October 23, 2026
AP Photo/Rick Bowmer, File
Bottom Line Up Front
Financial influence has become an important tool in a changing global geopolitical system, with states increasingly deploying money to influence political outcomes in democratic processes, fund influencer and propaganda networks, and engage in transnational repression. Hostile states deploy money for influence in various ways, often covertly and, in many cases, in contravention of existing sanctions, political finance laws, and democratic interests. Illicit political finance is a critical, but poorly understood dimension of foreign influence, interference, espionage, and other threat activity. Western democracies need
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