| Popis: |
For problems of foreign election interference, international law is an important vehicle for promoting cooperation and combating the worst forms of human (and other) behavior. Nevertheless, scholars of international law engage these problems from limited perspectives. For example, law (including international law) does not deal well with large-scale bad effects that may result from the commission of many unfriendly acts that are individually legally permissible. Nor does international law seem able to handle nonstate actors whose electoral impact crosses national borders. Put differently, what is the meaning of “foreign” election interference when domestic actors are often willing and able to do what a foreign adversary might wish them to do? One important class of domestic actor is the useful idiot—the citizen who is easily tricked into spreading a message that advantages the adversary. A second class of actor, especially relevant for U.S. elections, is the U.S.-based social media company whose free services foreign adversaries use to influence politically relevant messaging. Lastly, international law scholars would do well to question the fundamental psychological limitations on human “rationality” on which many of their putative solutions are based; collaboration with social and cognitive psychologists would help in this regard. |
