Captured Societies in Southeast Europe

Networks of Trust and Control

Alena Ledeneva editor Eric Gordy editor Predrag Cveticanin editor

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Central European University Press

Publishing:15th Sep '25

£111.00

This title is due to be published on 15th September, and will be despatched as soon as possible.

Captured Societies in Southeast Europe cover

In Southeast Europe, there is a growing disjunction between “the way the world is” and the world that is described by law. The informal practices that address problems when formal institutions fail can be celebrated as spaces of creative problem-solving, or criticized as spaces for favouritism and corruption. When ruling political parties control informal networks, they consolidate the hold of unaccountable actors on power, moving from state capture to societal capture.
This book presents findings from a collaborative, multidisciplinary research project. Over three years, a group of forty researchers examined informal practices in nine Southeast European states, adopting a mix of qualitative and quantitative methodologies.
This close look at the Balkans illuminates persistent deficits in state legitimacy and capacity. The evidence allows a critical assessment of “Europeanisation” processes that produce only superficial formal changes, and of ways that networks of mutual assistance turn into instruments of social control and closure.

ISBN: 9789633866436

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

216 pages