How to capture a state:

Step 1: Change the rules
Step 2: Control the resources
Step 3: Dismantle the checks on power

We are witnessing a staggering, cross-continental retreat of liberal democracy. From Zuma in South Africa and Tudjman in Croatia to Trump's America, leaders follow a systematic pattern of high-level corruption, distorting the power of public office into a self-serving machine in pursuit of unlimited wealth, power and impunity. The playbook is always the same and no country is immune. But this is not inevitable, nor is it irreversible.

Corruption expert Dávid-Barrett has witnessed the global slide into autocracy - and how places are fighting back. Reporting from the front lines of captured states as well as countries that have managed to wrest back control, she unpicks the mechanisms deployed and crucially, how to stop the rot.

Democracy can be clawed back from the clutches of even the longest serving captors - Power Grab leads the way.

How to capture a state:

Step 1: Change the rules
Step 2: Control the resources
Step 3: Dismantle the checks on power

We are witnessing a staggering, cross-continental retreat of liberal democracy. From Zuma in South Africa and Tudjman in Croatia to Trump's America, leaders follow a systematic pattern of high-level corruption, distorting the power of public office into a self-serving machine in pursuit of unlimited wealth, power and impunity. The playbook is always the same and no country is immune. But this is not inevitable, nor is it irreversible.

Corruption expert Dávid-Barrett has witnessed the global slide into autocracy - and how places are fighting back. Reporting from the front lines of captured states as well as countries that have managed to wrest back control, she unpicks the mechanisms deployed and crucially, how to stop the rot.

Democracy can be clawed back from the clutches of even the longest serving captors - Power Grab leads the way.

How to capture a state:

Step 1: Change the rules
Step 2: Control the resources
Step 3: Dismantle the checks on power

We are witnessing a staggering, cross-continental retreat of liberal democracy. From Zuma in South Africa and Tudjman in Croatia to Trump's America, leaders follow a systematic pattern of high-level corruption, distorting the power of public office into a self-serving machine in pursuit of unlimited wealth, power and impunity. The playbook is always the same and no country is immune. But this is not inevitable, nor is it irreversible.

Corruption expert Dávid-Barrett has witnessed the global slide into autocracy – and how places are fighting back. Reporting from the front lines of captured states as well as countries that have managed to wrest back control, she unpicks the mechanisms deployed and crucially, how to stop the rot.

Democracy can be clawed back from the clutches of even the longest serving captors – Power Grab leads the way.