Beyond the “foreign” in FIMI: the blurred line between foreign interference and its domestic drivers

Election-related foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) is often understood primarily as an external threat to democracies, although this framing only captures part of the picture. After all, the first word in FIMI is “foreign” and the term itself was formalized by the European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU’s diplomatic service. This is for good reason, as the coordinated information manipulation operations that most threaten the integrity of elections usually originate in adversarial states and their affiliates, primarily Russia and China. However, viewing FIMI mainly through an external lens has meant that responses have tended to be remedial in nature—such as fact-checking to expose disinformation after it has already been shared. Such responses overlook the domestic dimensions of FIMI, including the role of domestic actors and the structural enablers and incentives that allow FIMI to flourish in the first place.

Even though narratives may originate abroad, once they enter national information ecosystems, they quickly cease to be strictly foreign. Narratives and disinformation may be picked up by domestic actors who may genuinely align with foreign messaging, strategically amplify divisive content for political gain, or both. This is, of course, the ultimate objective of FIMI: to manipulate democratic information environments such that foreign narratives become reproduced organically. Once this occurs, FIMI becomes significantly harder to contain.  

At that stage, forensic investigations—including Forbidden Stories’ Propaganda Machine investigation, Graphika’s Secondary Infektion and Spamouflage reports, and Digital Forensic Research Lab’s work exposing the Pravda Network—as well as content-focused responses, such as fact-checking and platform-level content moderation, “are likely to have a very limited impact because they focus on the consequence, instead of the cause” (International IDEA 2025). While these tools remain important, they are insufficient on their own to stem the tide of FIMI.  

A more considered response to FIMI should therefore address the broader domestic enabling conditions—democratic, institutional, legal, financial, media, and social—that allow election-related FIMI to take hold. This must also include the development of clear digital-governance measures and rules designed to avoid limiting citizens’ freedom of expression online. The question, then, is what these FIMI-enabling conditions look like in practice. International IDEA’s recent report offers valuable insight through a series of country case studies.

Georgia: How domestic dynamics and actors drive FIMI  

International IDEA’s report, Resisting Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference: A Stress Test for Democracies, explores how FIMI exploits domestic vulnerabilities in practice. The report examines case studies from Georgia, South Africa, South Korea, and the United States to show how country-specific vulnerabilities both enable FIMI and are further intensified by it—speeding up democratic decline and undermining human rights. Across the cases, the report’s central finding is that FIMI is not the primary driver of democratic decline—rather, it acts as a constant pressure that is most potent in environments where digital and media ecosystems are largely unregulated and political and social environments are already polarized. The case studies also illuminate the outsized role played by local actors in amplifying FIMI, often functioning as direct proxies.  

Nowhere are these dynamics clearer than in the case of Georgia.

As a key Russian target, Georgia has long contended with persistent FIMI operations. According to IDEA’s report, Russia’s objectives include amplifying its influence in the region, obstructing Georgia’s Euro-Atlantic integration, and ultimately reclaiming Georgia’s territory, which the Kremlin views as rightfully its own. With Russia already occupying 20 per cent of Georgia’s territory, the stakes in this case are particularly stark, combining sustained information manipulation efforts with broader coercive pressure.

Georgia’s susceptibility to these external threats is largely shaped by its internal political developments, illustrating how FIMI can reinforce a vicious cycle of democratic backsliding. Georgia is already experiencing democratic decline, driven in part by actions taken by the ruling Georgian Dream (GD) party. As IDEA’s report notes, “over the past few years, Georgia has witnessed a steady decline in fundamental rights and democratic governance (…) exacerbated by government actions, including the passage of restrictive legislation such as the Foreign Agent Law of 2024 and the Law on Family Values and Protection of Minors 2024, both modeled after Russian policies aimed at curtailing civil liberties” (2025).  

Georgia’s democratic decline is then further exacerbated by Russian FIMI, with domestic actors once again playing a pivotal role. A network of domestic proxies, including far-right movements, political parties, and media outlets, echoes and disseminates Kremlin-aligned messaging: Russian-sponsored media primarily targets regions with large ethnic minority populations where Russian is more widely spoken, while Georgian-speaking audiences are reached through domestic proxies whose ties to Russia are often concealed. At the governance level, the GD party itself replicates Russian-aligned disinformation, including anti-Western and anti-EU rhetoric. Existing divisions surrounding identity and gender are consistently weaponized to deepen polarization and foster fears that the Western liberal democratic model threatens cultural and religious traditions, thereby reinforcing support for far-right and illiberal politics.  

Responses to the threat of FIMI remain limited in large part because Georgia’s government directly benefits from the spread of Russian-aligned narratives and the suppression of dissenting voices. This leaves an increasingly strained civil society to counter the proliferation of FIMI through various initiatives, such as fact-checking operations, media and literacy education programs, and research on the nature and extent of disinformation in Georgia. Lacking governing authority while simultaneously operating under growing political constraints, civil society faces an exceptionally difficult task. In the near term, it is unlikely to achieve the structural reforms necessary to fundamentally alter the conditions enabling FIMI, including stronger regulation of the media environment. Nevertheless, civil society remains critical as a final line of democratic resistance, capable of exposing disinformation, upholding independent scrutiny, and maintaining public awareness in the face of increasingly limited institutional responses.

FIMI as an accelerator of democratic decline

There is little doubt that FIMI poses a genuine threat to democratic institutions, principles, and social cohesion—but it is rarely the primary cause from which democratic decline originates. The Georgian case illustrates that FIMI requires an energy source, relying on conducive domestic conditions for manipulation to succeed. In practice, this often takes the form of a network of domestic elite proxies who benefit from channeling FIMI, spread disinformation and sow distrust themselves, and, in the case of the Georgian Dream party, advance legislation that undermines democratic safeguards. Together, these dynamics create fertile ground for FIMI to proliferate.  

Beyond elite proxies, FIMI resonates more in already polarized environments, where divisive narratives can tap into fear, resentment, and social anxieties. In the Georgian case, this often takes the form of identity-based and gendered manipulation that fuels internal division while portraying Western-style democracy as morally corrupting and culturally alien.  

Therefore, any attempt to mitigate FIMI’s impact must begin with a clear-eyed assessment of how national structural dynamics create the conditions that foreign adversaries exploit and reflect in their FIMI strategies. To this end, IDEA’s report recommends that governments take a comprehensive approach to FIMI and prioritize “strengthening the long-term foundations of democracy, including investing in independent journalism and civil education from young age, supporting free civic space and protecting the rights of marginalized groups often targeted by disinformation” (IDEA 2025). The report also emphasizes that responses to FIMI require a coordinated whole-of-society approach, including locally grounded research that analyzes the domestic drivers of FIMI and strengthens civil society’s capacity to counter disinformation.  

Succumbing to FIMI-driven democratic decline is not inevitable. The same democratic openness that foreign actors seek to exploit also gives societies the capacity to recognize their weaknesses, reform their institutions, and build greater resilience against future manipulation.

If you want to learn more about International IDEA’s work in this area, check out the Combating Electoral Foreign Information, Manipulation and Interference project.