M. Steven Fish is a professor of political science at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Comeback: Routing Trumpism, Reclaiming the Nation, and Restoring Democracy’s Edge (2024).
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.
Taking advantage of broad global respect for regionalism, authoritarian regimes are using their own regional organizations to bolster fellow autocracies. These groupings offer a mechanism for lending legitimacy, redistributing resources, and insulating…
