Illiberal Communication and Election Intervention during the Refugee Crisis in Germany

Populist discourse—which tends to benefit anti-systemic parties—has been on the rise in world’s democratic states. Powerful non-democratic states have both means and incentive spread such discourse We clarify incentives illiberal produce communication, delineate how this type of political communication fuses traditional state-to-state propaganda with election interventions. draw case Kremlin-sponsored issue refugees Germany illustrate mechanisms through which operates target countries. create a corpus over million news stories identify prevalence its timing relative Germany’s elections. show that Kremlin intervened 2017 federal elections by promoting refugee above rate at German outlets did. discuss broader implications for use directed as form intervention.