Generative AI, propaganda, and digital authoritarianism: Comparative insights from six democratically weakened countries

Gabrielle D Beacken, Inga K Trauthig, and Samuel C Woolley

June 2026

Generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) is increasingly used by political elites for propaganda, yet adoption and uses vary across weakening democracies. Scholarship often assumes AI's inevitability and transformative impact, overlooking the geographical, political, economic, and social structures that shape propaganda. This study responds to calls for comparative international research on GenAI propaganda by examining six countries—Bolivia, Hungary, India, Nigeria, Tunisia, and Turkey—where distinctions between authoritarian and democratic propaganda increasingly blur. We conducted 93 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and analyzed the data using iterative qualitative thematic analysis to examine how political elites adopt and use GenAI for political purposes. We find that adoption is shaped more by local political, economic, and social conditions than by GenAI's technical capacities. Elites adapt existing propaganda repertoires—cheapfakes, bots, deepfakes, and voice clones—according to country context. We argue that GenAI propaganda reflects the creeping spread of digital authoritarian tactics into semi-democratic spaces, consolidating elite power while eroding democratic norms. These findings contribute to comparative studies of GenAI propaganda, critical disinformation research, and digital authoritarianism scholarship.

CITE

Beacken, G. D., Trauthig, I. K., & Woolley, S. C. (2026). Generative AI, propaganda, and digital authoritarianism: Comparative insights from six democratically weakened countries. Big Data & Society, 13(2).

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/20539517251410064