EDGS Book Talk: “Indulging Kleptocracy” with John Heathershaw

The Buffett Institute’s Equality Development & Globalization Studies (EDGS) program, Weinberg College Center for International and Area Studies and the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies (REEES) Research Program invite you to a public book talk with co-authors John Heathershaw, Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter and Tena Prelec, Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Rijeka. Their book, (Oxford, 2025), shows how British professionals enable their post-communist elite clients by hiding, protecting and legitimizing their kleptocratic wealth and establishing status and influence for them in the West.

About the authors

John Heathershaw is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Exeter. His research addresses conflict, security and development in global politics, especially in Central Asia. He is the author of Post-Conflict Tajikistan (Routledge, 2009), Dictators Without Borders (Yale, 2017), The UK’s Kleptocracy Problem (Chatham House, 2021) and over 30 peer-reviewed journal articles. John is currently the principal investigator of a research project seeking to identify the form and dynamics of kleptocratic-enabling networks via the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project.

Tena Prelec is an Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations at the University of Rijeka’s Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS SEE). Her research focuses on transnational linkages in corruption studies and examines the intersection of illicit finance and geopolitical competition. She has held positions at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. A member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group and a Marshall Memorial Fellow, she has been published widely in academic and policy outlets.

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