Abstract While scholarship exists on the contestation of liberal norms, the conditions under which autocrats gain global support for their own normative campaigns remain less understood. This paper proposes that dictatorships can gain normative standing in international organizations (IOs) by repurposing existing consensus, thereby making opposition more difficult. Alongside seeking majority support, autocrats also aim to isolate and force liberal actors into socially disadvantageous positions, even when doing so reduces overall support. To test this argument, the paper presents a mixed-methods study of the Soviet Union’s and Russia’s promotion of anti-Nazism as a fundamental principle underpinning the international system—with Russia cast as its guardian—from 1946 to 2024. Given the linkages between Nazism and racial discrimination, Russia has been able to attract broad support in contexts sensitive to colonial legacies and apartheid, rendering opposition to its initiatives morally unacceptable. These tactics, employed during the Cold War, have returned in force in a more multipolar setting. Drawing on United Nations meeting records and voting data, text analyses of other members’ discourse, and comparative analyses across IOs, the paper explains how and why the norm of anti-Nazism was repurposed through rhetoric and agenda manipulation. The findings underscore the enduring importance of ideology for autocrats in international politics.
Alexander Baturo (Sat,) studied this question.