Research

Book

• Foster, Noel. 2010. Mauritania: The Struggle for Democracy. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner.
  • Publisher’s website
  • Reviewed in the International Journal of African Historical Studies
  • Abstract

    Why did a clique of Mauritanian officers risk their lives to overthrow the autocrat they had served for twenty years, only to cede power to an elected civilian? And having won acclaim for their commitment to a process of democratic transition, why did most of these officers join a year later to overthrow the newly elected president? Had the international community been fooled by a military junta—or was it complicit in creating an elaborate pseudo-democratic facade? Drawing on numerous interviews and field research in an Islamic republic wracked by ethnic tensions, terrorism, dire poverty, and the living legacy of slavery, I address these questions to reveal the complex forces at work in Mauritania’s long struggle for better governance.

Book Chapters

• Foster, Noel. 2022. “The Best of Enemies: Identity, Recursion and the Convergence of Kremlin and Estonian Populists’ Narratives.” In Information Wars in the Baltic States: Russia’s Long Shadow, edited by Janis Chakars and Indra Ekmanis. London: Palgrave Macmillan.

• Foster, Noel. 2021. “Propaganda Gone Viral: The Online Disinformation Pandemic in the Age of COVID-19.” In The Russian Federation in Global Information Warfare: Influence Operations in Europe and Its Near Abroad, edited by Holger Mölder, Archil Chochia, and Tanel Kerikmäe. Berlin, Germany: Springer.

Book Project

• Digital Disruption and Revisionist Statecraft: How Authoritarian Regimes Shape their Adversaries’ Politics

Working Papers

Please email me for the latest drafts.

• “Polarization for Paralysis: How Revisionist States Weaponize Information to Shift Foreign Political Behaviors”
  • Honorable Mention, Timothy E. Cook Award for Best Graduate Student Paper in Political Communication, American Political Science Association

• “Weaponizing Facts: How Revisionist States Polarize Foreign Audiences with Factual Content.” (with Zenobia Chan)

• “Nationalist Language Processing: Government Messaging and Public Support for Defense Spending in Taiwan.” (with Marc Ratkovic and Zenobia Chan)

• “Blind Man’s Bluff? Deterrence and the Role of Attribution in Cyber Attacks.”

• “The (Political) Economy of Repression: Repression, Redistribution and Alliance Formation in the Middle East and North Africa.”