Kleptocracy

Kleptocracy or simply privatization is when a ruler who uses political power to steal his or her country's resources for his own gains. This primarily happened and happens in country with a weak government that can be corrupted.  This has most prominently happened in Russia over the Putin administration and during the cold war with the USSR or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

How does kleptocracy or privatization work? This is simple, a leader or leaders of a country just need to create laws or buy businesses, thus putting it into the control of the government. The leader then sells these businesses to his friends who pay a small price compared to what they are gaining. Theses friends or oligarchs then pay the leader for giving them the opportunity to buy the businesses at an extremal.

There are some requirements for a kleptocracy to take place. There needs to be a high level of corruption already, like, bribery, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, patronage, influence peddling, privatization of land or firms, harassment, gifts, and embezzlement. Once this type of corruption is in place the country's legal system then falls apart. This was shown throughout the history of the USSR as well as today's Russia. Once this takes place it makes it really easy for a government or a ruler to start to take business and profit off of his position in office, due to the lack of the rule of law.

This makes the government officials rich as well as their friends, by using laws to change ownership of businesses within a country. This creates a system that lets the top 10 percent of Russians own 89 percent of total household wealth and the remaining 90 percent to own 11 percent of the total wealth. This creates a failing country where it becomes difficult for people to live.

To end kleptocracy or privatization is a difficult task. In order to have kleptocracy a country need deep rooted corruption to create the environment for corruption. This would have to be up rooted from the government, by changing the entire government until the government can start to create a rule of law then the threat of kleptocracy can be completed.

References

Fein, E. (2017). Cognition, cultural practices, and the working of political institutions: An adult developmental perspective on corruption in Russian history. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 22(2), 279-297. doi:10.1037/bdb0000034

Markus, S. (2017). Oligarchs and Corruption in Putin's Russia: Of Sand Castles and Geopolitical Volunteering. Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, 18(2), 26-32.

Guriev, S. (2016). Russia’s Constrained Economy. Foreign Affairs, 95(3), 18.

Willerton, J. P. (1992). Patronage and politics in the USSR. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.