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
Virtual Event Invitation: Follow the Money: Understanding the Threat Covert Foreign Financing Poses to Democracies
Thursday, October 1, 2020 | 10:00am-11:00am EDT / 4:00pm-5:00pm CEST / 5:00pm-6:00pm EEST Register here. Please join the Alliance for Securing Democracy and the European Centre of Excellence on Hybrid Threats in Helsinki for a virtual, interactive [...]
Introductory Video: Iran’s Authoritarian Playbook
ASD Middle East Fellow Ariane Tabatabai gives readers a short introduction to her recently released report Iran's Authoritarian Playbook: The Tactics, Doctrine, and Objectives behind Iran’s Influence Operations. In one of the first comprehensive di [...]
Iran’s Authoritarian Playbook: The Tactics, Doctrine, and Objectives behind Iran’s Influence Operations
Introduction According to a 2013 indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice, hackers backed by a foreign power gained access to the controls of the Bowman Avenue Dam, a small dam in the New York City suburb of Rye, New York. Cyberattacks on inf [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses Malign Finance in Politics on the Europe Desk Podcast
Josh Rudolph appeared on the BMW Center for German and European Studies at Georgetown University's The Europe Desk podcast to discuss malign finance in politics. [...]
Josh Rudolph Discusses Malign Finance and Foreign Interference on C-SPAN
Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph appeared on C-SPAN to discuss malign finance and its role in foreign interference. Related reading: Covert Foreign Money by Josh Rudolph and Thomas Morley [...]
Laura Rosenberger Discusses Progress Made Since 2016 on CFR’s Why It Matters Podcast
ASD Director Laura Rosenberger sat down with Gabrielle Sierra of the Council on Foreign Relations to discuss efforts the United States has taken since 2016 to secure the integrity of our political system on CFR's Why It Matters Podcast. [...]
ASD’s ‘Covert Foreign Money’ Report Covered in The Fulcrum
"A chilling new report outlines how Russia, China and other authoritarian regimes have used weaknesses in campaign finance and financial reporting laws to launch attacks on the political processes in the United States and elsewhere," Bill Theobald w [...]
The Alliance for Securing Democracy Releases Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interference in Democracies
JUST RELEASED: COVERT FOREIGN MONEY: FINANCIAL LOOPHOLES EXPLOITED BY AUTHORITARIANS TO FUND POLITICAL INTERFERENCE IN DEMOCRACIES Comprehensive new report by the Alliance for Securing Democracy identifies legal loopholes exposing U.S. elections to [...]
Introductory Video: Covert Foreign Money
ASD Fellow for Malign Finance Josh Rudolph gives readers a short introduction to his recently released paper Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interference in Democracies, co-authored with Resear [...]
ASD’s “Covert Foreign Money” Report Covered in Foreign Policy
Foreign Policy's Amy McKinnon discusses the major points of ASD's new report, Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interference in Democracies. [...]
Covert Foreign Money: Financial Loopholes Exploited by Authoritarians to Fund Political Interference in Democracies
Executive Summary In addition to more widely studied tools like cyberattacks and disinformation, authoritarian regimes such as Russia and China have spent more than $300 million interfering in democratic processes more than 100 times spanning 33 [...]
Congress Should Follow the Money Like the British Parliament
This article was originally published as a GMF Transatlantic Take on July 31, 2020. After the United Kingdom’s parliament released its recent report on Russian interference in British democracy, front-page headlines howled that it damns the governme [...]