Zusammenfassung:
We examine how political capitalism can develop within modern states that typically have many types of checks and balances. We first discuss how this can occur through various influence channels: government executive and regulatory agencies, legislators, litigation, the press, and the public sphere more generally. We then develop a model in which a group representing the public interest competes for policy implementation with a group that seeks private advantage. A non-venal decision maker makes the policy decision based on the lobbying of the two groups, which is partly restrained by an existing, status-quo policy and by the decision maker's expertise. Because of free-rider problems but also because of a greater ability to develop a lobbying infrastructure, the group seeking private advantage has a better chance of implementing its policy even when the status quo policy is aligned with the public interest. Only when the decision maker has a high enough level of expertise and favorable status quo policy does the public interest group have a better chance of winning.