This study investigates the fact-checking practices of Turkey's Center for Countering Disinformation (CCD), a particularly revealing case of governmental fact-checking in a competitive authoritarian setting, asking whether and how it engages in 'fact-washing', the propagandistic misuse of fact-checking to legitimise governmental narratives. Through a mixed-method analysis of 1,165 fact-checks across 146 disinformation bulletins, the findings reveal a systematic pattern: the CCD disproportionately targets opposition and foreign actors, leaves government-aligned narratives unchecked, and relies heavily on state sources to legitimise its assessments. It also deploys differentiated delegitimisation strategies depending on claim origin. Introducing the concept of fact-washing, this article contributes to debates on disinformation governance and the politicisation of fact-checking.
This article explores the impact of crises on territorial preferences of citizens, focusing on how crisis management drives shifts towards centralisation. While existing research has shown that territorial preferences can shift in response to elite mobilisation and political dynamics, we know comparatively little about whether external shocks can drive similar change. Using an online priming survey experiment conducted at different times of the COVID-19 pandemic in Spain, the research tests whether ineffective crisis coordination increases public support for centralisation. The findings reveal a robust centralisation shift, moderated by pre-existing preferences for decentralised governance and regional political alignments. These insights raise important questions about the resilience of decentralised governance structures in the face of external shocks.
