State Capture of the Post-Socialist State: Challenges to European Integration
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Academic Publishing UNWE (AP-UNWE)
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The paper discusses alternative trajectories of post-socialist societal transformations, with an emphasis on a specific state of society designated as "state capture". It presents a theoretical model of the interaction between public institutions, power networks and their rational political and economic strategies/actions to capture the state. This model interprets the state capture not as an anonymous actorless process, but as a rational pursuit of specific strategies for acquisition, concentration and preservation of political and economic power and extraction of economic benefits/rents. The implementation of these strategies involves the formation and operation of the politico-economic power networks that seek to control key public legislative, executive and judiciary institutions. These processes are not random and sporadic deviations but have a systematic nature and significant political, economic and social consequences. They pose a serious challenge to the EU integration of the post-socialist countries.
Keywords
Politico-economic power networks, Rule of law, State Capture, Corruption, European integration, A1 - General Economics, B4 - Economic Methodology, F0 - General, H11 - Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government, P3 - Socialist Institutions and Their Transitions