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The foreign agent laws adopted this year by Georgia and Kyrgyzstan are not fueling mounting authoritarianism and crony rule. They are the result of it. Critics of the countries’ regimes derisively allude to the legislation cracking down on nongovernmental organizations that receive funds from abroad as “Russian laws.” This is only half true. Russia’s draconian law, passed in 2012 and tightened since, brands organizations and individuals who receive money from abroad as “foreign agents” as a way of cracking down on dissent. The fines and bureaucratic obstacles that come with the label have forc…

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