With formal international organizations (IOs) facing gridlock and informal IOs proliferating, cooperation in the twenty-first century looks different than it did in previous eras. Global governance institutions today also face additional challenges, including a fragmented information environment where publics are increasingly vulnerable to misinformation and disinformation. What do these trends portend for international politics? One way to answer this question is to return to a core ingredient of a well-functioning IO—information provision—and ask how such changes affect efficiency. Viewed through this lens, we see decline in some arenas and adaptation in others. Formal IOs are struggling to retain relevance as their weak policy responses and ambiguous rules create space for competing signals. The proliferation of informal institutions, on the other hand, may represent global governance evolution, as these technocratic bodies are often well-insulated from many political challenges. Yet even if global governance retains functionality, the legitimacy implications of such trends are troubling. IO legitimacy depends in part on process, and from this standpoint, the informational gains of informal governance must be weighed against losses of accountability and transparency. Ultimately, evaluating the normative implications of these trends requires making judgments about the preferred legitimizing principles for global governance.

Disinformation is a growing epistemic threat, yet its connection to understanding remains underexplored. In this paper, I argue that understanding – specifically, understanding how things work and why they work the way they do – can, all else being equal, shield individuals from disinformation campaigns. Conversely, a lack of such understanding makes one particularly vulnerable. Drawing on Simion’s (2023) characterization of disinformation as content that has a disposition to generate or increase ignorance, I propose that disinformation frequently exploits a preexisting lack of understanding. I consider an important objection – that since understanding is typically difficult to acquire, we might rely on deferring to experts. However, I argue that in epistemically polluted environments, where expertise is systematically mimicked, deference alone provides no reliable safeguard. I conclude by briefly reflecting on strategies for addressing these challenges, emphasizing both the need for promoting understanding and for cleaning up the epistemic environment.

The spread of disinformation, such as false and fabricated content, as amplified by the expansion of artificial intelligence systems, has captured the attention of policymakers on a global scale. However, addressing disinformation leads constitutional democracies towards questions about the scope of freedom of expression as the living core of a democratic society. If, on the one hand, this constitutional right has been considered a barrier to public authorities’ interferences to limit the circulation of disinformation, on the other hand, the spread of fabricated content and manipulative techniques, including deepfakes, has increasingly questioned liberal views. This constitutional challenge is further enriched by the role of online platforms which, by mediating speech in their online spaces, are essential tiles of a mosaic picturing the potential regulatory strategies and the limit of public enforcement to tackle disinformation. Within this framework, this work argues that the European constitutional approach to tackle disinformation has defined a unique model on a global scale. The European Union has developed a strategy that combines procedural safeguards, risk regulation, and co-regulation, as demonstrated by initiatives such as the Digital Services Act, the Strengthened Code of Practice on Disinformation, and the Artificial Intelligence Act. Positioned between liberal and illiberal models, the European approach proposes an alternative constitutional vision to address disinformation based on risk mitigation and the collaboration between public and private actors.

This commentary examines the dual role of artificial intelligence (AI) in shaping electoral integrity and combating misinformation, with a focus on the 2025 Philippine elections. It investigates how AI has been weaponised to manipulate narratives and suggests strategies to counteract disinformation. Drawing on case studies from the Philippines, Taiwan, and India—regions in the Indo-Pacific with vibrant democracies, high digital engagement, and recent experiences with election-related misinformation—it highlights the risks of AI-driven content and the innovative measures used to address its spread. The commentary advocates for a balanced approach that incorporates technological solutions, regulatory frameworks, and digital literacy to safeguard democratic processes and promote informed public participation. The rise of generative AI tools has significantly amplified the risks of disinformation, such as deepfakes, and algorithmic biases. These technologies have been exploited to influence voter perceptions and undermine democratic systems, creating a pressing need for protective measures. In the Philippines, social media platforms have been used to spread revisionist narratives, while Taiwan employs AI for real-time fact-checking. India’s proactive approach, including a public misinformation tipline, showcases effective countermeasures. These examples highlight the complex challenges and opportunities presented by AI in different electoral contexts. The commentary stresses the need for regulatory frameworks designed to address AI’s dual-use nature, advocating for transparency, real-time monitoring, and collaboration between governments, civil society, and the private sector. It also explores the criteria for effective AI solutions, including scalability, adaptability, and ethical considerations, to guide future interventions. Ultimately, it underscores the importance of digital literacy and resilient information ecosystems in supporting informed democratic participation.

While peacekeeping operations have always been heavily dependent on host-state support and international political backing, changes in the global geopolitical and technological landscapes have presented new forms of state interference intended to influence, undermine, and impair the activities of missions on the ground. Emerging parallel security actors, notably the Wagner Group, have cast themselves as directly or implicitly in competition with the security guarantee provided by peacekeepers, while the proliferation of mis- and disinformation and growing cybersecurity vulnerabilities present novel challenges for missions’ relationships with host states and populations, operational security, and the protection of staff and their local sources. Together, these trends undermine missions’ efforts to protect civilians, operate safely, and implement long-term political settlements. This essay analyzes these trends and the dilemmas they present for in-country UN officials attempting to induce respect for international norms and implement their mandates. It describes nascent strategies taken by missions to maintain their impartiality, communicate effectively, and maintain the trust of those they are charged with protecting, and highlights early good practices for monitoring and analyzing this new operation environment, for reporting on and promoting human rights, and for operating safely.

There are two main ways Russian propaganda reaches Japan: (a) the social media accounts of official institutions, such as the Russian Embassy, or Russian state-linked media outlets, such as Sputnik, and (b) pro-Russian Japanese political actors who willingly (or unwillingly) spread disinformation and display a clear pro-Kremlin bias. These actors justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine and repeat the Russian view of the war with various objectives in mind, primarily serving their own interests. By utilizing corpus analysis and qualitative examination of social media data, this article explores how Russian propaganda and a pro-Russian stance are effectively connected with and incorporated into the discursive strategies of political actors of the Japanese Far-Right.

Democratic backsliding, the slow erosion of institutions, processes, and norms, has become more pronounced in many nations. Most scholars point to the role of parties, leaders, and institutional changes, along with the pursuit of voters through what Daniel Ziblatt has characterized as alliances with more extremist party surrogate organizations. Although insightful, the institutionalist literature offers little reflection about the growing role of social technologies in organizing and mobilizing extremist networks in ways that present many challenges to traditional party gatekeeping, institutional integrity, and other democratic principles. We present a more integrated framework that explains how digitally networked publics interact with more traditional party surrogates and electoral processes to bring once-scattered extremist factions into conservative parties. When increasingly reactionary parties gain power, they may push both institutions and communication processes in illiberal directions. We develop a model of communication as networked organization to explain how Donald Trump and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement rapidly transformed the Republican Party in the United States, and we point to parallel developments in other nations.

In 2022, Russia invoked Articles V and VI of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC), requesting a formal meeting to discuss, and subsequent investigation of, alleged U.S.-funded biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. Such allegations have been dismissed as false by scholars and diplomats alike, many of whom have argued that Russia’s actions represented an abuse of BTWC provisions and risked undermining the Convention. However, few scholars have assessed the implications of Russia’s ongoing efforts to level false allegations in BTWC meetings following the Article V and VI procedures. Using mixed-methods analysis of BTWC meeting recordings, transcripts, and documents, we assessed the volume, consequences, and framing of Russian false allegations at the BTWC Ninth Review Conference. Analysis revealed that discussion of Russian allegations took over three hours and contributed to a stunted Final Document. Additional potential consequences are discussed, including increased division among states parties and the erosion of nonproliferation norms.

The study of dis/misinformation is currently in vogue, however with much ambiguity about what the problem precisely is, and much confusion about the key concepts that are brought to bear on this problem. My aim of this paper is twofold. First, I will attempt to precisify the (dis/mis)information problem, roughly construing it as anything that undermines the “epistemic aim of information.” Second, I will use this precisification to provide a new grounded account of dis/misinformation. To achieve the latter, I will critically engage with three of the more popular accounts of dis/misinformation which are (a) harm-based, (b) misleading-based, and (c) ignorance-based accounts. Each engagement will lead to further refinement of these key concepts, ultimately paving the way for my own account. Finally, I offer my own information hazard-based account, which distinguishes between misinformation as content, misinformation as activity, and disinformation as activity. By introducing this distinction between content and activity, it will be shown that my account is erected on firmer conceptual/ontological grounds, overcoming many of the difficulties that have plagued previous accounts, especially the problem of the proper place of intentionality in understanding dis/misinformation. This promises to add clarity to dis/misinformation research and to prove more useful in practice.

Who should decide what passes for disinformation in a liberal democracy? During the COVID-19 pandemic, a committee set up by the Dutch Ministry of Health was actively blocking disinformation. The committee comprised civil servants, communication experts, public health experts, and representatives of commercial online platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. To a large extent, vaccine hesitancy was attributed to disinformation, defined as misinformation (or data misinterpreted) with harmful intent. In this study, the question is answered by reflecting on what is needed for us to honor public reason: reasonableness, the willingness to engage in public discourse properly, and trust in the institutions of liberal democracy.