British neoliberalism was taken up by democratic parties in an open society, so this chapter explores what, if any, lessons about its political consequences can be drawn from the political evolution of the Soviet Union. Political parties in Western Europe by the 1970s were struggling to keep pace with the changing social needs and preferences of their electorates when neoliberalism emerged. This social dis-embedding of parties would only worsen in the UK, however, when neoclassical economic diagnoses became the bipartisan methodology, and electoral choices around economic strategies were duly narrowed. The chapter traces how, as the tide of neoliberal developmental failures has risen, the Conservative Party embraced the same political strategies as late Soviet regimes. The ‘combat task’ rhetoric of economic change was replaced with the charismatic politics of nationalism, and governments increasingly resorted to demonstrable lies and invented realities to deflect from the real effects of policy and after 2016, its most utopian expression: Brexit. The chapter also reviews the rise of political corruption under neoliberalism, another Soviet affinity, as ideology morphs into alibi.

This chapter uncovers efforts made by village and rural cadres in the immediate post-Mao era to reverse wrongful convictions adjudicated during the Socialist Education Movement (SEM). Drawing on previously unexamined materials, including the personal dossiers of rural cadres in eastern Hebei, it traces the decision-making and policy processes behind how ordinary individuals reexamined cases involving two types of alleged wrongdoings perpetuated by cadres: corruption and extramarital relationships. The chapter highlights the two processes that constituted the reexamination: (1) the implementation of limited transitional justice as the rebuilding of political-legal institutions through the formal mechanisms of the state; and (2) the informal, social processes of interpersonal reconciliation outside the purview of the state. Both dynamics contributed to helping locals come to terms with the complicated legacies of the SEM.

The chapter is devoted to the economic, political, and social crisis of the early 1990s: a shock with long-lasting consequences. The crisis catalyzed the weaknesses of the previous political, social and economic fabric. The economic crisis had several components: a public finance crisis, an exchange rate collapse, and a fall in private investment. But the longer-lasting impact of the crisis came from the corruption scandals leading the judiciary to decapitate the main political parties that had run the country since 1945, as well as most of the industrial powerhouses. At a time when bold decisions were swiftly needed to adjust to the new economic and geopolitical landscape, the early 1990s left a legacy of political fragmentation and financial uncertainty.

Part III applies the suggested analytical framework at the micro level by delving deep into China’s corporate and capital market development puzzle. It uses the explanatory power of law and political economy to bring more clarity to China’s evolving approach to corporate governance. The purpose is to better understand the role played by formal law in governing Chinese public firms and ultimately in China’s capital market growth and to unpack the political–economic determinants that drove its evolution. The chapters in this part of the book pay particular attention to the creation and efficacy of corporate governance institutions, both traditional and idiosyncratic, that operate in the Chinese market.

This part of the book finds that law and political economy dynamics have produced operational results. They have mobilized market participants (both economic and political) to design and deploy various growth-promoting mechanisms within firms and in the market at large. The analysis shows how such mechanisms at times triggered, supported, boosted, or replaced more conventional corporate governance institutions in ways that eventually marched the market forward.

A subset of youth respondents in the study express how disappointment, frustration, and anger color everyday citizenship. They report how unmet promises, corruption, repression, and exclusive politics undermine their sense of citizen belonging and amplify tensions with elders. Such frustration may lead youth to contest citizenship in alternative ways, though most do not choose these paths. A small number exit, as indicated in Afrobarometer data and by our respondents. Some actively contest citizenship through the exclusion of others along ethnic or religious lines – patterns manifest among Ghanaian and Ugandan respondents and evident in survey data. Although some could choose to follow leaders who claim to speak for the people, comparisons of youth support for such populism in Tanzania and Uganda, on the one hand, with their support for the Economic Freedom Fighters in South Africa, on the other, provide inconclusive evidence that youth embrace illiberal populism. A subset channels anger into local and national mobilization, illustrating youth citizens as agents.

Summary: Policies targeted at disciplining moneylenders was one approach to dealing with the problem of limited supply and high prices; the other was establishing alternative sources of affordable credit. Following rounds of discussion among colonial officials in the late nineteenth century on the type of credit supplier most suited to cater to demand in rural India, the government embarked on an ambitious project to transplant credit cooperatives as designed in Europe to Indian villages in 1904. The chapter explores the phase of transplant and how the cooperative enterprise in India differed from the European model. It examines how cooperatives performed, evaluates profit and loss statements and analyses whether expansion in the number of cooperatives led to inclusive development. The chapter finds negative outcomes in each measure. Prevailing political objectives prioritizing equity over efficiency led to a cooperative structure operating with low savings and weak regulation. The regulatory problem ultimately led to the exclusion of poorer peasants from accessing credit and overleveraged cooperative banks. Injections of public money into rural cooperatives embedded moral hazard in the sector. These problems became more severe in the 1940s and 1950s.

Every Islamic waqf that adhered to its deed eventually became dysfunctional because of unanticipated changes in conditions. But not all waqfs were managed rigidly. Relaxed legal interpretations enabled waqf caretakers to depart, albeit within limits, from the founder’s instructions. But courts had the final say on whether a caretaker was complying with the deed and, insofar as he was not, whether his exceptions were justified. A judge could rule that the founder, were he alive, would have authorized certain changes that the deed did not explicitly allow. Alternatively, he could treat them as incompatible with the waqf’s spirit. He was thus the arbiter of what resource reallocations were legal. Unsurprisingly, this judicial privilege was abused. Judges commonly withheld permission for a managerial or financial adjustment until they were bribed. So central was the waqf to the region’s premodern economy that efforts to transgress its rules promoted a culture of corruption. Our primary interest here lies in the political consequences. In societies with rampant corruption, individuals tend to solve their problems with the state through bribery and reciprocal favors. They find personal solutions easier than trying to form coalitions with others facing similar challenges. Civil society suffers.

Corruption in the Middle East and North Africa is both widely prevalent and a puzzle because it is so resistant to reform. This book will engage with democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia to better understand why these countries saw so little change in terms of cronyist relations between businesses and the state.

This chapter concludes with thoughts about how democratic activists might be able to remove crony capitalism from institutions. The chapter argues that transparency about the depth of corruption is a necessary first step, especially in terms of understanding who controls rents in the regime. Only when these networks of influence are mapped can democratic accountability start to lead to lasting change.

This chapter puts forward a theory to explain how businesses engage in politics following democratic transitions in countries with significant issues with corruption. The most important variable is the centralization of the networks of brokers who supply companies with needed government privileges. If these rent networks are narrow, then businesspeople must work through a single gatekeeper. If they are broad, then business can engage with multiple brokers and obtain rent more easily.

South Korea’s past offers an example of an authoritarian context in which police roles proliferated. Besides maintaining order, police officers in Seoul were deployed for all sorts of purposes. Police were positioned as representatives of a state that had, in the 1960s and 1970s, ambitious plans for remaking society. Seoul’s large underclass posed, in the visions of City Hall and the central government, challenges to those plans. The policing of vagrancy in this period serves as a window onto the interface between state and society. Despite impressive coercive resources, police struggled to impose the state’s demands in managing the streets of Seoul. Instead, they made compromises. In order to attend to their many tasks, police relied on delegates with no formal authority and on irregular procedures. These observations point to a situation of unrestrained power that was also, effectively, limited.

This chapter seeks to understand why hustling is such a prevalent theme in post-apartheid cultural production. It traces what Raymond Williams calls ‘structures of feeling’ – here, aspiration and frustration – back to the dissonant political economic vision of the ANC. As entry into the middle classes is repeatedly impeded for the poor by lack of structural change, so hustling becomes an ever more enticing mode of self-fashioning. But hustling can also be identified at the other end of the class spectrum, where white and black businessmen alike engage in nefarious practices in the pursuit of riches. Here I examine the stranger-than-fiction examples of Brett Kebble and Joe Modise. I connect the insights of novelists Niq Mhlongo and Carel van der Merwe to the findings of the Zondo Commission of Inquiry into state capture, which exposes the many ways in which corruption and fraud took place during Jacob Zuma’s presidency.

By the time of his indictment for corruption in 2003, former second republican president Frederick Chiluba was already well known as a great dresser. Examining his ostentatious dress practice, the focus turns to the dressed body as a screen for corruption and deceit, exploring when excess considered to be ‘too much’ and why. In his dress style, Chiluba, who presented himself in double-breasted suits and handmade shoes to embody a new era of economic liberalism, provided instant relief from the drabness and austerity of Kaunda’s plain safari suits. When in 2005 several metal trunks and suitcases were discovered in a warehouse in Lusaka, revelations about the former president’s stunning wardrobe attracted sensationalist attention internationally. The revelations were a turning point on which Chiluba’s fondness for spectacular dress morphed into his stored wardrobe and in turn became emblematic of corruption.