The aspect of regionality leads to a final differentiation. For the sake of simplicity and clarity of presentation, we have treated the state as a single unified entity. But it needs to be noted that, while the state has a monopoly of the legitimate use of violence, it can be centralized as well as decentralized. Typically, it is decentralized, meaning the state administration is divided into more parts, most importantly the central government and the local governments. Local governments are sub-sovereign entities that—according liberal democratic theory—should represent regional or local democracy, and allow people to select local leaders who can focus on their specific needs and problems [→ 4.4.1].[1] However, local governments may become corrupt, captured or criminal even when the entirety of the state is not. In such cases, local leaders are illegal-public users of violence who are against the central leaders, who are legal-public users of violence. But they may also enjoy relative autonomy in a setting where law enforcement is weak and/or the ruling elite is not interested in breaking them down. Such situations prevail in patronal democracies like Romania, where so-called “local fiefdoms” (baronni locali) are constructed primarily around local elected leaders, county council presidents and mayors, and the leaders of local institutions.[2]
For the purposes of our framework, we define one specific case, when local-governments become criminal states but they are in informal collusion with the central criminal state, which delegates sovereignty to them. For such local entities, we introduce the term sub-sovereign mafia state:
- Sub-sovereign mafia state is a type of local or regional government which works as a mafia state on the local level. It is part of a larger political entity and, in case that entity is a (nation-level) mafia state, it may prevail only if it its leader is authorized by the chief patron to commit illegal action in his area.
In the following chapters, we are going to explore regional sub-patrons in so-called multi-tier single-pyramids [→ 2.2.2.3] and sub-sovereign mafia states in the context of market-exploiting dictatorships [→ 5.6.2.3]. Indeed, this immediately indicated that such states can exist in polities with normal or strong (not weak or—in terms of its competences—emptied) local governments, including the above-mentioned patronal democracies. Focusing on criminal states now, it is worth recalling an example from Russia—the Komi Republic governed by Vyacheslav Gazier. As Miriam Lanskoy and Dylan Myles-Primakoff write, “Gaizer, […] a prominent national leader of the ruling United Russia Party, was appointed governor by President Dmitriy Medvedev in 2010 and reappointed by Putin in 2014. […] As detailed in opposition activist Ilya Yashin’s report ‘The Criminal Russia Party,’ the operations of Gaizer’s team were essentially indistinguishable from those of a classic mafia group. For years, the ex-governor’s outfit used both violent and political tactics to seize assets and extract bribes from local businesses.”[3] As these activities were well known and reported in the media but received no official response, the Komi represented a clear case of a sub-sovereign mafia state. Indeed, Gazier and his network engaged in authorized illegality with the blessing of the state’s top leaders—and this, according to Lanskoy and Myles-Primakoff, “was more the rule than the exception”[4] [→ 5.3.4.2].
| 2.6. Box: The official description of a mafia state. “The FSB of Russia and the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation stopped the activities of the criminal organization led by the head of the Komi Republic, Vyacheslav Gaizer, his deputy Alexei Chernov, as well as Alexander Zarubin and Valery Veselov. […] On September 18, 2015, the Office for the Investigation of Particularly Important Cases of the Investigative Committee launched criminal proceedings against 19 leaders and members of the criminal organization who committed crimes under articles 210 (racketeering) and 159 (fraud) of the Russian Criminal Code between 2006 and 2015 Federation. […] The purpose of the criminal organization headed by Zarubin, Gaiser, Chernov and Veselov was to seize state property in a criminal way. […] It should be noted that this criminal organization was distinguished by the scale of its activity, expressed in the interregional and international nature of the criminal actions of its participants, the hierarchical structure of the criminal organization, the cohesion and close relationship of the leaders and participants […], the strict subordination of lower members to their superior, [and] the well-developed conspiratory system of protection from law enforcement.” – Vladimir Markin, the official representative of the Investigative Committee of Russia (quoted in “СК Назвал Главу Коми Лидером ОПГ [SK Called the Head of Komi the Leader of a Criminal Organization],” Vzglyad, September 19, 2015, https://vz.ru/society/2015/9/19/767774.html; excerpt translated from Russian) |
Gaizer was eventually arrested on charges of fraud and racketeering with 18 of his associates in 2015.[5] Ironically, if we take a look at the Russian Investigative Committee’s official description of Gazier’s “criminal organization,” it clearly outlines the contours of the mafia state—applicable not only to Komi but other sub-sovereign mafia states, as well as to the central mafia state of Putin himself (see Box 2.6). It was later reported that Putin had known about Gaizer’s planned arrest, whereas experts opined that the reason for the breakdown was the decrease of distributable rents in the declining economy [→ 7.4.6], in addition to the signaling effect of creating fear and discipline among other members of the adopted political family.[6] Indeed, the Komi case demonstrated two important aspects of sub-sovereign mafia states: (1) while the chief patron can grant autonomy and protection (krysha [→ 3.6.3.1]), this situation is conditional and the chief patron has the power to take his support back; (2) the chief patron shall not intervene in the everyday business of sub-sovereign mafia states but only in the appointment and removal of top patrons and their local court [→ 7.4.3.1]. Relying on a law enforcement that is politically selective upon his informal orders [→ 4.3.5], the chief patron can crack down on sub-sovereign mafia states under extraordinary circumstances, although he may guarantee considerable (conditional) freedom under normal times—just like in case of Gazier, who was Komi’s minister of finance in 2003-2010 and president in 2010-2015.
[1] Loughlin, Hendriks, and Lidström, “Subnational Democracy in Europe.”
[2] Magyari, “The Romanian Patronal System of Public Corruption,” 291.
[3] Lanskoy and Myles-Primakoff, “Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia,” 78. Also, see Yashin, “Criminal Russia Party.”
[4] Lanskoy and Myles-Primakoff, “Power and Plunder in Putin’s Russia,” 79.
[5] “СК Назвал Главу Коми Лидером ОПГ [SK Called the Head of Komi the Leader of a Criminal Organization].”
[6] “Гайзергейт [Gaizergate].”