Carnegie Moscow Center
It is time to recognize the security threat that corruption overseas poses to U.S. interests and begin taking it seriously at the level of high politics.
The Russian government’s ability to resolve a host of problems in its preparations for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympic Games will be a decisive factor in shaping its reputation at home and abroad.
Western society wants to bring back a normative dimension to foreign policy and stop the export of corruption from authoritarian and semi-authoritarian countries to the West.
Despite the support by some political parties in Europe, human rights organizations have been unable to prevent high-profile events taking place in autocratic countries.
If implemented properly, the Magnitsky Act could mean the restoration of a normative dimension to Western policy on Russia.
In the public battle over corrupt officials in Russia, efforts are being made to remove those officials from the government, while at the same time not fundamentally changing the system that allowed them to pursue their corrupt ends.
The Kremlin's proposed anti-corruption campaign will serve to bind the bureaucracy together in order to avoid disloyalty, with the main goal of redistributing the wealth of the elites among their members.
While Russia needs immigrants and its neighboring countries need Russia to employ their superfluous workforce, native population and migrants are now in the process of a painful mutual adjustment. Part of the problem is illegal immigration, which is tied to corruption in law enforcement.
Putin's return to the Kremlin may well act as an accelerator for revolution, because it means that the logic of personalized power will continue to stand in the way of regime change.
While the Yanukovych government has managed to initiate a number of economic reforms, they were implemented only partially and their success has been limited.