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.

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