The Kleptocracy Curse: Rethinking Containment, a new report by journalist Ben Judah, offers a definitive account of kleptocracy as a pervasive global phenomenon and lays out the policies needed to defeat it. On October 20, Hudson Institute’s Kleptocracy Initiative hosted the report launch and an expert panel discussion on this insidious threat to democracy, the rule of law, and national security featuring Charles Davidson, Benjamin Haddad, Ben Judah, Karen Dawisha, Hannah Thoburn, and Thomas Firestone.
Many of the autocratic regimes threatening the U.S. and its allies are structured as kleptocracies. Criminal elites are misappropriating public funds and aid payments on a massive scale, undermining democracy in other countries by exporting corruption, and threatening global stability through territorial expansionism. Kleptocracies thrive on the vast shadow economy revealed by the Panama Papers and other recent scandals, and facilitated by unscrupulous lawyers, bankers, lobbyists, and other professional “enablers.” Despite this, our leaders have so far failed to recognize the true nature of these regimes and acknowledge Western complicity.
Please join Hudson Institute for a fireside chat with Senior Fellow and Keystone Defense Initiative Director Rebeccah Heinrichs and John Spencer, chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point and co-director of the Urban Warfare Project.
Join Hudson Institute and the Ben Franklin Fellowship for a two-panel discussion examining US policy as it confronts the crisis of terror in Nigeria.
Join Hudson Institute's Center for the Economics of the Internet for a keynote address given by Tricia Paoletta on the Trump administration's progress in managing and reallocating the electromagnetic radio frequency spectrum from the federal domain.
Join Hudson Institute for a discussion with Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson and Senior Fellow Harold Furchtgott-Roth.
