“Those are the guys who really run the country. Everyone knows they hold the power behind the scenes.”
That kind of explanation fares poorly in Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project’s fact-checking systems, which prioritize hard facts and documentary evidence. And yet it describes a type of corruption that is prevalent across dozens of countries, both democracies and dictatorships.
State capture occurs when private interests seize control of public institutions to serve their own narrow self-interests. As many dictators, oligarchs, and other powerful groups have demonstrated, the most effective way to steal from a nation isn’t to break its laws, but to rewrite them in your favor.
OCCRP is a 20-year-old international network of investigative journalists that specializes in reporting on corruption and organized crime. It’s adept at exposing specific acts of wrongdoing. But can investigative journalists also uncover state capture, despite it being a much more informal and systemic phenomenon?
As chief impact officer at OCCRP, I look for ways to connect our investigative reporting to groups who can press for change. State capture is a growing threat and has been documented in countries as diverse as Bangladesh, Belarus, Hungary, South Africa, and the U.S. So we thought it was important to assess how well our global network was covering this emerging scourge to better serve the public.
Along with my co-author Mariia Mamedbekova, we produced a first-of-its-kind study: “Chronicling Capture: How Investigative Journalism Covers State Capture,” which was published by the University of Sussex’s Centre for the Study of Corruption.
We examined OCCRP reporting from the past few years, and found 50+ investigations that document examples and symptoms of state capture. Spanning 20+ countries, they revealed business magnates altering environmental standards, foreign governments building influence operations abroad, and ruling cabals asserting control over huge swathes of the economy.
These stories, along with interviews with our editors, reveal good and bad news. Starting with the positive: investigative reporting can absolutely deliver valuable information about state capture, including in the earlier stages of capture when countermeasures still stand a chance.
OCCRP stories unpacked the tactics used by ruling families, billionaire businessmen, organized crime groups, and foreign governments to engage in state capture, sometimes working in concert. In Kyrgyzstan, for example, reporters documented how the president revamped the country’s public procurement system, pulling it more directly under his control – a key vector for his consolidation of power and wealth.
Less positive are the huge hurdles faced by those reporting on state capture. First, there exists a formidable gap between the big-picture phenomenon of state capture and the concrete evidence that proves it is happening. Traversing this divide is one of the most difficult practicalities of reporting on capture.
We looked at OCCRP’s editorial process to learn about how this challenge plays out at different stages. OCCRP’s investigative workflow typically begins with a pitch built around exposing specific acts of wrongdoing. Editors evaluate its strength and public interest implications before allocating resources. Because of this bottom-up approach, pitching investigations about high-level concepts like “state capture” is an uphill battle – and some of these stories are never green lit. However, when senior editors agree state capture is occurring in a given context, individual stories concretely illustrating that broader trend stand a better chance of moving forward.
Second, journalists are often the targets and victims of state capture. When OCCRP and its partners reported on powerful business magnates in India and how their influence leads to favorable treatment, the reaction to the reporting was swift. Two Indian journalists faced questions from police and experienced state-backed cyber attacks while OCCRP encountered online harassment, including from ruling party representatives.
To expose state capture, newsrooms need the right playbook. This isn’t quick-hit reporting; it’s a long game of documenting the erosion of democracy. To produce well-evidenced stories, reporters need deep local expertise, insider contacts, and robust security protections. We need familiarity with state capture and its manifestations in order to prioritize documenting its spread. Allies working in anti-corruption and good governance should provide resources for newsrooms to undertake this work and protect themselves from the threats that come with it.
This investment is worth the trouble. State capture’s deep-rooted nature makes it exceptionally harmful and difficult to reverse. However, the reporting analyzed here offers hope: investigative journalists can document state capture and provide information that empowers others to take action.
