January 2023, Volume 34, Issue 1
Shell Game
Trillions of dollars are stashed in the world’s secret financial system, where they are keeping autocratic regimes afloat and fueling democracy’s decline.
Subject: Kleptocracy
January 2021, Volume 32, Issue 1
Thieves’ Paradise
A review of Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World, by Tom Burgis.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: A Challenge for Democracy
As explained in the essays that follow, kleptocracy has become a potent threat to the integrity of democracy around the globe.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: The Dark Side of Globalization
The grand corruption enabled by the rise of offshore finance has come to follow a recurring pattern: steal, obscure, and spend.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Laundering Cash, Whitewashing Reputations
To safeguard their ill-gotten gains, kleptocrats rely on a web of transnational relationships and the complicity of Western fixers.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Autocrats versus Activists in Africa
Central African autocrats are using their stolen money to outmaneuver their opponents and deflect international criticism.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Malaysia’s Missing Billions
One of the world’s worst public-corruption scandals shows how a lax international financial system enables massive graft in developing countries.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia
Russia’s ruling elite have used corruption not only to line their own pockets, but also as a tool of domestic political control and global power projection.
January 2018, Volume 29, Issue 1
The Rise of Kleptocracy: Does China Fit the Model?
China has seen a staggering number of official corruption cases in recent years. But does it merit the label of kleptocracy?
July 2017, Volume 28, Issue 3
Central Asia’s Globalized Despots
A review of Dictators Without Borders: Power and Money in Central Asia by Alexander Cooley and John Heathershaw.
April 2015, Volume 26, Issue 2
Stealing Russia Blind
A review of Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? by Karen Dawisha.
April 2009, Volume 20, Issue 2
Reading Russia: The Dying Mutant
Read the full essay here. The corporatist kleptocracy being erected by Russian President Vladimir Putin is profoundly misunderstood in the West. This model dooms Russia to economic degradation and margin-alization. The current global crisis has made this truth painfully clear. The artificially created image of a threatening West (and U.S. in particular) is now becoming…