Counter-Diffusion: Does Russian Propaganda Wind Up in America?

Does the norm diffusion process work in reverse? Specifically, does the success of the Russian government in building counternarratives and counternorms to reinforce its authoritarian government mean they have the ability to diminish successful human rights advocacy in the United States? This project examines whether the rhetoric used to justify anti-LGBT policies in Russia are broadcast and adopted by anti-LGBT groups in the United States. In the United States, public support for LGBT civil rights is often cited as a success story in the adoption and diffusion of human rights norms. Often, this is used as evidence of broadening norm adoption. However, this local success has not been followed by global success. Russia, for example, remains as a country that largely denies LGBT rights and criminalizes advocacy as “homopropaganda.” Rather than causing public backlash, this position is met with widespread public support in Russia. We expect the existence of a successful counternorm in one country to be adopted and weaponized against the same group in another country where human rights norms have been adopted. We examine this question by collecting public statements and stories issued by Russian state media that reference LGBT rights issues. We then compare them to statements made by American ant-LGBT groups, measuring for changes in content. We expect that, over time, American groups start to use rhetoric similar to that used by Russia