Trajectory of Defiance: Evolving Communication Strategies of the Belarusian Opposition in Exile

Exile - defined as the forced emigration of political opponents to punish past or anticipated dissent (Nugent and Siegel 2024) - is a common strategy of authoritarian regimes. Yet, instead of silencing opposition, contemporary exile often reshapes and diversifies opposition activities, prompting new forms of criticism and experimentation. Prominent cases include the Venezuelan, Russian, and Iranian oppositions. Despite their visibility, existing scholarship remains heavily regime-centred, treating exiled oppositions primarily as targets of transnational repression rather than political actors in their own right. Drawing on an original dataset of opposition communication in exile, this paper examines the evolving communication strategies of the Belarusian opposition led by Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, exiled after the fraudulent 2020 presidential election. Unlike prior studies of exile communication that rely mainly on social media data, this analysis is based on official political communication by Tsikhanouskaya’s office. Covering messages in Belarusian, Russian, and English over five years (N ≈ 3000 texts/language), the dataset enables systematic testing of hypotheses about shifts in audience targeting and the emergence of audience-specific messaging. In doing so, the study advances our understanding of how exile can transform modes of opposition communication, offering a framework to analyze how displaced movements attempt to maintain legitimacy across domestic and international audiences.