Freedom House Regional organizations built around authoritarian norms of regime protection, especially the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), have expanded their collective efforts against exiles. This allows regimes to extend their reach into neighbors’ territory in exchange for reciprocal assistance.17 Regional cooperation against exiles creates a sprawling web of control, forcing people either to flee further afield or to silence themselves. Bilateral pressure is also a key tool. Beijing has gradually strangled the ability of Tibetans to flee through Nepal by implementing mobility controls, arranging repatriations, and generally building an infrastructure of mutual legal cooperation. Other countries that lack regional cooperation mechanisms but are willing to make ad hoc arrangements can often achieve similar results, as with the dozens of renditions to Turkey in cooperation with local politicians and security services in Ukraine, the Balkans, sub-Saharan Africa, and Southeast Asia. Finally, the normative cost of using transnational repression has gone down, particularly due to the erosion of norms against states using extraterritorial violence in the absence of war. Looming over the issue of transnational repression are the US government’s renditions and targeted killings as part of the “global war on terror” that followed the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, and the Israeli government’s extensive use of targeted killings outside its territory.18 All over the world, states engaged in transnational repression apply the label of terrorism to exiles whom they pursue, in some cases overtly citing the examples of the United States and Israel.19 In 58 percent of the cases Freedom House catalogued, the origin state accused the targeted individual of terrorism.20 The “war on terror” has embedded in the global lexicon a flexible and arbitrary vocabulary that many states use to place certain people beyond the protections of law. Muslims are especially vulnerable: 78 percent of the cases Freedom House identified appear to have involved people of Muslim origin, reflecting the high proportion of Muslim-majority states engaged in transnational repression, the persecution of Muslim minorities in countries like China, and the vulnerability of Muslims in migration at a time of global fears about Islamist terrorism.21 Meanwhile, the shifting international balance of power has encouraged states to take greater risks, as democracies and international bodies focused on human rights lose the political will to push back against egregious violations. The erosion of norms is reflected in the lack of accountability for transnational repression. Even when a case is as flagrant as it could possibly be—as with the horrifying and welldocumented murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Khashoggi by Saudi agents in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul— leading democracies have failed to enforce accountability. Economic sanctions and visa bans against Russian entities and individuals for a series of assassinations on European soil have not deterred the Russian regime from continuing to kill abroad. In effect, states can now threaten, kidnap, or murder exiles with little fear of punishment. As Hatice Cengiz, the fiancée of Jamal Khashoggi, testified at a US congressional hearing, “If Jamal’s murder passes with impunity, then me speaking here today puts me in danger.”22 Despite her plea, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia received “protection” from President Donald Trump for Khashoggi’s killing.23 Muslims are especially vulnerable: 78 percent of the cases Freedom House identified appear to have involved people of Muslim origin. Transnational repression and authoritarian influence The risk of transnational repression has grown as authoritarian states have transnationalized their influence, or “gone global,” more generally.24 The wave of democratization around the world that coincided with the end of the Cold War has been partially reversed over the past decade and a half.25 Liberal democracies have stumbled, and authoritarian states that were initially stunned by the collapse of the Soviet Union have grown more confident in applying their preferred measures to ensure regime security, first domestically and then internationally. These governments have learned to assert influence abroad in ways that circumvent or disregard legal mechanisms, but do not rise to the level of open conflict with the targeted host country. Such tactics include media and disinformation campaigns, the co-optation and corruption of host country officials and elites, building alliances with antiliberal parties and movements, and sponsoring cyberattacks.26 Different terms have been used to describe these practices, including “sharp power,” “dark power,” and “malign influence.”27 The important underlying feature is that unlike “soft power” freedomhouse.org 7