When EU Political Convergence Fails in New Member States: Corporate and Party State Capture in Croatia and the Czech Republic

@article{Kotarski2021WhenEP,
  title={When EU Political Convergence Fails in New Member States: Corporate and Party State Capture in Croatia and the Czech Republic},
  author={Kristijan Kotarski and Zdravko Petak},
  journal={Europe-Asia Studies},
  year={2021},
  volume={73},
  pages={740 - 765}
}
Abstract The unifying theme of our study is that democratic backsliding in the post-socialist new EU member states occurs against the backdrop of existing or emerging cases of state capture. Following an extensive overview of corporate and party state capture, we update and develop new empirical indicators for tracing each phenomenon. Our claim is that while both varieties of capture have negative effects on democratic legitimacy, there are striking differences in their modus operandi. In that… 
2 Citations

References

SHOWING 1-10 OF 71 REFERENCES

The Political Economy of State Capture in Central Europe

This article demonstrates that most new EU Member States experience serious problems of state capture. It argues that central European states cluster around two dominant modes of party competition.

Croatia’s Post-communist Transition Experience: The Paradox of Initial Advantage Turning into a Middle-Income Trap

The central puzzle of Croatia’s post-communist transition has been the extent of economic and institutional divergence with new EU member states bound by common historical legacy and imperatives of

Corporate State Capture in Open Societies

Investigations into Central Europe’s emerging party–state relationships—in contrast to those of the former Soviet Union—have focused less on the abuse of public office for private gain and more on

Coming together or drifting apart? The EU’s political integration capacity in Eastern Europe

ABSTRACT This contribution assesses the EU’s external political integration capacity: its ability to promote democracy and governance effectiveness in non-member and new member states. Based on

The State and the Parties

This article focuses on the relationship between political parties and the state. We propose an analytical framework distinguishing between three different dimensions of the party-state linkage: the

Beyond Neoliberalism? Revisiting the Welfare State in the Baltic States

Abstract Scholars of political economy have criticised the Baltic states’ transition to capitalism as socially ‘disembedded’ and shaped by a zealous form of neoliberalism. This article argues that

The cartel party and the state

This article focuses on the nature and strength of the relationship between political parties and the state. Expanding on the analytical framework we developed earlier (van Biezen and Kopecký, 2007),

The Value of Political Connections in the Post-Transition Period: Evidence from the Czech Republic

This paper analyzes a novel data set on all corporate political donations made in a post-transition country, the Czech Republic, between 1995 and 2014. Using these donations as a proxy for political

Draining the Swamp: Understanding the Crisis in Mainstream Politics as a Crisis of the State

This paper examines Poland, Hungary, the UK and the US the most surprising cases of populist reaction. It argues that the social polarization caused by the failures of hyper-liberal reforms to the

Political Economy of Corruption, Clientelism and Vote-Buying in Croatian Local Government

  • Vuk Vukovic
  • Political Science
    Policy-Making at the European Periphery
  • 2018
Local politics in Croatia is no different from any other local political environment throughout the transitional world. The system is riven with endemic corruption, serving simultaneously the
...