Looting as Vocation: Rule of Law to Characterize a Regime as a Democracy

Abstract

A political regime characterized by limited government and countervailing competences may satisfy different institutional models of democracy. The emergence of the Putin regime in Russia forces us to theorize the role of economic moti- vation as looting. We find it in all dictatorships, e.g., Burma. The giant financial economy enhances the private prospects of looting, especially in closed societies. In a democracy politicians and bureaucrats are openly paid a fixed salary in combination with strict rules about the public and private. In looting, things are entirely different.