Countering Disinformation through Democracy and Governance Programming: Protecting the Integrity of Political and Electoral Information and Discourse  

Effective democracies require that citizens have access to accurate and impartial electoral and political information. Disinformation campaigns spread cynicism, distort political processes and hinder citizens’ ability to make sound political decisions. Although the problem of disinformation is increasingly global in scope, most research to date has focused on examining foreign and domestic campaigns in Europe and Eurasia, as have many recent high-profile responses designed to counter the impact of disinformation. The democracy and governance community needs a better comparative understanding of how disinformation impacts a wider range of political systems and societies, a better overall understanding of existing programmatic responses to disinformation threats, and a typology to begin understanding the effectiveness of such responses.

To address these questions, CEPPS will:

• Develop an analytical framework to evaluate the effectiveness of existing efforts to combat the spread of dis- information. This framework will draw on a cross-disciplinary literature review from a number of fields, including political science, behavioral psychology, strategic studies, and education for democratic citizenship.
• Conduct comparative research, including three in-depth country case studies, to examine and evaluate programmatic responses to disinformation. This will include collecting and conducting an inclusive, gender- aware analysis of data provided from a range of sources. These would include a review of political parties and political campaign leaders, EMBs, judicial and legal representatives, citizen election observer groups, independent media partners, representatives of marginalized and vulnerable communities, the international donor and assistance community, and democracy advocacy organizations seeking to track and address disinformation trends and behaviors in their countries.
• Create an interactive guidebook exploring different aspects of programs to counter disinformation and promote information integrity in political systems.