Project: RECLAIM

Authors: Ondrej Ditrych, Jakub Eberle, Petr Kratochvíl, and Linda Monsees

The Covid pandemic was a pivotal episode in the evolution of the European Union's response to strategic disinformation. This article deploys assemblage theory to advance a critical, interpretive understanding of truth contestation as an increasingly salient dimension of geopolitical conflict – one in which foreign actors seek to undermine the epistemic foundations of rival political communities. Strategic disinformation assemblages, conceived as foundationless, emergent, and heterogeneous composites of human and nonhuman elements, exploited pandemic-induced uncertainty to challenge public trust in EU institutions, health authorities, and countermeasures. In response, the counterdisinformation assemblage evolved at both EU and member-state levels. Through comparative case studies of France and the Czech Republic, the article demonstrates that even under a shared securitisation logic, counterdisinformation practices could diverge significantly: France pursued a state-centric model emphasising digital sovereignty and institutional capacity, while the Czech Republic exhibited a more diffuse, civil-society-driven approach that was marked nonetheless by a notable discursive militarisation.