianinternet governance that other autocratic states can em-ulate, at present relatively little has been written on thetransfer of internet technologies and policies within theframework of global authoritarianism. In this researchnote, we explore the deployment of digital authoritarian-ism in Tajikistan and the role played by state actors andbusinesses from Russia and China in supporting this. Toexamine how internet technologies and policies have beentransferred, we draw on textual analysis and the com-parison of twelve laws in China, Russia and Tajikistanrelated to the internet. Our analysis finds that coopera-tion has led to legal convergence, with Tajikistan adoptingRussian, and to a lesser degree Chinese, information se-curity laws and regulations. Russia, China and Tajikistanhave shared understandings and have developed similarnormative approaches to internet governance.

Während China und in geringerem Maße Russland inden letzten Jahren als Vorbilder autoritärer Internet-Governance für andere autokratische Staaten gehandeltwurden, wurde bislang relativ wenig über den Transfervon Internet-Technologien und -Politiken im Rahmen desglobalen Autoritarismus geschrieben. In dieser Research Note untersuchen wir die Entwicklung des digitalen Autoritarismus in Tadschikistan und die unterstützende Rolle staatlicher Akteure und Unternehmen aus Russland und China. Um den Transfer von Internet-Technologien und -Politiken zu untersuchen, stützenwir uns auf eine Textanalyse und den Vergleich von zwölf internetbezogenen Gesetzen in China, Russland und Tadschikistan. Unsere Analyse zeigt, dass die Zusammenarbeit zu einer rechtlichen Konvergenzgeführt hat, wobei Tadschikistan russische und ingeringerem Maße chinesische Gesetze und Vorschriftenzur Informationssicherheit übernommen hat. Russland, China und Tadschikistan teilen ein gemeinsames Verständnis und haben ähnliche normative Ansätze zur Internet-Governance entwickelt.

This article provides a comparative analysis of laws on youth policy and patriotic education in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine (as a control case), as well as model laws developed by the Commonwealth of Independent States. These laws are aimed at educating young people and transferring values of loyalty and obedience to authoritarian rule, as well as love and patriotic devotion to the Motherland, as means to legitimise and sustain authoritarian regimes. The article identifies similarities, differences and cases of 'authoritarian legal harmonization' in these laws. To compare the similarities and differences in the laws, we use plagiarism software. The software detects words and phrases which are the same or similar, in order to establish the extent to which the texts of laws are harmonised. Our research indicates that levels of legal harmonisation have fallen as new amendments and laws have been introduced, signalling a weakening of Russia's influence.

A competitive marketplace of election monitors has emerged, allowing autocrats to cherry-pick which observers to rely on in their bid to legitimize elections. We argue that Commonwealth of Independent States Interparliamentary Assembly observers perform two functions: (1) they directly legitimize authoritarian governments and (2) they engage in norm contestation, discrediting the work of the OSCE and other international organizations. CIS observers imitate the language of OSCE observers but come to very different conclusions. We use plagiarism software to uncover the extent to which members are harmonizing legislation and election observers are copying conclusions verbatim from other countries.

In January 2022, at the height of violent nationwide protests against the government of Kassym-Jomart Tokayev in Kazakhstan, the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)sent 2,500 troops from its Peacekeeping Force to help stabilize the situation and preserve Tokayev’s power.1 The intervention was a frst for the military alliance, which was created in 2002 by Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Members had called on the CSTO to intervene during ethnic unrest in Kyrgyzstan in 2010,2 during a border confict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan in 2022,3 and during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, but in each case its leadership refused on various grounds. January 2022 appeared to signal a sea change for the CSTO, pointing to a more interventionist future.

The paper aims to explore the practical application of “soft power” in “hybrid” countries. The analysis is based on the example of soft power-strategies developed and implemented by the Russian Federation in post-Soviet Central Asia throughout the last two decades. The overarching research questions of the paper are the following — what are the most interesting features of Russian soft power in the changing geopolitical conditions of the post-Soviet space? How does it address local youth to secure Russian domination in the region and ensure the sustainability of local political regimes? What is the future of Russian soft power and geopolitical influence in the region?

Faced with common threats to their regimes from independent civil society, organized opposition groups and protest movements, authoritarian governments in the former Soviet Union have learned from one another and adopted similar policies to consolidate their power. This article examines the process of authoritarian policy transfer in three fields: peaceful assembly, civil society and political participation, focusing on Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The article examines the role played by the Commonwealth of Independent States- Inter-parliamentary Assembly, the body charged with legal harmonization in the former Soviet Union and ignored thus far by scholars of authoritarian diffusion. Through causal process tracing and the use of document comparison software, we compare 34 laws and decrees. Our findings indicate that diffusion is no illusion in the former Soviet Union. Autocrats have adopted similar legislation in all three fields, with the greatest degree of convergence in laws related to extremism, terrorism and operational searches, all of which are used to pursue political opponents. Russia is usually, but not always, the policy innovator. The region’s poorest states–Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan–both dependent on Russia in economic, political and security spheres display the highest levels of legal harmonization with the former Soviet centre.

This essay describes the widening common space of neoauthoritarianism, which manifests itself in the synchronic replication of restrictive legislation, authoritarian practices, and legacies in Eurasia. We present preliminary results of our ongoing research that show how Russia and the Central Asian republics of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan synchronically introduced similar anti-democratic measures to restrict freedomof academia, civil society, and political participation in response to major social and political events such as popular uprisings, financial crises, and successful successions of state power. Although the process of “authoritarian learning” has attracted substantial attention in the academic literature, we assert that the previous research does not address common root causes of the weakening democratic institutions in varying cultural, political, and social conditions. The goal of this essay is to introduce a theoretical framework for the comparative analysis of various types of hybrid non-democratic regimes not only in post-Soviet Eurasia, but also in other regions that experience democratic backsliding.