IDEA, 21 Aug 09: Illicit Political Finance and State Capture
This paper addresses an urgent topic: the use of illicit political finance in a systematic manner to influence or ‘capture’ agencies, local governments, territory or even the entirety of states. The evident result is an undermining of the representative processes and of the state itself. This topic has become particularly urgent of late with an international economic recession that leaves cash-rich, transnational criminal groups with more power than ever before.

Indeed, it could be argued that, while focusing on the issue of terrorism, the democratic international community has given too little attention to the threat posed by transnational organized crime (TOC), which can finance and supply – as well as become – terrorist organizations. The threat posed by TOC may be greater than that posed by terrorism. ‘Without a doubt, the greatest single threat today to global development, democracy and peace is transnational organized crime’, according to Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)....