contractocracy
Etymology
From contract + -ocracy.
contractocracy means the routine use of contractors to perform the functions of government rather than regular government employees, often with the implication that the contractors are ineffective and simply enriching themselves due to government corruption. Lexicurio rates it Rare gem — a strength score of 82 out of 100.
Why “contractocracy” is a great word
CONTRACTOCRACY — [Noun] A system of governance where essential public functions are pervasively outsourced to private contractors, creating a self-perpetuating nexus of state and commercial power. From contract (from Latin contractus, "drawn together, agreed upon") + -ocracy (from Greek -kratia, "rule, power"). Unlike a meritocracy, which selects on ability, or a bureaucracy, which implies a permanent administrative corps, a contractocracy is rule by the connected bid-winner, where public duty dissolves into private gain. It is the gleaming consulting firm drafting the law it will later profit from enforcing, the cost-plus invoice for a crumbling road, and the ex-official's new business card at the firm she once regulated—the quiet conversion of civic trust into a transaction, until sovereignty itself becomes a subcontract.
noun
- The routine use of contractors to perform the functions of government rather than regular government employees, often with the implication that the contractors are ineffective and simply enriching themselves due to government corruption.“There are several dissimilarities, however, between classical Underdevelopment Theory and some of the leading theoreticians of the contractocracy school in Nigeria.”