How do authoritarian states act against critics beyond their own borders? And how do authoritarian actors network across country boundaries?
These were the questions addressed by Thomas Demmelhuber at the 122nd Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association (APSA). The conference took place from 3 to 6 September 2026 in Boston under the overarching theme “Democracy Under Threat: How to Understand, Protect, and Rebuild”. With more than 7,000 participants, it is one of the largest political science conferences worldwide.
In his presentation, Demmelhuber examined forms and functions of transnational repression, using Saudi Arabia as a case study. The talk drew on his contribution to the edited volume “Transnational Repression: A Comparative Perspective Across Autocracies and Democracies” and is embedded in the research conducted under EXC 3039 “Transforming Human Rights”. The volume, edited by Šumit Ganguly (Stanford) and Klaus Brummer (Eichstätt), will be published shortly by Cambridge University Press.
Demmelhuber also served as a discussant on a panel on “Authoritarian Actor Networks”, which was organized jointly with, among others, Marianne Kneuer (TU Dresden), Rachel Beatty Riedl (Cornell), and Karrie Koesel (Notre Dame).
