Autocracy, Inc.
by Anne Applebaum
View on GoodreadsCommunist states were tied together by ideology. Applebaum's case is that today's autocracies, from Russia and China to Iran and Venezuela, are tied together by a shared interest in power, wealth and impunity, and that they work less like lone dictatorships than like a network you can't beat with sanctions alone.
Core ideas
- Shared tools: Kleptocratic finance, surveillance technology and professional propagandists, state media like Xinhua included, move across regimes that quietly agree not to criticize each other's repression.
- Western plumbing: Autocrats' money moves through Western banking, including anonymous deposits through banks in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
- Democracies together: The answer is mutual defense, rejecting state propaganda outlets, protecting access to reliable information and closer scrutiny of kleptocratic money and its Western enablers.
Published2024
Pages224
ISBN9780241627891
ReadJan 2025
