PUBLICATION: Analysis
Snakes, rats and drug addicts used to dwell here – analysis of the narrative utilised to capture the state
How narratives about foreign direct investments contribute to the state capture – find out in the latest publication written by BCSP Researcher Luka Šterić.
Due to the way they are contracted and implemented, foreign direct investments represent one of the key mechanisms for capturing the state. Hiding behind the stories of a better future and new jobs, the government is breaking down the system of legal regulations and statutory procedures, promoting private interest to the detriment of the public one, and using foreign investments as propaganda ammunition to legitimise unlimited power. The results of such policy are a number of negative consequences for the state and the citizens, such as the increase of public debt, dramatic violation of workers’ rights and alarming problems with environmental pollution.
In order to mask the negative consequences and legitimise the policy of attracting foreign investors based on the above described pattern, a complex narrative has been developed presenting foreign investments as a successful, and the only possible, model for state development. This meta-narrative about progress, which media are building up every day, is based on four basic component narratives: on the economic revival, on the efficiency of personal rule, on transparent contracts and on the opponents of Serbia’s development who ‘unfoundedly’ criticise the government’s economic success.
In the analysis of the narrative the author focuses on the statements of officials made since 2012, which is when the regime led by the Serbian Progressive Party came to power. Many of the described mechanisms, such as non-transparent, harmful contracts and unjustifiably high subsidies, also existed during the previous government. However, the capture of the state, carried out – among other things – with the help of foreign direct investments, has reached completely new dimensions under the current regime, while the narratives that accompany it have been significantly ‘improved’.
This publication was produced with the financial support of National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Responsibility for the content of this publication belongs solely to Belgrade Centre for Security Policy.
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