April 3, 2014
Presentation at the Midwest Political Science Association 72nd Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA, 3 April 2014.
State capture and corruption are widespread phenomena in transition economies such as Hungary. This paper has a two-fold goal: first, to demonstrate how a novel analytical framework for gauging state capture works using the example of Hungary during 2009-2012; second, to systematically analyse how captor group organisation influences the structure and methods of state capture. To address these two objectives, it first establishes a robust measure of corruption risk in public procurement transactions, focusing on binary relationships between issuers and suppliers. Second, it constructs a contractual network of organisations to analyse the distribution of corruption risks. Third, it systematically examines how changes in the composition of the governing elite affect the network structure of rent extraction in public procurement. Findings indicate that high-corruption-risk actors cluster together across two electoral cycles, suggesting partial capture of the Hungarian state by elite groups. The increasingly central position of high-corruption-risk subgroups in 2011-2012, compared to 2009-2010, coincides with a more centralised governing party coming into office. Within the governing elite composition, thus, appears to be a powerful force shaping the structure of rent extraction, with wide-ranging ramifications for anti-corruption efforts, budget deficits, market competition, and democratic contestation.
The presentation: (PDF)
Suggested citation:
Fazekas, M., & Tóth, I. J. (2014, April 3). In Respectable Society: On How Elite Configuration Influences Patterns of State Capture in Hungary [Conference Presentation]. The Midwest Political Science Association 72nd Annual Conference, Chicago, Illinois, USA. http://www.crcb.eu/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Fazekas_Toth_MPSA_140403_1111.pdf