Authoritarian regimes like Russia and China use malign finance—the funding of foreign political parties, candidates, campaigns, well-connected elites, or politically influential groups, often through non-transparent structures designed to obfuscate ties to a nation state or its proxies—to interfere in democracies. Find ASD’s work on malign finance and the threat it poses to democracy on this page.
Interference Matters
Russia Is Still Finding Willing Partners Throughout Europe
ASD Event Summary: Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Outcompete Autocracies
On December 10, the Alliance for Securing Democracy hosted a virtual event with Ambassador Eric Edelman, Ambassador Samantha Power, and Dr. Kori Schake on steps the United States can take to regain the initiative in the emerging competition with aut [...]
Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Outcompete Autocracies
Ambassador Eric Edelman, Distinguished Practitioner-in-Residence at John Hopkins’ Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies, Co-Chair of ASD’s Offset Strategy for Democracies Task Force Ambassador Samantha Power, Anna Lindh Professor of the Practi [...]
Zack Cooper in Financial Review: Free Nations Must Speak for Australia
Co-Director Zack Cooper and Oriana Skylar Mastro write that the Biden administration needs to rethink the entire nature of alliances for an era of heavy-handed economic diplomacy from Beijing. Australia's trials are not the first time Beijing has u [...]
Josh Rudolph Testifies Before European Parliament on Political Funding From Third-Country Sources
Testimony before the European Union Parliament, Special Committee on Foreign Interference in all Democratic Processes in the European Union, including Disinformation December 2, 2020 Josh Rudolph, Fellow for Malign Finance, Alliance for Securing Dem [...]
Follow the Money: Josh Rudolph Discusses Covert Foreign Money on ‘The Power Vertical’
Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph joined "The Power Vertical" to discuss the findings of his new report, Covert Foreign Money. They’ve granted loans to a French political party. They’ve spread around oil profits in Italy. They’ve given material s [...]
Linking Values and Strategy: How Democracies Can Offset Autocratic Advances
In mid-2020, the Alliance for Securing Democracy convened a task force of 30 leading American national security and foreign policy experts to devise a national strategy for the United States to offset autocratic advances in non-military domains of [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses the Role of Cryptocurrency in Election Interference on a Panel at CNAS
ASD Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph joined Levi Gundert and Jesse Spiro in a panel discussion on the role of cryptocurrency in election interference at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses Dark Money and Democracy on a Panel at RUSI
ASD Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph joined Gemma Rogers of Fintrail and Edward Lucas of CEPA to discuss how covert foreign money has undermined the democratic process in North America and Europe in a panel at the Royal United Services Institu [...]
Josh Rudolph on Subverting Elections: A Toolkit of Foreign Interference at Middlebury College
Malign Finance Fellow Josh Rudolph gave a lecture entitled "Subverting Elections: A Toolkit of Foreign Interference" at Middlebury College's Rohatyn Center for Global Affairs. [...]
Shadow State: Josh Rudolph with Luke Harding on the Kremlin’s Quest for Chaos in the West
This week, GMF's "Out of Order" hands the mic over to Josh Rudolph, the Malign Finance fellow at the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the author of the new report, Covert Foreign Money. Josh is joined by Luke Harding, best-selling author and seni [...]
Prospects for European and U.S. Policy toward Iran
This policy paper was co-authored with Edgar P. Tam, visiting senior fellow at the Paris Office of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. Please click the link at the right to view the full paper. President Donald Trump’s views on Iran hav [...]
Josh Rudolph on the Rise of Foreign Funds that Distort Western Politics in the Financial Times
Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph discusses how the rise of foreign funding distorts politics in the West, drawing on our recently released paper Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interferen [...]