From Consensus to Conflict: Understanding Foreign Measures Targeting U.S. Elections
This RAND report situates Russian information efforts in the longer history of foreign interference in U.S. politics—a concern dating back to the founding—while noting that modern technology makes today's campaigns easier to execute than Soviet-era propaganda, with the strategic aim of pushing Americans to extreme positions to prevent the consensus that democracy depends on. Existing research has fragmented across different units of analysis: the content itself, how it propagates through networks, and how to protect consumers downstream. The authors argue for a more holistic approach that anticipates which groups of Americans are likely to be targeted in the first place, then builds evidence-based preventive practices around those communities before the targeting begins.