Fifty years on from the crushing of the Prague Spring and almost 30 years after the 1989 revolutionary upheaval, Eastern Europe is experiencing a vicious return to authoritarianism, according to… Read more »
The corruption of mafia-like elite circles are the soft spot of post-Cold War authoritarian states, argues AEI analyst Clay R. Fuller. “All authoritarian states are kleptocracies because by definition, authoritarians maintain an artificial monopoly on… Read more »
There is a major difference between former Soviet leaders and senior Russian officials today, including Russian President Vladimir Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov, whose families are abroad, former… Read more »
A universal asset in efforts to combat kleptocracy and corruption is the fact that “the anti-corruption ideal is common to all nations, all traditional cultures,” according to Robert I. Rotberg… Read more »
The West is in crisis because of European weakness, not Russian strength, says analyst Walter Russell Mead. Europe’s weakness has provided Vladimir Putin with opportunities to promote Russian power by… Read more »
In a kleptocracy, criminal behavior is not individual, opportunistic, or sporadic, but rather collective, systematic, strategic, and permanent. It is a system in which all the high-level government officials are complicit, where… Read more »
The good news is that Najib Razak’s massively corrupt and incrementally despotic nine-year rule is over. The cautionary news is that Malaysia’s democracy is not yet fully secured, given the… Read more »
The psychology of Vladimir Putin, the ideology of his regime, and the machinery of the Russian state and military have received exhaustive attention in the West. The Russian people, however,… Read more »
Last weekend, Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro dragged his Socialist government into a third decade in power by winning elections that were boycotted by the opposition, ignored by most of his countrymen and… Read more »
British financial complicity with Russian kleptocrats is undermining the country’s national security and democratic institutions, says analyst Oliver Bullough. Over the past decade, £68bn has flowed from Russia into Britain’s… Read more »
