Research framework and broader academic knowledge base
Serbia: documented application of the same framework
How are state-owned companies, public procurement, and subsidies used for political control?
Government companies, public procurements and subsidies give the authorities great control over the business, money and survival of private enterprises. Management sites can be distributed to politically reliable people, contracts directed to related companies, and subsidies to give to the communities or investors who support the government.
The winners then finance campaigns, provide media support, hire activists or remain silent so as not to lose their next job. Thus, public money becomes the fuel of a political organization. State ownership or subsidy is not in itself an abuse and can serve a legitimate development policy. The problem is seen when the criteria are not clear, the decisions are not public, the same network repeatedly receives benefits, there is a conflict of interest and independent control cannot check the price and result.
State firm or subsidy is not an abuse in itself. The problem shows repeated political advantage, conflict of interest or violation of public criteria.
Works supporting this answer, with their evidence type and an explanation of how they relate to the claim.
comparing several countries or cases
Carothers, C. (2022), „Taking Authoritarian Anti-Corruption Reform Seriously“, Perspectives on Politics 20(1): 69–85.
- Contribution to this answer
- Carothers shows that the question is not just whether the state “tolerates corruption”, but who controls the allocation of resources and the implementation of rules. Authoritarian anti-corruption can even reduce some of the abuses, but at the same time concentrate even more discretion in the hands of the political leadership.
comparing several countries or cases
Carothers, C. (2023), „The Autocrat’s Corruption Dilemma“, Government and Opposition 58(1): 22–38.
Carothers, C. (2023), "The Autocrat's Corruption Dilemma", Government and Opposition 58(1): 22–38.
- Contribution to this answer
- Shows why access to money, privileges and rents can be an effective way to bind political allies to the regime: he who owes his position and wealth to the authorities has a lot to lose if the system changes. But it is precisely too much corruption that can turn this advantage into a political problem.
Explain how the system works
Greene, K. F. (2007), Why Dominant Parties Lose, Cambridge University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Greene at the Mexican PRI shows how control of the state gives the ruling party an advantage that the opposition can hardly compensate for: public money, jobs and state institutions can feed the party organization for years, so the political game starts with very unequal resources.
Explain how the system works
Stokes, S. C., Dunning, T., Nazareno, M. i Brusco, V. (2013), Brokers, Voters, and Clientelism, Cambridge University Press.
- Contribution to this answer
- Stokes and the co-authors show the micro-mechanism of such allocation: the resource gets a political function only when one can decide who to belong to and associate that decision with the expected political support. State business or subsidy are therefore not in itself clientelism the condition under which they are given is important.
review more research
Dahlström, C. i Lapuente, V. (2022), „Comparative Bureaucratic Politics“, Annual Review of Political Science 25: 43–63.
- Contribution to this answer
- Dahlstrm and Lapuente show why the way of employment and advancement in the state apparatus changes political control over resources: when professional autonomy weakens, politicians gain more space to tie administrative decisions and careers to political interests.
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