Regulatory Consulting at International Republican Institute (IRI)

Overview

The International Republican Institute (IRI) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan democracy-promotion organization — one of the core institutes of the National Endowment for Democracy — that, prior to the 2025 overhaul of U.S. foreign assistance, worked in more than 100 countries strengthening political parties, protecting electoral integrity, and fostering democratic governance. Its most AI-relevant work sits in its Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence (CFAI) program, which confronts the digital-disinformation and information-operations toolkits that authoritarian actors like China, Russia, and Iran use to undermine democracies — increasingly supercharged by generative AI and deepfakes. IRI’s angle on AI policy is therefore defensive and democratic: not building AI, but helping citizen groups, media, officials, and parties expose and counter AI-enabled disinformation and ‘repressive technologies.’ IRI also runs the Center for Insights in Survey Research, giving it data capacity relevant to understanding how AI narratives move through populations. Like others in this space, IRI was affected by the 2025 foreign-assistance freeze, which forced it to streamline and adapt while continuing its core work.

AI-Focused Regulatory Work

IRI’s contribution to the AI conversation is a front-line view of AI as a weapon in the global contest between democracies and authoritarian regimes. Its CFAI framing is blunt: twenty-first-century authoritarians use twenty-first-century toolkits — economic leverage, information operations, digital disinformation, and the sale of repressive technologies — and generative AI makes those tools cheaper and more persuasive. The threat is concrete and documented: generative-AI-created fake images and deepfakes played a visible role in the 2024 U.S. presidential campaign, and AI-generated text enables states and non-state actors to propagate disinformation at scale, manipulate perceptions, and disrupt electoral processes. IRI’s three-step CFAI process — helping partners understand these tools, equipping grassroots activists with resources to build democratic resilience, and leveraging IRI’s global political networks to connect civic actors with policymakers on counter-influence policy — is a model for how democracies can respond to AI-enabled foreign interference. Its work spans elections integrity, party strengthening, and public-opinion research (via the Center for Insights in Survey Research) across regions from post-Soviet Europe to Africa and Asia. The honest framing for a directory is that IRI is not an AI-development or AI-governance-framework organization; its relevance is as a democracy-and-elections institution operating exactly where AI-enabled disinformation meets electoral integrity — a distinct and important corner of AI policy — and one that, like its peers, is navigating the disruption of the 2025 U.S. foreign-assistance cuts while maintaining its counter-authoritarian mission.

Notable AI Policy Work

• Runs the Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence (CFAI) program, equipping citizen groups, media, officials, and parties to expose and counter digital disinformation and information operations — increasingly AI- and deepfake-driven — from China, Russia, and Iran.
• Protects electoral integrity across 100+ countries (pre-2025), a mission directly threatened by AI-generated disinformation, deepfakes, and micro-targeted manipulation in elections.
• Operates the Center for Insights in Survey Research, conducting nationwide public-opinion surveys (e.g., in Bangladesh, Serbia) relevant to how AI-driven narratives affect populations.
• Published its 2025 Impact Report and a Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence results snapshot documenting work to counter malign influence and strengthen democratic resilience.
• Adapted to the 2025 U.S. foreign-assistance freeze by streamlining processes and ’embracing innovation’ while continuing counter-authoritarian and elections-integrity work.

Thought Leadership

1. Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence (CFAI)
   IRI’s program confronting authoritarian toolkits — information operations, digital disinformation, and repressive technologies — increasingly amplified by generative AI.
2. IRI 2025 Impact Report
   IRI’s account of countering authoritarian influence and protecting electoral integrity in 2025, and adapting to the U.S. foreign-assistance overhaul.
3. IRI 2025 Results Snapshot: Countering Foreign Authoritarian Influence
   A results snapshot of IRI’s counter-influence work against malign actors using digital and information-operations tools.

Clients

Nonprofit, nonpartisan; funded historically largely through U.S. government democracy assistance (now sharply reduced) and other democratic-development funders. Works with local partners — citizen groups, media, political parties, and officials — in 100+ countries. A core institute of the National Endowment for Democracy.