BREAKING DOWN DEMOCRACY: Goals, Strategies, and Methods of Modern Authoritarians research due to alleged foreign funding, while ignoring for NGOs, and even if there were, few wealthy Rus- foreign funding for a quasi-political charity sponsored sians or Iranians would risk reprisal from the authori- by the Orthodox Church.° ties by donating to regime critics. Consequently, orga- nizations that lose access to foreign funding typically In fact, most of these laws are unnecessary. In a state have no domestic alternative and must curtail their like Russia, China, or Iran, the authorities already have operations or give up their political independence. ample latitude to deregister and ban any organiza- tion, and to prevent foreign organizations from doing In Russia, even NGOs with politically anodyne mis- business with domestic partners. A legal system that sions have been targeted as foreign agents, asthe is flexible enough to serve the evolving needs of the regime seeks to deter any civil society activity that regime and target virtually any adversary is a hallmark could challenge official policies or foster international of modern authoritarianism. But the NGO measures ties without state approval. One such organization give an added veneer of legality to what is essentially was the Northern Nature Coalition, which protects arbitrary rule. old-growth forests and had protested certain devel- ; ; opment projects. Another was Young Karelia, which The repeated adoption at new laws also gives the sponsors puppet shows for children in Karelian—a leadership the opportunity to showcase emotional language closely related to that spoken in neighboring prapagancia that stresses the subversive nate re of Finland. The latter group was declared a foreign agent rele ot IE PEnSenE Berieeiis civil society orga- in part because of a $10,000 grant from the United nizations, reinforcing the idea that the motherland Natieng. is threatened by hostile encirclement and political infiltration.”