# How Foreign Influence Works in Washington

- Link: https://instituteforglobalaffairs.org/2025/11/how-foreign-influence-works-in-washington/
- Published: 2025-11-26T12:23:54-05:00

### Nick Cleveland-Stout on why transparency matters for national security

The United States is wealthy, powerful, and a democracy.  That means there are many
avenues for foreign countries vying to influence its politics and policy. Though
many forms of foreign lobbying are legal and totally above-board, those efforts 
are largely misunderstood and all too understudied. But understanding the geopolitics
of influence can help us understand how Washington really works. 

In this episode, the [Institute for Global Affairs](https://instituteforglobalaffairs.org/)’
Jonathan Guyer is joined by Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate at the Quincy
Institute, to discuss all things transparency. Nick explains how he digs through
documents to discover the foreign influence campaigns of countries like Israel and
Qatar — and why Americans should care.

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**Nick Cleveland-Stout** is a research associate in the Democratizing Foreign Policy
program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was previously a 
Fulbright fellow at the Federal University of Santa Catarina researching US-Brazil
relations. His research focuses on foreign influence and think tank transparency.
He writes for _Responsible Statecraft_, _The Intercept_, and _The Nation_, among
others.

Check out Nick’s reporting: [https://responsiblestatecraft.org/author/ncstout/](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/author/ncstout/)

Find Nick on X: [https://x.com/nick_clevelands](https://x.com/nick_clevelands)  

Check out Kenneth P. Vogel’s book, Devils’ Advocates: [https://www.harpercollins.com/products/devils-advocates-kenneth-p-vogel](https://www.harpercollins.com/products/devils-advocates-kenneth-p-vogel)