Macro-crime and the rule of law
A major challenge of corporate capture is how private interests capture State security organizations and resources, as well as the presence of organized crime and illicit interests in the supply-demand continuum of capture.
Organized crime and illicit interests present a methodological challenge for purists, mostly because the idea of non-corporate private interests seems to fall outside the scope of the definition; however, not only should they be included, but they are in fact commonplace actors in the supply-demand pipeline in both the Global North and South.
The inclusion of illicit private interests along the supply-demand continuum of the corporate capture of the State does not exclude organized crime, corrupt actors, etc. from liability and responsibility for more typically understood acts of crime.
In Mexico, Empower conducts considerable research on how the illicit financial flows of macro-crime — for example, through shell companies in fiscal paradises fronting as legitimate corporations — act as both the subject (corporation), means (bribery), and object (a corrupt State actor) of capture. Regarding the crisis of forced disappearances and other grave crimes in northern Mexico, we wrote: “[This] study is a first approach to the phenomenon of violence and grave crimes that were committed in [Coahuila], both by State and non-State actors, from an analysis of illicit flows and State capture, a modality of corruption whereby the private power establishes institutional arrangements with the public power to impose its interests over the needs and rights of others. The level of impunity experienced in the state and in the country cannot be understood without analyzing the power structures in [Coahuila], as well as the complexity represented by the network of interactions between political, economic, and criminal actors. Faced with a framework of insecurity and privatization of violence, an intricate system of relationships of political and economic actors is identified that use violence (legitimate/illegitimate, legal/illegal) to sustain or reverse power structures. These networks of actors are linked at the global, national, and subnational levels, and are ultimately reflected in territories at the local level.”
Similarly to Mexico where often the object of capture are precisely the judicial and public security forces charged with enforcing the rule of law and prosecuting crime,South Africa’sexperience investigating State capture and holding corrupt actors accountable ran into a wall, namely deeply entrenched criminality.
A report by Open Secrets (South Africa) states that: “When it comes to a framework for regulation of the private sector in South Africa, it is not a lack of institutions or legislation that is a problem. Rather, the problem lies in both a lack of political will and the capacity in those institutions necessary to aggressively pursue accountability. This is particularly undermined by turmoil in some of the most important public crime-fighting institutions, such as the police and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA). (…) The challenges faced by many of these institutions are deeply linked to criminal networks from South Africa’s past and present that have interfered to weaken their capacity to investigate and prosecute economic crimes.”
In Colombia,one of the main challenges of State capture is “extrahección,” or “the inherent violence in the establishment of extractive complexes”, as defined by the Heinrich Böll Foundation (Colombia). This involves a convergence of armed actors who have responded to strategic interests associated with the capture and control of extractive rents, both legal and illegal, along with a complex process of capital accumulation through the structural dispossession of peoples, communities, and territories of extractive interest. This facilitates the interaction between public officials, rent-seeking agents, and criminal actors in processes of systematic corruption.