Abstract
Analysts of “State Capture” too often treat the phenomenon as an outside-in process. They identify firms or rent-seeking political entrepreneurs that take over, subvert, or otherwise bend political structures to serve their parochial interests. The key to solving the perceived problem is supposed to lie in better governance, strengthened judicial systems, civic education, and transparency in political and civic activities. This essay will suggest this construct involves a misunderstanding of the relationship between patronage networks and supposedly “legitimate” legal and constitutional institutions enshrined in a teleology of Democracy and Rule-of-Law performances. Patronage politics in the Balkans produces pragmatic social management patterns, not just theft by greedy firms and selfish individuals. This argument builds on Charles Tilly’s observation of the inverse relationship between Democracy and trust to explain why externally imposed programs of civic education and political reform designed to free a state from its perceived capture fail to do much more than recruit a thin sliver of local civic activists, scold “captured” populations, and undermine the credibility of international overseers.
Published Version
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