We are delighted to share highlights from two recent public seminars by our Project Coordinator Akin Unver, where he presented our ongoing work from the DE-CONSPIRATOR project. The seminars took place under the title “From Algorithms to Actors: A Socio-computational Approach to Understanding Foreign Interference in International Politics”. The first seminar took place as part of the Sabancı University Dean’s Speaker Series, while the second one was hosted by Özyeğin University.
The seminars explored some of the key challenges and emerging frontiers in merging qualitative and computational methods in a multi-method research project that aims to tackle Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI). The first-year findings of the project were presented, along with our second-year plans for leveraging large language models (LLMs) for the study of FIMI.
Understanding FIMI: A Socio-Computational Perspective
The seminars underscored how foreign actors are increasingly weaponizing information, not through falsehood alone, but via coordinated, deceptive behavior aimed at eroding democratic integrity.
The DE-CONSPIRATOR project addresses this challenge by mapping and analyzing FIMI through a multi-method socio-computational lens, which includes:
Doctrinal Network Analysis of Russian and Chinese strategic documents
Psychometric assessments to understand cognitive vulnerabilities in target populations
Agent-based modeling to simulate the spread of disinformation
Cross-platform analysis to track algorithmic amplification
Geospatial and archival analysis to historicize information attacks
Strategic Questions at the Center of Our Research
The seminars also highlighted the pressing issues facing policymakers and researchers alike. Among the key questions explored by the project:
1. Why do states continue to use disinformation even when the reputational costs are high?
2. How can defenders build effective deterrence strategies when attribution remains uncertain?
3. Can the European Union leverage its reputation to rally international audiences?
What’s Next for DE-CONSPIRATOR
As part of our ongoing work, the team is building an open, multilingual database of documented FIMI events and systematically coding strategic communications from Russia and China. This effort is designed to better understand the evolving nature of adversarial tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTPs), and to support the development of effective, evidence-based European responses.