Democracy in the Crosshairs: Five Key Trends Driving Foreign Interference in Democracies

Ntousas and Salvo identify five mutually reinforcing trends reshaping the foreign interference landscape: AI integration into interference operations, shrinking civil society space, capture of legitimate institutions, economic coercion, and exploitation of democratic backsliding. The framework is deliberately cross-cutting — treating these trends not as separate phenomena but as dynamics that collectively degrade democratic resilience.

The structural framing distinguishes this report from most foreign interference analysis, which tends to focus on specific operations or actors. By identifying the underlying trends that make democracies more vulnerable regardless of who is doing the interfering, the authors produce a framework useful for long-term resilience strategy rather than just immediate threat response.