Kompromat: A theory of blackmail as a system of governance

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Choy, James P.
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF DEVELOPMENT ECONOMICS
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0304-3878
• DOI: 10.1016/j.jdeveco.2020.102535
• 发表日期: 2020
• 关键词: law enforcement; CORRUPTION; Kleptocracy; Blackmail; state capacity; Retribution

摘要

Kompromat - widespread criminality combined with systematic blackmail - plays an important role in the governance of many non-democratic states. I model this phenomenon. Citizens have a preference for retribution, that is, for inflicting costly punishments on criminals. The state can manipulate this preference for its own benefit by tolerating crime while collecting evidence of crimes to use for blackmail. High levels of crime coexist with large expenditures on police. The rich but not the poor are allowed to commit crimes, increasing inequality. Kompromat regimes appear in states with low fiscal capacity and either very low or very high police capacity. When police capacity is high, investments in fiscal capacity and police capacity can be substitutes. States with initially similar capacities can diverge over time, and states that enter the kompromat regime can become stuck there. The possibility of kompromat qualifies previous claims that evolved retributive preferences increase material welfare.