The phenomenon of state capture has for a considerable period been an unavoidable part of the analytical mainstream that seriously examines this region and is routinely used to characterize conditions in Western Balkan countries. This is by no means accidental, as this concept has significant explanatory power to offer explanations for the interdependence of an explosive mixture of various challenges in these countries—which include, among other things, a drastic democratic deficit, systematic human rights violations, predatory capitalism, and a strong ethno-national and conservative hegemony of prolonged duration.
The definition of this phenomenon has evolved over time, and in its contemporary incarnation, a basic consensus has been established around the elements that define state capture: it is a systemic type of corruption in which institutions and public policies are subordinated to the narrow particular interests of dominant cliques, at the expense of the broadest public interests. The principle is very simple—the legislative branch enacts laws that serve the interests of the ruling parties, the executive implements them on behalf of those same parties, while the instrumentalized judiciary protects them from prosecution and, when necessary, prosecutes whomever they need prosecuted.
Transparency International BiH has conducted numerous studies and analyses during the previous period, arguing and mapping the key mechanisms and generators of state capture. It has been unambiguously, clearly, and precisely documented and established that political parties—or rather, the narrow groups at their helm—are the generators of state capture, effectively using clientelism as the primary mechanism for usurping and capturing institutions, almost completely abolishing the basic separation of powers.
However, it appears that for a comprehensive understanding of all aspects, it is necessary to broaden the perspective and consider the wider picture, taking into account the social context—namely, the fact that the dynamics of state capture do not occur in a vacuum. For this very reason, there are considerable grounds for expanding the analytical framework in a direction that could be defined as the capture of society.
A recently completed research project by a consortium of research institutions that resulted in the publication “Captured Societies of Southeast Europe: Networks of Trust and Control,” edited by Erik Gordy, Predrag Cvetičanin, and Alena Ledeneva, moves precisely in this direction, offering expanded frameworks for understanding the concept of societal capture.
In this sense, the authors, building upon the concept of state capture, expand the substantive definition of capture to encompass society as a whole. Thus, in the phenomenon of societal capture, not only state institutions become captured, but also social institutions—religious communities, trade unions, associations, business entities, universities, and ultimately, individual citizens themselves.
While in state capture the goal is to secure laws serving particular interests through control over the legislative branch, to subordinate policy creation and implementation to narrow interests through control over the executive branch, and to ensure one’s own impunity through the instrumentalization of the judiciary, in societal capture the goal is to secure popular support—that is, the production of legitimacy—and the broadest control over social institutions and processes. As Napoleon understood long ago, “You can do anything with bayonets except sit on them.”
Is there a more blessed manufacturer of legitimacy in hyper-religious societies than religious communities that provide legitimacy in direct connection with the Highest Authority, or is there a more beneficial way to disenfranchise and subordinate workers than through a trade union that serves the authorities? The principle is simple: the compliance and obedience of leadership is generously rewarded with budget funds and access to social influence; otherwise, brutal disqualification and removal from the public scene follows.
What still receives insufficient analytical attention is the ideological fuel driving societal capture, which powers the ideological state apparatus (understood in Althusser’s sense—comprising education, religion, mass media, and culture as a whole).
The brutal ideological hegemony of ethno-national conservatism imposes an ethno-collectivist dogma, leaving no space for different types of interpretations—whether based on class or other types of identity—and even less space for civic activism and for the citizen as an active subject of political processes. The goal is to denounce pluralism as hostile activity and to delegitimize and nip in the bud any kind of criticism that might potentially lead to the articulation of a coherent alternative. Such hegemony is produced through the shock-worker efforts of the ideological state apparatus, unburdened by facts, elementary culture of dialogue, or any scruples whatsoever.
The key content of such broadband indoctrination is propaganda and manipulation—while the political activity of comprador political elites is reduced to executing the orders of international big capital, targeted propaganda simultaneously presents subjects with a parallel reality in which determined and tireless ruling toilers work continuously, sacrificing everything for “our cause”—the ethno-national one, that is. Media executors of propaganda work, with the assistance of prepaid analysts, are in constant readiness to sanitize the public space.
In the constellation of a captured society, engaging in private business is impossible without the benevolent attitude of the authorities, simply because a free market does not exist. The state is the largest purchaser of goods and services, and to have access to tenders, it is necessary to obtain support not in a free market but in the market of favor from the ruling structure. Of course, a price is paid for this, either through an appropriate commission or through voter mobilization. Not playing by the rules entails confrontation with various types of racketeering—by inspection and other services that create a hellish business environment for the disobedient.
An indispensable factor in societal capture is certainly organized crime and its symbiotic relationship with the state, particularly with the security and intelligence apparatus. Mutual relations are based on clear rules—organized crime is free to engage in its primary activity with the blessing of the authorities and guaranteed impunity, while on the other hand, it is obliged to be available to perform a wide range of jobs and tasks for the ruling camarilla, ranging from friendly persuasion, through intimidation, all the way to physical confrontations and liquidations of dissidents, especially those who dare to disturb the hornet’s nest of the rulers’ interests.
Societal capture is aimed at preventing any potential mobilization of citizens based on criticism of the existing state of affairs and eliminating any possibility of undertaking effective social and activist engagement in this regard. The goal is therefore for all pillars of the captured state and society to act harmoniously and synergistically in the interests of—you already understand whose. Should you be so kind as to undertake something that can be recognized as harmful to the interests of “the team,” your attention will be politely drawn to it; if you continue, media and public tarring and feathering follows; and if you are truly persistent—intimidation and finally physical confrontation. Naturally, depending on what you are involved in, this may be garnished with dismissal from work for you or your family, inspection and other Kafkaesque procedures.
Thus, ultimately, the consequence of societal capture is that the socialization of the individual is based on completely perverted social values and norms, thereby reinforcing a subject political culture. This kind of unscrupulous, almost total control over society places a very simple choice before the individual—either proactive or anticipatory obedience, in the words of Timothy Snyder, or an extreme level of risk of complete ostracism from society—civil death, in such a way that one cannot secure existence—employment, education, obtain health services, and in the worst case, attacks on physical integrity.
The answer to the question of how to emerge from such a state is by no means simple. Changes that would lead to emerging from such a complex distortion of social relations toward the consolidation of democracy in the context of Balkan countries of the deep European periphery have a very uncertain prospect. The overall social context of these countries, shaped by mass depopulation, brutal savage capitalism, and, as already emphasized, completely destroyed and emptied of substance state and social institutions, is not the most fertile ground for progressive social change.
As an additional, but extremely important, aggravating circumstance, one must also take into account dramatic changes on the international level in terms of the collapse of the order based on law and rules, which is being replaced by what is characterized as hyperimperialism, in which peripheral countries are expected to maintain a vassal relationship—ceding resources—while questions of democratic consolidation do not merit any attention.
