The New South Institute (NSI) and Stellenbosch University’s School of Public Leadership hosted a lecture delivered by Daniel Kaufmann, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and president emeritus of the Natural Resource Governance Institute. The hybrid event, titled ‘Governance Elephant in the Room – State capture its evolution worldwide and implications for South Africa’, took place at Stellenbosch University, Cape Town.

Daniel who, with Joel Hellman, coined the term “state capture” opened by distinguishing the practice from routine bribery. Whereas bribery circumvents existing regulations, capture occurs when influential coalitions “shape the rules of the game” to serve private interests while remaining formally within the law. Such manipulation, he warned, corrodes the rule of law, human rights and democratic accountability, amounting to the “privatisation of democracy”.

Turning to South Africa, Kaufmann cited National Treasury calculations that the capture of Eskom and Transnet alone wiped out roughly 30 per cent of national economic output. Because rebuilding institutions after capture is lengthy and costly, he stressed that prevention “enjoys a much higher payoff” than post-facto prosecutions.

To bolster preventive efforts, Kaufmann presented a new State Capture Index compiled from bottom-up indicators for more than 170 countries. Early results reveal that conventional corruption scores conceal significant capture risks in several high-income democracies. The index also flags extreme wealth concentration – the share held by the richest 0.1 per cent – as a structural enabler of capture.

Sector-specific evidence featured prominently. Kaufmann described how fossil-fuel lobbies steer environmental regulation and how open-data analytics and artificial-intelligence tools now help investigators trace illicit financial flows across borders.

A spirited Q&A examined comparative reform trajectories, the practical use of early-warning metrics and the roles of civil society, media and independent oversight bodies in safeguarding democratic institutions. The lecture forms part of NSI’s continuing programme on governance reform and will inform future research and dialogue on countering state capture worldwide.