The collective organic intellectual strikes back: the EBRD Transition Report, the state and the new state capitalism

This article argues that the Gramscian notion of the collective organic intellectual offers a fruitful way to analyse the recent legitimisation of state intervention in Eastern Central Europe, foregrounding how the EBRD develops and disseminates appropriate knowledge. It analyses the ongoing contradictions between the historically stated position of the EBRD on the withdrawal of the state and its recently recalibrated perspective in the context of the new state capitalism. The EBRD reorganises what constitutes policy common sense in a time of rapid and diverse new challenges to attempt to secure the hegemony of transnational capital. The argument is deployed across five sections. First, it shows how regional development banks have become vital actors in the new state capitalism. Second, it unpacks how collective organic intellectuals disarticulate old social formations and rework new ones. Sections three and four explore two different periods, before and after 2021, of the EBRD’s position on the state as a key intellectual and policy prescription. The final section of the paper brings the analysis up to date, assessing recent documents in the debate about the state. The paper concludes with reflections on the trajectory of European development finance and the potential of the COI framing.