bureaucratic capture

Syllable breakdown

Dictionary meaning

the process through which a regulatory agency, government department, or administrative body comes to serve the interests of the industry, profession, or organised interest group it was established to regulate or oversee, rather than the broader public interest it was created to protect; capture occurs through the revolving door between regulators and regulated industries, the information asymmetry that makes regulators dependent on regulated entities for technical knowledge, the asymmetric political organisation of concentrated industry interests versus diffuse public interests, and the gradual socialisation of agency staff into the worldview and priorities of their regulated sector; the concept, developed by George Stigler in the economic theory of regulation, has influenced both regulatory design and the advocacy for independent regulatory institutions