Launch of the Chair “Influence and Counter-Influence Strategies in a Digital Environment
With the creation of this new chair, Inalco continues to strengthen its position as a leading French and European institution in research and teaching on information dynamics and influence strategies.
Maxime Audinet is a Junior Professor and holder of the Chair “Stratégies d’influence et de contre-influence en contexte numérique” at Inalco, where he teaches in the International Relations (RI) and Intercultural and International Communication (Com2I) programs. A specialist in Russian foreign policy, he holds a PhD in Slavic Studies and Political Science from the University of Paris Nanterre.
His research examines the actors, practices and narratives that shape contemporary Russian influence strategies, as well as their projection in Europe and in the “Global South”. More broadly, he is interested in ethnographic and digital methods for studying influence ecosystems, and in the role of influence within the foreign policies of both democratic and authoritarian states.
In 2023, he co-founded the CORUSCANT research collective, which seeks to renew Russian studies in the wake of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. He is also a research associate with the GEODE laboratory at Paris 8 University.
Earlier in his career, he served as a Research Fellow at IRSEM (2020–2025) and Ifri (2018–2020). He is a graduate of Sciences Po’s master’s research program in political theory.
Research Project and Teaching
Anchored in international relations, area studies and information and communication sciences, the Chair aims to expand current scholarship on the influence and counter-influence strategies of liberal democracies and “informational autocracies.” Working closely with the DECRIPT project, it supports Inalco’s internationalization strategy by helping position the institution among the leading academic centers on these issues in France and Europe.
While Russia serves as the chair’s primary—though not exclusive—case study, its research is structured around three main themes:
- Ethnography of an influence strategy: actors, practices and projection Russia’s ecosystem of influence;
- Foreign policy and strategic narratives: production, circulation, and reception;
- Securitising influence: counter-influence public policies and responses to foreign information manipulation and interference (FIMI) in Europe.
In a context where access to many research fields —including Russia—is increasingly restricted, the Chair embraces the “digital turn” in the social sciences. It promotes the integration of open-source investigative methods (OSINT) into the methodological toolkit of area studies, encouraging innovative combinations of ethnographic and digital research approaches.
From a teaching perspective, the Chair pursues two complementary objectives. First, it enriches Inalco’s curriculum—particularly within the Com2I and RI programs—on influence and counter-influence strategies, the geopolitics of information and disinformation, and OSINT and digital research methods. Second, it seeks to raise awareness among Inalco students and equip them with essential skills in this strategic field, including for future professional opportunities.