Reforming Kleptocracy through Shock Therapy: A Social Harm Assessment

I. Scientific Excellence
Kleptocracy is a term coined to depict regimes where organs of state power have been captured in order to loot assets, fix market activity, and swindle revenues. To counter kleptocracy, neoliberal reforms have been promoted bilaterally and multilaterally.

Research conducted at Ulster University strongly indicates that kleptocracy cumulatively generates a series of macro social effects, that in fact are similar in character to those generated licitly through neoliberal regimes of governance.

This discovery has prompted a range of new research questions on the relationship between kleptocracy, neoliberalism, and social welfare. The follow doctoral study will engineer a pioneering methodological and analytical scaffolding in order to explore this trilateral relationship, employing a multiple case study approach.

II. Aim/Hypothesis
Case studies will be selected where kleptocracies have experienced neoliberal ‘shock therapy’. Three non-exclusive hypotheses on the impact of shock therapy will be tested:

1. Social networks organising and reproducing kleptocracy transition into legitimate spheres, where they can achieve the same economic ends without the risk of stigmatisation.
2. Social networks organising and reproducing kleptocracy continue alongside a new set of actors who accumulate through opportunities opened up by neoliberal government, creating a bifurcated political economy.
3. Social networks organising and reproducing kleptocracy colonise the spheres of activity opened up by shock therapy creating a worst of both worlds scenarios.

The outcomes of shock therapy on kleptocracy for citizen welfare will be measures using a social harm lens.

III. Methodology

2-3 case studies will be selected employing purposive sampling. Intra-case analysis will be conducted through a three step approach:

1. Measures will be developed to map the scope and defining features of kleptocracy on a longitudinal basis, which shall permit change to be identified.
2. Process tracing will be employed to analyse the impact of neoliberal shock therapy on kleptocracy.
3. A social harm lens will measure how longitudinal changes have impacted on the distribution of social assets and opportunities, essential to the realization of human capabilities.

Generalisation between cases will be facilitated through pattern matching.

IV. Strategic Relevance

This study will generate new knowledge that advances understandings of:
(i) kleptocracy by measuring how regimes of practice constitutive of kleptocracy react to, and engage with, shock therapy;
(ii) social harm, as an analytical lens in social policy; and
(iii) the impact of neoliberal governance reforms on kleptocracy.

V. Interdisciplinarity/DTA Fit

Political theory and analytical method, has been synthesized with criminological investigative methodologies, the results of which will be viewed from a social policy perspective using a social harm lens. In so doing this study will produce cutting edge findings that will offer new understandings on a set of social processes, which will condition the futures of kleptocratic regimes experiencing shock therapy.

Applications

Applicants must apply using the online form on the University Alliance website at https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/how-to-apply/. Full details of the programme, eligibility details and a list of available research projects can be seen at https://unialliance.ac.uk/dta/cofund/

The final deadline for application is Monday 8 October 2018. There will be another opportunity to apply for DTA3 projects in the spring of 2019. The list of available projects is likely to change for the second intake.