This Discussion Paper addresses an urgent topic: the use of illicit political finance in a systematic manner to influence or ‘capture’ agencies, local governments, territory or even the entirety of states.

The evident result is an undermining of the representative processes and of the state itself. This topic has become particularly urgent with an international economic recession that leaves cash-rich, transnational criminal groups with more power than ever before.

The paper was published as part of the preparatory process for a 2009 Democracy Round Table co-organized by International IDEA and Mexican institutions on the topic of Illicit Funding in Politics, which took place in Mexico City on 1–2 December 2009.