INTRODUCTION
As the world continues to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, states are also waking up to the threats posed by a pandemic of a different kind: that of influence and interference campaigns orchestrated by foreign actors seeking to advance strategic and foreign policy objectives across international borders.1 Through a mix of covert and overt interventions, these campaigns target a wide variety of stakeholders – ranging from policy-makers and elites to think tanks, academia, and the public at large. While not a new phenomenon, the threat from malign foreign influence has grown in scope, scale, and frequency alongside increasing globalization and technology developments.
In response, states have begun considering, and implementing, new policy frameworks to counter these threats. These include deploying a variety of policy instruments ranging from foreign lobbying regulation to reforms that criminalize certain intererefence activities outright. Among these, an approach that has found increasing favor globally involves transparency-based foreign agent registration frameworks which intend to bring transparency to foreign influence campaigns by requiring individuals or entities (‘foreign agents’) engaging in certain types of activities on behalf of a foreign actor (‘foreign principal’) to register with the government and make disclosures concerning activities carried out under their principal-agent relationships.
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