Title: “Dictators without borders and global kleptocracy in the age of Trump”
Speaker: John Heathershaw, Associate Professor of political scientist, University of Exeter, U.K.
Heathershaw shines a light on the role that international financial centers such as London play in facilitating grand corruption by political elites, making the case for the urgent need to address the continuing systemic weakness of the global financial system. This talk is a survey of cronyism and corruption in the post-Soviet Central Asian republics, drawing lessons about how the rulers stow their extracted wealth in offshore funds and shell companies.
Weak, corrupt, and politically unstable, the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan are dismissed as isolated and irrelevant to the outside world. But they are not. Heathershaw argues that Central Asia is in reality a globalization leader with extensive involvement in economics, politics and security dynamics beyond its borders. Yet Central Asia’s international activities are mostly hidden from view, with disturbing implications for world security. The greatest shock may come from revelations about the apparent complicity or indifference of Western companies, banks, regulators and politicians.
The talk is based on the forthcoming new edition of the book by John Heathershaw and Alexander Cooley (Political Science, Barnard College), Dictators without Borders (co-authored with Alex Cooley), that includes a new epilogue (‘Global Kleptocracy in an Age of Trump’). This talk is of interest to any concerned about global financial mechanisms of inequality, and security in newly independent states, including in the former Soviet Union and Muslim-majority regions.
Co-sponsors: Department of History, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, the Center for Slavic and East European Studies, the Mershon Center for Security Studies
