NIAS is hosting a workshop on Authoritarian Soft Power organised by current fellow Julia Bader, who is an Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam.
Programme
Day 1: Tuesday May 17
9:00 – 9:30 Welcome and introduction
9:30 – 11:00 Panel 1: Inward looking communication, rhetoric and narratives
- Obert Hodzi (chair); Sebastian Hellmeier (discussant)
- Jakob Tolstrup: Public Support for Military Intervention in Autocracies
- Marianne Kneuer: Managing the media and shaping the messages. Soft power mechanisms of authoritarian regimes for gaining discursive hegemony
11:00 – 11:15 Tea and coffee break
11:15 – 12:45 Panel 3: Chinese Soft Power Projections in Asia and the Middle East
- Neil Loughlin (chair); Thomas Ambrosio (discussant)
- Mohamad Forough: Infrastructure, History, and Authoritarian Soft Power: Chinese Soft Power in West Asia
- Julia Gurol: Thinking beyond the ‘material’ in the study of global authoritarianism: China’s narrative power-play and the transregional diffusion of narratives to the Gulf
12:45 – 13:45 Lunch (provided by NIAS)
13:45 – 15:15 Panel 2: Soft power or sharp power?
- Marianne Kneuer (chair); Neil Loughlin (discussant)
- Rachel Vanderhill: Digital authoritarianism and Russian and Chinese use of “sharp power”
- Obert Hodzi: Soft power through proxies? An exploration of the localisation of Chinese soft power in Zimbabwe
15:15 – 15:30 Tea and coffee break
15:30 – 17:00 Panel 4: Outside reactions to authoritarian attraction
- Sonja Grimm (chair); Julia Bader (discussant)
- Thomas Ambrosio: From Soft Power Economic Challenge to Hard Power Geopolitical Threat: Tracing America’s Securitization of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.”
- Sebastian Hellmeier: Travel for Autocracy? How International Mass Tourism Affects the Prospects of Democratization
17:00 – 17:15 Day 1 Closing and finish
Day 2: Wednesday May 18
9:00 – 10:30 Panel 5: Authoritarian democracy proofing
- Julia Bader (chair); Rachel Vanderhill (discussant)
- Sonja Grimm: Authoritarian Soft Power and the Handeling of Pro-democracy Movements
- Alexander Dukalskis: Authoritarian Snapback: How Dictatorships Tame the Spread of Liberal Ideas
10:30 – 10:45 Tea and coffee break
10:45 – 12:15 Panel 6: Conceptual issues and possible outputs
- Thomas Ambrosio (chair); Jakob Tolstrup (discussant)
- Julia Bader/Neil Loughlin;
12:15 – 12:30 Closing of the workshop
Participants
Thomas Ambrosio North Dakota State University
Julia Bader University of Amsterdam
Alex Dukalskis University College Dublin
Mohamad Forough German Institute for Global and Area Studies
Sonja Grimm University of Konstanz
Julia Gurol University of Freiburg
Sebastian Hellmeier WZB Berlin Social Science Center
Obert Hodzi University of Liverpool
Marianne Kneuer Technische Universität Dresden
Neil Loughlin City University of London
Jakob Tolstrup Aarhus University
Rachel Vanderhill Wofford College
This workshop is for invited participants. If you are interested in attending, please contact secretary@nias.knaw.nl.