Introduction: a symposium on the predatory state

Abstract

Economists have adopted two broad perspectives on the state: contractual (i.e., provider of public goods and services) and predatory (coercive and extractive). By a predatory state, we mean a state that promotes the private interests of dominant groups within the state (such as politicians, the army and bureaucrats) or influential private groups with strong lobbying powers. Neo-institutional economists support an extended version of the contractual perspective in which the state is not simply a 'benevolent dictator' but may itself be composed of predators. However, it considers predation as only a means to promote protection. By contrast, a predatory vision of the state argues that while protection and predation are two faces of the same coin, a predatory state protects only to promote its predation on the private sector. This symposium explores how a predatory approach to the state can shed light on all types of state, from liberal democratic to authoritarian and failed ones, both in the past and present.

Capture and passive predation in times of COVID-19 pandemic

“…As “concentrated interests” or “special interests”, these groups may enjoy anti-competitive market positions and benefit from rents (Krueger, 1976 ; Tullock, 1967 ), 9 thanks to a redistribution from the mass to themselves. Ultimately, a link is made between rent-seeking, capture and predation: the regulatory state, seized by rent-seeking interest groups, becomes a predatory state taking actions detrimental to the public interest (Holcombe, 2018 ; Vahabi, 2020 ).…”

“… 2 A predatory state is “a state that would specify a set of property rights that maximized the revenue of the group in power, regardless of its impact on the wealth of the society as a whole” (North, 1981 , p. 22, cited by Vahabi, 2016 , 2020 ). …”

Economic elites and the constitutional design of sharing political power

“…Such a scenario (of unchecked political power) represents a severe threat to economic elites as any other group can potentially transform the state into a predatory vehicle and extract wealth from groups that currently do not have control of governmental institutions, or simply make policy decisions that severely damage others' economic interests (cf. Vahabi, 2020).…”

How Predatory Informal Rules Outlast State Reform: Evidence from Postauthoritarian Guatemala

“…This article focuses on a specific subset of these particularistic schemes, which it terms predatory informal rules. Drawing on scholarly efforts to conceptualize predatory states, it defines predatory informal rules as those “that promote the private interests of the dominant groups inside the state (such as politicians, the army, and bureaucrats) and/or influential private groups with effective lobbying” (Vahabi 2020, 2). 1 Such rules structure forms of state-based extraction “at the expense of society, undercutting development” (Evans 1995, 12).…”