How public institutions become captured | Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett

Corruption is often imagined as a bribe paid to speed up a permit, avoid a fine, or gain access to a public service. But some of the most damaging forms of corruption operate at a much higher level, where powerful political and business actors reshape the rules of the game itself. This is the world of state capture: a process through which public institutions are bent away from the public interest and made to serve narrow networks of power, privilege, and private gain.

Dan Banik speaks with Elizabeth Dávid-Barrett, Professor of Governance and Integrity and Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, about why state capture is one of the most serious threats to democracy, development, and public trust today. Drawing on cases from all around the world, they discuss how corruption can move from isolated transactions to systemic control over laws, public procurement, courts, banks, media, tax authorities, and accountability institutions.

The conversation explores how state capture differs from petty corruption, why democracies are vulnerable to being hollowed out from within, and how powerful actors use strategically divisive narratives to consolidate support. Liz explains why captured systems reward loyalty over merit, connections over competence, and impunity over accountability — with severe consequences for economic growth, inequality, public services, and citizen confidence.

Resources

• State Capture and Inequality
• State Capture and Development: A conceptual framework
• State capture: how democracy can be systematically corrupted
• Madagascar at a crossroads: breaking the cycle of state capture
• Does state capture facilitate strategic corruption?
• The political economy of open contracting reforms in low- and middle-income countries
• The GI ACE program (with policy-relevant evidence on what works in fighting corruption).

Host:

Professor Dan Banik, 

Centre for Global Sustainability, University of Oslo

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