Tena Prelec

Dr Tena Prelec

Small Group Project 2024-25

Strategic Corruption: Deconstructing Geostrategic Goals and Global Impact

The political and security dimensions of transnational corruption are receiving growing attention in foreign policy and academic circles. Yet, it remains vague how exactly this newly recognised phenomenon can be distinguished from other forms of transnational corruption and how it links to the foreign policy strategies of authoritarian countries. Based on a broad working definition of strategic corruption as a form of corruption that nations weaponise to achieve their geostrategic goals, this project seeks to advance the conceptual debate.

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Areas of interest

International Relations Politics Corruption Finance Geopolitics European Union Balkans Elites Kleptocracy Authoritarianism

Cohort

FG10

Biography

Dr. Tena Prelec is an Assistant Professor in Politics and IR at the University of Rijeka’s Centre for Advanced Studies (CAS SEE). Her research focuses on transnational linkages in corruption studies and examines the intersection of illicit finance and geopolitical competition. She has held positions at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics and earned her PhD from the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption.

She is currently Work Package leader of the Horizon Europe project GEO-POWER-EU, which looks at EU enlargement in a deteriorating geopolitical context, and Principal Investigator of the GI-ACE project Lawyers: Gatekeepers, Enablers or Technicians?. A member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group and a Marshall Memorial Fellow of GMFUS, she has published widely in academic and policy outlets. She is co-author of Indulging Kleptocracy: British Service Providers, Postcommunist Elites, and the Enabling of Corruption(OUP, 2025).

Biographical details correct as of 09.07.25