Transparent political systems and conspiratorial politics

[Peter] Reddaway has emphasized that modern Russian political life cannot be understood without reference to „political technology,“ which represents an extreme form of political consultancy involving manipulation of individuals and large-scale deception. Since, Reddaway explained, at the core of any „political technologist’s“ plan, there lies a conspiracy, any good analyst of Russian politics needs to be a conspiracy theorist as well. Conspiracy theorists, he noted, are usually mocked in countries with transparent political systems. But a system becomes more prone to conspiracies if the ruler remains in power for a long time and controls large parts of its wealth. Russia and Iran, he observed, would be two examples of present-day countries with conspiratorial politics.

—John B. Dunlop, The Moscow Bombings of September 1999, (Stuttgart: ibidem-Verlag, 2012), 17-18.