Captured states and/or captured societies in the Western Balkans

ABSTRACT

This article proposes the new concept of societal capture for analyzing informal practices implemented by political elites in Western Balkan societies. In contrast to the notion of state capture, which refers to a mechanism of exploitation of state and public resources by political and economic elites, the concept of societal capture denotes a mechanism of domination of political elites over civil society actors (citizens, trade unions, NGOs, religious institutions), and economic actors (private companies and private media), aiming to perpetuate their political rule. The article describes and illustrates three core mechanisms of societal capture and points out that notions of state capture and societal capture refer to different types of informal practices in terms of their aims, preconditions for functioning, mechanisms used, outcomes, levels of secrecy, and their social effects.

KEYWORDS:

• State capture
• societal capture
• informal practices
• political elites
• Western Balkans

Acknowledgements

The first version of this article was presented at the “Conflicts. Stability. Democracy” conference held at the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade on September 28-29, 2019. Later versions have been read by Borjan Gjuzelov, Eric Gordy, Alena Ledeneva, Nenad Markovikj, Dušan Pavlović, Miša Popovikj, Dragan Stanojević, and Nebojša Vladisavljević. We are grateful to all of them for their useful suggestions and comments. We would also like to express our gratitude to Paul Stubbs and Eric Gordy for their skilful editing and proofreading. And finally, we would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who helped us make improvements to the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia.

2. We obtained the most information from former local politicians who were prepared, several years after leaving office, to discuss in detail the informal practices they themselves used and to compare them against the conduct of the current administration. However, bearing in mind their potential ulterior motives, we took such information with a grain of salt.

3. Abbreviation for ‘Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization – Democratic Party for Macedonian National Unity’.

4. Practices of ‘capturing’ public media involve, on the one hand, appointing party members as executives (managers and editors) and employing journalists based on their party affiliation. On the other hand, they involve being awarded a part of the resources from the state budget proportional to the extent to which one bows to the demands of the ruling political elite (for Serbia, see Barać 2011; for North Macedonia, see Apostolov 2020). The ‘capturing’ of privately-owned media, on the other hand, consists of making them dependent on advertising agencies for sponsorships – agencies that are, in fact, the extended arm of incumbent political parties. Likewise, the allocation of budgetary funds in ‘open’ calls depends on one’s links to political parties from the coalition in power. Those media that are party-owned (even if nominally owned by someone else) or that collaborate closely with the ruling political parties receive the most sponsorship deals and ‘open’ call funds. On the other hand, independent media that dare to criticize those in power, especially those from smaller towns, are ruthlessly destroyed through the use of various mechanisms at the disposal of the (captured) state (for Serbia, see Milićević 2015; for North Macedonia, see Apostolov 2020). The capture of trade unions, NGOs, and the church takes a somewhat different form. In the case of trade unions, the capture mechanism is implemented through granting or denying them the status of representative unions, the approval or denial of concessions regarding the demands of the union membership base, as well as through facilitating the accumulation of wealth by union executives (for Serbia, see Janković 2016; for North Macedonia, see Taleska 2017). In the case of NGOs, capture consists of the accessibility/non-accessibility of budgetary funds and grants in competitions, as well as employing NGO activists in state institutions (for Serbia, see Živadinović 2008; for North Macedonia, see Jordanovska 2013). In the case of churches, capture consists of the consideration, or lack thereof, of the issue of the restitution of church property confiscated by the communist government following WWII, church tax exemption, and enormous donations from the state to the church (for Serbia, see Beta 2020). Churches then return these favours through support for ruling political parties, particularly when disputed international issues are concerned (for North Macedonia, see 360 stepeni 2016; Jovanovska 2020). Having given a brief overview of the capture mechanisms of other societal actors, we now move to the main focus of this article, the capture of citizens and companies.

5. The unemployment rate in North Macedonia in 2017 (i.e., at the end of the period of the VMNRO-DPMNE government) was 22.38%. In 2020, it was still high at 18.4% (https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/MKD/north-macedonia/unemployment-rate). In Serbia in 2012 the unemployment rate was as high as 24%, and in 2020 it was reduced to 9.08%.

(https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SRB/serbia/unemployment-rate).

6. Even the foreign companies coming to Serbia are included in this system of employing party members. This can be seen as a counter-favour for the huge benefits they receive when they come to Serbia to do business. Specifically, not only do these foreign companies receive a free-of-charge ground area to build their plants and the complete infrastructure, but they also receive a subvention for each individual employee of 10,000 euros. From 2014 to 2016 the state of Serbia paid out approximately 160 million euros in the name of subventions to foreign companies, while the overall investment of these investors was approximately 490 million euros. (see: https://www.istinomer.rs/izjava/nismo-davali-10-000-evra-po-radnom-mestu/).

7. According to our respondents in Serbia, you can buy from 4 to 5% of the votes.

8. Trade votes are mostly Roma votes. They vote in exchange for material goods (flour, oil, meat, and so on).

9. As a rule, this is a consequence of the inability of the previous regime to retain control over the captured citizens, companies and other ‘captured’ actors – most often since their numbers swell over time, eventually resulting in insufficient resources available to meet their demands.

10. Out of the 132,126 voters in that city who turned out to vote in that election – according to the report of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia [Republički zavod za statistiku Srbije, 2009].

11. This used to be the case with banks, while there were still state-owned banks. Some of them were plunged into bankruptcy (like Agrobanka, Razvojna banka Vojvodine, Privredna banka Beograd and Univerzal banka) (see Milošević 2019).

12. A recent empirical study by Bartlett (2021), conducted on data from South East Europe, found that, in general, political connections tend to undermine the business performance of companies. This effect is found to be statistically significant in the Western Balkan region, but not in the EU members from the broader South East Europe region.

13. The ‘Wiretapping Affair’ refers to a major political scandal uncovered in 2015 by the then-opposition SDSM (Social Democratic Union of Macedonia), which publicly presented evidence of mass illegal wiretapping and surveillance of politicians, journalists, civil society activists and business people, conducted by the then-ruling VMRO-DPMNE. The disclosed wiretaps also showed many VMRO-DPMNE officials abusing their official positions and engaging in corruptive deeds, electoral fraud, and intimidation towards business people, voters and public employees.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the European Commission Horizon 2020 [Grant No 693537].

Notes on contributors

Predrag Cvetičanin

Predrag Cvetičanin is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Arts, University of Niš, Serbia. He is also director of the Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe. He teaches Sociology of Culture and the Arts at the Faculty of Arts, University of Niš, and Cultural Policy and Cultural Rights at the UNESCO Chair at the University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia. His research interests are related to the emerging class structure in societies of South-East Europe, informal practices and informal institutions and the relationship between social and cultural stratification in the SEE. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1597-7469

Jovan Bliznakovski

Jovan Bliznakovski is an Assistant Professor of political science at the Institute for Sociological, Political and Juridical Research, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje (ISPJR-UKIM). He holds a PhD from the University of Milan and MSc from the University of Ljubljana. Bliznakovski’s research mainly focuses on political mobilization and voter behaviour in the Western Balkans and he has authored and co-authored studies on political clientelism and informal high-level politics in the region, identity politics and language policy in North Macedonia. In 2020, Bliznakovski co-edited the volume We Against the Others: Symbolic Divisions in North Macedonia (Skopje: CINIK), and in 2021 a collection of conference papers Political Clientelism in the Western Balkans (Skopje: ISPJR-UKIM). Between 2014 and 2016, Bliznakovski served as program director of the Skopje-based think-tank, the Institute for Democracy “Societas Civilis” (IDSCS).

Nemanja Krstić

Nemanja Krstić is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Philosophy, University of Niš, Serbia. He is also a researcher at the Centre for Empirical Cultural Studies of South-East Europe. He specializes in cultural studies, in particular studies of cultural identities (including deviant identities), sym- bolic boundaries, family practices and religiosity. He has participated in numerous international and national research projects. Currently he is participating in two international projects: as a researcher in “European Inventory of Societal Values of Culture as a Basis for Inclusive Cultural Policies in the Globalizing World” (Horizon 2020, No, 870691), and as a field director in the European Social Survey in Serbia. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5641-964X