Second draft for group 6
Corruption in Lithuania
Statement
of the problem
By looking at the social interfaces between
people holding different positions in both formal and informal networks, we want
to examine if and how specific informal networks and connections, which might be
captured by the term 'blat', spill over into formal networks, and if and how
people use these networks as means of obtaining scarce goods or values.
Research
questions
How
do people holding formal positions understand and deal with these positions?
How do people manage and use their different formal and informal positions
in everyday negotiatios over resources?
How
do pople talk about and value their informal relations and networks (with
family, friends etc.) and how are they connected with other networks? What
are these networks used for (are they fx. an asset in obtaining
things/services from formal organisations/institutions)?
How
do people evaluate their own and other people's use of informal connections
and networks in everyday life? Is it something they talk openly about?
Background
of the study
We have chosen three different sites for our
fieldwork each covered by one person:
Two
of these are situated in the town of Kedainiai in the middle of Lithuania with
aprrox. 20000 inhabitants. Kedainiai is famous for its succesfull businesses,
and also for scandals of corruption - one of them including the president of the
biggest concern in the country "Vikonda" who was accused of
corruption. One person will be placed as a volunteer in a local museum-gallery,
which is a meeting-point for influential people with formal positions in the
bureaucracy and business world. Another person will work/stay with local
busines-people/entrepreneurs in Kedainiai. The last person will stay in a
folkhigh school run by a group of Danes in a rural area in Latvia close to the
Lithunian border.
Significance
of the study
Over the last decade the focus on corruption and blat in the Post-Soviet States has increased significantly. As many of the countries are getting closer to the EU, the Union puts pressure on the countries telling them to fight corruption. A large number of surveys on corruption have been carried out but mainly from the point of view of economics or political science. Still, there is a great need for defining more precisey what is meant by the terms 'corruption' and 'blat', and for focusing more on the micro level and on informal networks. This is where anthrology - and hopefully this study - have important roles to play.
Theoretical
background.
Our analytical point of departure draws on
different sources like:
Giddens' view on a social system as social praxis, which is produced and reproduced across time and space and which will manifest itself in patterns of relations between social actors. Since these systems only exist in and of praxis, and since the actions of the actors sometimes will be carried out with a practical consciousness as a kind of routine and sometimes with a discursive consciuosness, that opens up for choises of change in behaviour, and since actions often have unintended consequences, the systems will both be reproduced and changed over time.
Taking
these theories from Giddens and combining them with the ideas of
organisational theorist Nitin Nohria, 'networks' can be seen as sets of
social actors connected by sets of social relations (friendships or
economical transactions). These networks can be shaped in a range of
different ways and they can be more or less stable across space and time and
more or less formal.
The
ideal typical formal network can be conceptualised in accordance with
Weber's bureaucracy, whereas informal networks can be understood as bonds of
friendship, kinship, acquaintance etc. which do not have any clear
boundaries and which will be unstable across time (cf. Barnes 1954).
Barth's
and Goffman's theories on impression management, statusses, roles and
negotiations over resources in everyday life.
Bourdieu's
concept of 'misrecogniton' which throws light on people's own views on and
understanding of their own and other people's use of informal networks.
Bourdieu's
ideas of social positioning, social fields and symbolic and other kinds of
capital.
Methods.
Since
we are looking at networks our focus will be on interaction. Basically this
involves participant observation in social situations, which include the
interaction between persons with situationally defined formal and informal
positions. Furthermore it includes observation of the same people managing
formal and informal positions in different social situations. Furthermore we
will conduct interviews ranging from unstructured to structured (maybe including
an interview guide). This would serve to record and acknowledge the relation
between the way people act, (possibly using blat connections for different
purposes) and the way they talk about these acts (possibly revealing the aspect
of misrecognition).
Our project and its findings may be quite controversial. The town of Kedainiai is quite small, and most people know - and have an opinion about blat and corruption, and a main concern for us will be not to jeopardize people making comments about other people's (possibly illegal or at least sanctioned) acts. Therefore we also have to reflect upon the way we formulate our questions in order to "get people to talk" about this subject.