OpsLens

Russia has been meddling in foreign elections for decades. Has it made a difference?

By Lucan Ahmad Way and Adam Casey, The Washington Post

Russian interference in the 2016 election has gotten an enormous amount of U.S. media attention. But Russia has been intervening in foreign elections for decades. Has it been effective?

We decided to find out. To assess the impact of Russian meddling, we put together and examined a data set of all 27 Russian electoral interventions since 1991.

We identified two waves of Russian meddling since the early 1990s. The first wave lasted until 2014 and targeted only post-Soviet countries. Since then, a second wave has expanded dramatically into established Western democracies.

However, an examination of both of these waves shows that Russia’s efforts have made little difference.

To read the rest of the article, please visit The Washington Post.