State Capture and Usurpation of Power in a Democratic Society

Abstract

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the emergence of democratic state institutions, the development of civil society, and the establishment of independent media. Until the late 1990s, political scientists most often published articles about the new wave of democratisation, without paying due attention to other processes hidden from the general public, related to the penetration of unscrupulous politicians, representatives of the secret services, and organised crime into power structures. As a result, there was an unfair redistribution of wealth, power, and control over human and financial resources. Using democracy as a tool, certain groups of people effectively seized state power in the states that emerged from the Soviet Union's ruins. Today, researchers call them criminal states, mafia states (or mafiocracies), gangster states, terrorist states, or fascist dictatorships. All of them are considered to be captured by groups of people who, hiding behind democratic rhetoric and utilising various technologies of power usurpation, seek to enrich themselves and ensure personal security at the expense of their nations. Transparency International defines state capture as "a situation where powerful individuals, institutions, companies or groups inside or outside a country use corruption to shape the politics, legal environment and economy of a country for their own personal gain." State capture is considered here as a severe form of corruption that can cause long-term damage to a country striving for democratic development. Liz David-Barrett also argues that state capture is a form of systematic corruption. However, state capture, as a term, can extend beyond a form of corruption if it is considered a form of hybrid warfare unleashed by a foreign state. Usurpers of power fear the consolidation of the political opposition and civil society within the country, so they use control over the state to split the opposition, weaken civil movements, discredit non-governmental organisations, and deprive the media of funding. Authoritarian or totalitarian control over the state and civil society is the logical conclusion of state seizure and usurpation of power. The problem of state seizure is not a purely national issue. The usurpation of power inevitably requires the artificial polarisation of society into supporters and opponents of the regime, the search for internal and external enemies - agents (or agents of foreign influence) within the national state, and a global war party outside it. This not only discredits civil society at the national level but also lays the groundwork for the ideological justification that only the ruling party, an informal group of individuals, and their leader are the true defenders of state sovereignty. They position themselves as fighters for peace and defenders of their nation from the encroachments of destructive external forces. In some instances, the issue of seizing power is linked to a hybrid war by a neighbouring state. The agents in this case may have enormous financial resources, engage in extensive patronage activities for many years, penetrate local society, build social capital, acquire influence, and, at the right moment, initiate political activity to win democratic elections. Methods such as populism, demagogy, and false election promises are integral components of hybrid warfare during election campaigns. Once the state power is captured through patronage and parasitism on democratic values, the agents begin a gradual usurpation of this power, consistently dismantling democracy and carrying out the instructions of the neighbouring state and its special services. The consolidation and active engagement of democratic forces, as well as the combination of soft and hard power at the national and international levels, are the only alternatives to the seizure of state power and the usurpation of authority, capable of leading to victory in the confrontation with the advancing dictatorship.