Description
What is the relationship between ideational resistance and statecraft? Numerous studies in the field of International Relations have theorised the implications of disinformation for state power, yet the phenomenon of societal resistance towards disinformation remains underexplored. I therefore draw from social theory to posit another modality of statecraft: resistance statecraft. Building on Lukes's and Gaventa's relational approaches to both power and resistance, I operationalise Gramsci's concept of "elaboration" to illustrate how ideational resistance towards disinformation can be achieved through statecraft and technology. This theoretical framework is then applied to the empirical phenomenon of Taiwanese society's resistance to disinformation from China. Taking Taiwan's open-source governance (OSG) and algorithmic co-governance (ACG) technologies as paradigmatic cases of resistance statecraft, I seek to highlight specific four mechanisms through which ideational resistance to disinformation can be elaborated across a society: (1) enframing, (2) co-production, (3) belief, and (4) affect.
Key words: Statecraft, resistance, social theory, technology, open source governance, algrothimic co governance, Taiwan, China.
