Applebaum: In fact, "state capture" is the term that political scientists use to describe this, and I watched it happen in Poland between 2015 and last year. An autocratic, populist party won a legitimate election but then began to act like they owned everything. They fired civil servants. They replaced them with people's friends and party loyalists. They allegedly arranged for state institutions to give money to foundations, which eventually wound up enriching party members or else funding their election campaigns-that's being investigated right now.
Pomerantsev: So you have all these institutions, which in a democracy are meant to serve you, the people, but in an authoritarian regime, they are, well-they're captured.
Pomerantsev: Anne, one of the main features that I experienced when I lived under authoritarian regimes is this sense that the institutions of the state, the police, the tax services, the bureaucracy-they're essentially these dangerous animals that are not working for you but working in the interests of the powerful.
Collection
[
|
...
]