The Global Programme for Measuring Corruption ('GPMC') recently held a 'think-in' in Vienna, to examine how we measure state capture.
State capture is a systematic type of corruption with the potential to transform the state or parts of it by shaping the rules of the game to benefit vested interests.
However, existing measures of corruption are inadequate to discern the prevalence of state capture from that of petty forms of corruption, suggesting that a change of course is needed if the aim is to produce appropriate policy responses to the phenomenon.
State capture may also have particularly long term and harmful consequences, so measuring it is important to ascertain its costs, as well as to assess trends and the effectiveness of remedial actions.
So the GPMC assembled a team of practitioners and academics to debate and discuss the topic over three days in Vienna, in May 2023.
In this podcast, the co-organisers of the 'think-in' Liz David-Barrett and Daniel Kaufmann reflect on what they learnt from the event, and how it could affect future work in the field.
The podcast is a companion piece to the GMPC insights brief, written after the event, which explains why a targeted shift to state capture measurement is useful, takes stock of various approaches to the topic, and analyses their promise and pitfalls. Further, it outlines a diversity of indicators and data sources that can be harnessed to measure state capture at the country level and sets out some questions for future research.
Link to Daniel Kaufmann and Joel Hellman’s original 2000 paper on state capture: "Seize the State, Seize the Day" : State Capture, Corruption, and Influence in Transition
Link to Liz David-Barrett's paper on state capture from March 2023 entitled: State capture and development: a conceptual framework
Link to a Sussex University blog post about the above paper.
Link to Daniel Kaufmann bio (from the Brookings Institute site)
If you want to find out more about the Global Programme for Measuring Corruption:
Liz is Head of the Global Programme for Measuring Corruption at the International Anti-Corruption Academy. She has been researching corruption for more than 20 years and was previously Director of the Centre for the Study of Corruption at the University of Sussex, UK. Always aiming to bridge gaps between research and practice, she has engaged widely with practitioners (e.g. by authoring reports for Transparency International, advising governments on anti-corruption strategies, and supporting the private sector on business integrity).
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