Building democratic resilience in an age of information warfare

Democratic dialogue is increasingly under attack from digital disinformation campaigns.

In view of this threat, many countries, including Sweden, have moved to strengthen the democratic resilience of the public by launching various fact-checking campaigns and teaching of source criticism.

These measures pivot on the assumption that the threat from disinformation lies in its ability to deceive and lead the public astray in important decisions. In this project, we develop an alternative analysis of the disinformation threat.

The fundamental problem, we posit, is not that citizens are fooled into believing that lies are truths, but that disinformation breeds resignation: it undermines the willingness of the public to make informed judgments. The project is composed of three parts.

In the first part, we analyze how various measures taken by the Swedish government to counter disinformation frames the threat as well as the object of protection.

In the second part, we develop a theoretical approach that allows us to define the threat posed by disinformation with more precision, by attending not only to the epistemic but also the existential dimensions of the issue.

In the final part, we illustrate the practical implications of the project by formulating a series of policy recommendations for a stronger psychological defense.