The last ten years has seen growing global concerns about state capture, a process in which shadowy unelected individuals join forces with government officials to manipulate policies and rules to their own advantage. From Hungary to Brazil, and Bangladesh to South Africa, networks of political elites and private interests have hollowed out courts, parliaments, and watchdog agencies to serve their own narrow agendas.
State capture is not just a form of corruption—it’s a direct threat to democracy. When powerful networks co-opt key institutions, citizens lose the ability to hold leaders to account, and democratic checks and balances begin to erode. In this context, finding ways to inspire public resistance is more urgent than ever. However, crafting the right message to encourage popular resolve against state capture is far trickier than it seems. Many well-intentioned anti-corruption campaigns backfire—encouraging resignation rather than action, or even driving support toward populist leaders who thrive on outrage. To get it right, we need to understand how ordinary people perceive state capture and respond to different kinds of appeals.
Our new research project, “Resisting State Capture from the Grassroots: Civil Society Efforts and Public Perceptions”, is an important first step in this direction. In collaboration with Corruption Watch—an anticorruption civil society group in South Africa—we’re using innovative methods to understand public attitudes about state capture and to explore which types of awareness raising messages most effectively strengthen public resolve to push back.
State capture South Africa style
Few countries illustrate the threat of capture more vividly than South Africa. Between roughly 2014 and 2018, under former President Jacob Zuma, a nexus of political figures and private interests—most notoriously the Gupta family—co-opted key state institutions, from procurement agencies to the national revenue service. Investigations by the Public Protector’s office and the Zondo Commission have since documented how this network looted the state, diverted public funds, and subverted democratic checks and balances. The fallout was devastating: public institutions lacked capacity to deliver services, especially electricity, gross domestic product declined by one third and citizen’s’ faith in the political system was sorely tested.
Yet South Africa has also provided powerful examples of resistance. Journalists, activists, and civic groups—from Corruption Watch to community organisations—exposed wrongdoing, filed court challenges, and mobilised public opinion. These efforts remind us that even the most entrenched forms of capture can be challenged. But exactly how to encourage and sustain such resistance—especially at the grassroots level—remains a pressing question.
Why getting the message right on state capture is hard
Anticorruption messaging is remarkably commonplace. If you go to countries where corruption is widely seen to be a big issue, you will regularly come across posters, adverts, and signs denouncing corruption and imploring the public to reject it.
Yet a growing body of scholarship shows that anti‐corruption messaging campaigns risk producing unintended consequences. Our own research reinforces this, revealing that such messages likely deepen public cynicism, reduce people’s willingness to pay taxes, boost support for populist leaders, and even make individuals more likely to bribe.
One reason for this is that anticorruption campaigns often explicitly, or inadvertently, remind people about how widespread and severe corruption is, which triggers feelings of powerlessness. Rather than inspiring action, they can nudge people to believe that the political system is hopelessly corrupt. As a result, such messaging may inadvertently push citizens toward populist figures who promise dramatic “clean-ups,”, but often end up deepening the very problems they claim to solve. It is therefore likely that not all messages about state capture will work as intended to strengthen resolve against it – and that at least some may make the situation worse.
Moving the fight forwards
We therefore urgently need new research to find out how we can most effectively sustain and mobilise public resistance to state capture.
Over the next two years , the “Resisting State Capture from the Grassroots” project will use a mixed-methods approach, combining in-depth interviews with civil-society leaders, a large-scale household survey with embedded experimental interventions, and the co-production of anti-capture videos with Corruption Watch. Our initial qualitative interviews will identify barriers governance and anti-corruption practitioners face in mobilising public support. Drawing on these insights, we’ll develop two short videos—likely highlighting resistance to state capture, and showcasing community-led efforts to resist it.
The videos will then be tested through a nationally representative survey. Some participants will be shown one of the videos while others will not. This will allow us to assess how exposure influences attitudes toward anti-capture initiatives, commitment to democratic checks and balances, vulnerability to populist appeals, and even willingness to donate real money to a civil society group fighting state capture.
By tracking whether—and how–these messages shift attitudes and behaviours, the project will generate concrete evidence on what it takes to build lasting public resistance to state capture. All materials, including experimental protocols, video scripts, and policy briefs, will be made openly available, offering a replicable blueprint for practitioners confronting similar challenges – and seeking to test their own messages – in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and beyond.
Ultimately, the “State Capture from the Grassroots” study aims not only to document the complex interplay between messaging and mobilisation but to offer actionable recommendations for civil society and policymakers seeking to strengthen resistance to state capture from the ground up.
And Ismail is an applied social researcher focused on governance and state capture, currently based at the University of Birmingham where she leads research for the K4DD Consortium.