Autocracy, Inc.
by Anne Applebaum
View on GoodreadsAnne Applebaum's 2024 argument that the world's autocracies are no longer isolated regimes but a functioning international network — Russia, China, Iran, Venezuela, Belarus, North Korea, Zimbabwe — coordinating on finance, surveillance, propaganda, and mutual support.
Core ideas
- The autocracies don't share an ideology; they share interests — keeping their leaders in power, evading sanctions, undermining the rule-of-law system that constrains them, and recruiting useful Western actors.
- The financial infrastructure is the load-bearing element: shell-company networks, sanctions evasion, real estate, professional services in democracies — the whole operation depends on Western legal and banking systems being available to launder it.
- The implication for Western policy: treating each autocracy bilaterally misses the network; effective response requires addressing the financial-and-legal services that the autocrats all use, which means treating Western complicity as part of the problem.
Published2024
Pages224
ISBN9780241627891
ReadJan 2025
