Corruption in Lithuania |
This paper is the
work of students, not an authoritative scientific account.
It is an exercise, in which the students were to choose a group of people or an
organization in East / Central Europe and imagine that they were planning to do
anthropological fieldwork in that group/organization. The paper is an exercise
in creating a synopsis (research plan) for this fieldwork. The paper is NOT: (a)
a finished synopsis, which has been approved by our institute, and it is NOT (b)
the intention that this fieldwork will ever be carried out. All synopses are
based on publically available documents (mostly from the Internet), and (in some
cases) on one or two emails received from members of the group/organization (the
latter information has been used with the permission of the author).
<< Due to Danish privacy regulations, names and emails of participants have been deleted. >>
Introduction & background
Statement of the problem
Setting
Analytical perspectives
Methods
Ethical and practical considerations
Bibliography
Within the anthropological 'tradition' of studying East and Central European societies now as well as during socialist and Soviet times, there is a significant attention towards informal societal manifestations, practices and structures. Thus, informed by various different objectives and perspectives, scholars have focused on street corner societies and similar institutions emerging in 'the shadows of the official structures' (Koehler 1999), on competition within the bureaucratic socialist regimes and between party elites and 'allocative' bureaucrats (Verdery 1991), on the ways in which 'the flexibility of informal ties may operate so as to impinge on bureaucratic roles and subvert organisational goals' (Sampson 1983: 68) and on 'second economies' and 'counter cultures' (Nielsen 1999). The specific inspiration behind the formulation of this study comes from one of the contributions towards this 'informality-attention', namely Russian sociologist A.V. Ledeneva's work on 'blat' in Soviet society.
Being a very elusive, 'multi-meaning' term, 'blat' can in very general terms be seen as an exchange of 'favours of access' to goods or services, which were provided at the expense of state property or of someone formally entitled to the resource in question. Thus, blat favours demanded no-one's own resources and were usually perceived of as 'friendly support', as 'helping out', as 'mutual care' etc. Furthermore, it showed certain resemblances with 'gift-giving' practices in that 'a received favour is never equivalent to that which the recipient can provide in return' (Ledeneva 1998: 35) In contrast to personal relations and simple barter, blat relations were not necessarily dyadic but could also be circular in that A gave a favour to B, who gave to C, who gave to A, so that reciprocity was masked by delayed return (Ibid: 33-38). In short, blat can be seen as the 'usage of personal networks and informal contacts to obtain foods and services in short supply and to find a way around formal procedures' (Ibid: 1) or in other words 'as a way of circumscribing formal procedures' (Ibid: 37)
According to Ledeneva the 'blat' system resulted from a specific combination of shortage and consumerism in Soviet society (Ibid: 36), which could support a hypothesis saying that such things no more exist in the present day independent states. Another hypothesis, however, might be that the practices of using informal networks still exist, albeit in different forms.
As the empirical point of focus of this study we have chosen the Baltic state of Lithuania, or rather the Lithuanian town of Kedainiai. Analytically we will, inspired by the previous paragraphs and having both hypotheses in mind, focus on how people of today form and use their informal networks and personal relations - especially when interacting with people holding formal positions and when trying to obtain certain services or goods.
On this background the research problem is thus:
By looking at social interactions between people holding different formal and informal positions in changing contexts, we wish to examine how different people construct and understand their informal networks and if and how these are used to obtain goods or values from people in formal positions.
In addressing this problem, we will be led by the following research questions:
1. What does it mean to people themselves to hold a 'formal position,' and how do they deal with it? How do people make use of their different formal and informal social positions in their everyday interactions and when negotiating over resources?
2. How and with whom do people form close informal networks and personal relations and how do they use these? How do people themselves talk about and evaluate their own and other people's use of informal networks?
3. What, if any, general principals (like gender, age and political background) can be identified behind the structuring of informal networks on a broader societal level? How do informal networks in general impinge on other mechanisms and principals of distributing resources in society?
As indicated above, the empirical point of departure for this study will be Kedainiai - a middle-sized town with approximately 20.000 inhabitants, situated in the middle of the Lithuanian lowland and the administrative centre of the region - where we will conduct a 6-months fieldwork.
In Soviet times Kedainiai was famous for its chemical and food processing industries. After independence many of the old businesses are still growing and many new ones have been established, among others the biggest concern 'Y' led by 'X', an elected member of the parliament (seimas), who was faced with charges and rumours of corruption.
More specifically, we will initially focus on four different settings situated within or in connection with the town.
The first is a local museum, which is today a meeting place for many influential local people.
A second person will try to 'gain access' to the local rotary club, which is open a few times a week. The president of the Rotary club is the infamous 'X', and we expect the clientele there mostly to be business people and other 'rich people'.
The same person will also try to join the Kedainiai hunting club, which is a group of people taking trips to the forest in order to go hunting but also, and maybe more importantly, to have dinner, drink alcohol as well as to discuss political and economical issues. Members of this club would be doctors, professors, military or police officers, local workers as well as 'the Nouvaux Riches'. In Soviet times hunting was also one of the most common leisure activities for the party Nomenklatura.
A third person will start out at Kedainiai City Hospital, which serves Kedainiai region. This person will as far as possible observe interaction between the staff (mainly doctors and nurses) and the patients, as well as talk to visitors, technical staff etc.
In trying to build up a coherent analytical approach to this study, we will start out drawing up a general perspective on social networks, which will progressively become more elaborated as more specific perspectives are introduced.
One useful general point of departure is the British sociologist Anthony Giddens and his concepts of social systems and structural properties. According to Giddens, a social system can be understood as social relations between actors, which are produced and reproduced across time through the countless acts and interactions of the social actors. In order to describe the 'systemic' aspects of these systems, Giddens talks among other things of structural properties, which can be seen as institutionalised features of a social system, for instance in the form of hierarchy, division of labour and formally assigned duties, extended across time and space. Again these structural elements must be seen as both a result and a means of social praxis, as something which will be both stable and changing and does not exist outside or above the human actors (Kaspersen 2001: 50-75).
These ideas can, as we will show in a little moment, be combined with the understandings of 'social networks', which have been put forward by organisational theorist N. Nohria and social anthropologist J. A Barnes. According to Nohria, all organisations at any level of analysis (small or large groups, subunits of organisations, national economies etc.) must be seen as networks, which in more concrete terms are defined as sets of nodes (individuals, groups, organisations etc.) linked by sets of social relationships (friendships, economical transactions etc.)(Nohria 1992: 96f.). While having the same basic understanding of the nature of networks, Barnes contends that social networks do not have any clear units as 'new ties are continually being formed while others are broken' (Barnes 1954: 43) and no clear boundaries, as 'each person has a number of friends, and these friends have their own friends; some of any one person's friends know each other, others do not' Ibid.
Combining these perspectives, we could say that the 'nodes' in Nohria's ideas of networks should be seen as 'social actors' in the words of Giddens, whereas the 'social relations between actors' in Giddens' terminology should be seen as social networks in Nohria's understanding. Summing up, the four selected groups or institutions in Kedainiai might from an analytical point of view be seen as social systems consisting of social networks, continually criss-crossed by other networks outside the system, produced and reproduced through the countless actions and interactions of the involved people. Moving our perspective to a higher level of aggregation, for instance the whole town of Kedainiai, it might be possible to identify certain structuring properties, informing and resulting from the different social networks. One such factor could be gender, while others might be ethnicity or political background.
Society as a larger social system is, according to Giddens, on a more fundamental level organised according to certain structural principles, of which capitalism and the representative democracy are important elements in Western societies (Kaspersen 2001: 68). Some of these principles govern the distribution of resources and might, with inspiration from Karl Polanyi, be divided into three categories: reciprocity, redistribution and market-exchange. While the first principle is connected with gift giving, the second refers to the state collecting taxes and accumulating resources, which are again redistributed. Finally, the third form refers to the market, built on impersonal contractual relations between actors and on the freedom of agreement (Eriksen 1998: 239f)
The use of informal networks to obtain certain things (as in 'blat') might, as a practice in itself, show certain resemblances with reciprocity and 'gift giving' seen as 'a form of non-immediate reciprocity where reward is neither discussed nor consciously calculated at the moment the offering is made (Ledeneva 1998: 140). On the other hand, however, it might as well be compared with market and commodity exchanges where 'alienable objects pass between people acting as free agents' and where 'returns of commensurate worth or utility [should be made] within a finite and narrow period' (Ibid: 141). According to Ledeneva, the practice of 'blat' during Soviet times was situated somewhere between in between these practices, in that, for instance, it transferred alienable objects in already existing relationships where the other was regarded personally and in this sense became irreplaceable (Ibid).
In connection with the last category, Ledeneva writes of Soviet times that: 'blat' could be seen as the 'reverse side' of an over controlling centre, a reaction of ordinary people to the structural constraints of the socialist system of distribution - a series of practices, which enabled the Soviet system to function and made it tolerable, but also subverted it' (Ibid: 3). As the 'over-controlling' Soviet state is today gone, it might be that the informal networks in Kedainiai are now to a greater extend directed towards and impinging on the market sphere (Ibid: 178f).
As explicated by the understanding of networks put forward here, it is highly difficult to differentiate between formal and informal social relations and between one network and the other - a point also made by Ledeneva (Ibid: 35). Thus, instead of talking about 'pure' forms, we find it more informing to look at a continuum: At one end we have the formal organisation, where the hierarchically structured bureaucratic organisation with its special duties assigned to the different positions and its rational administration and written records might be seen as an ideal-typical example (Sampson 1983: 66f). At the other end we have the informal networks represented by friendship, kinship etc. In between we imagine a whole range of different forms, in that the same people might hold a formal and an informal status(2) at different points in time (the mayor, the secretary, the judge also have friends) (Ibid: 67) and in that for instance a private company might be seen as more formal, while a group of students in a classroom might be seen as more informal - or the opposite way around. In all these criss-crossings between the different social spheres, we imagine, some informal networks are intersecting with formal organisations, and some of these have the purpose of circumventing formal procedures. These might be called 'blat'.
An important point in this connection is, as noted by anthropologist K. H. Partapuoli, that understandings of friendship differ according to context and might in very general terms be seen as either 'emotional' or 'instrumental'. While the 'emotional' types are characterised by affection between two closely related people, 'instrumental' ones are described in a way closely resembling Ledeneva's understanding of 'blat' as relations reaching further than the dyad, connecting the actor to other people, and used to obtain services or information (Partapuoli 2002).
The interactions between people holding different formal and informal positions might analytically be conceptualised as social 'interfaces' understood, with inspiration from anthropologists N. Long and M. Villarreal, as complex processes of negotiations over meanings and resources during which the involved individuals follow strategies and accept compromises in order to get as much influence as possible (Long 1996: 65; Villarreal 1997: 254f, 263ff). We do not think of these interfaces as taking place in 'voids' (Apthorpe 1997. 55) but in social systems influenced by certain 'structural properties'.
One way of conceptualising this 'structuring' flows from sociologist Pierre Bourdieu's work on 'symbolic capital' and 'classificatory systems'. In agreement with this perspective, society and its various sub fields can be seen as structured according to certain principles of classification, positioning social actors in relation to each other. Powerful fractions or actors engage in symbolic battles over these principles of hierarchy, as they are struggling to translate their stock of economical capital (material wealth), cultural capital (symbolic goods) or social capital (influential relations) into 'symbolic capital' and make it the main principle of classification and thereby place themselves on top of the hierarchy. Successful are the actors who have been capable of forcing through his or her classificatory visions and make them look 'natural' and 'self-evident' to the other actors (Bourdieu 1996: 341-344; Bourdieu 1994: 63f; Bourdieu 1979: 416-420; Høiris 1993: 44, 46f; Callewaert 1996: 347). Based on these very general ideas, we imagine that the participants in the 'social interfaces' at any specific point in time are positioned in relation to each other based on how much symbolic capital they might be said to posses. For instance, we might very well see in our study that access to finance, licences, privileged loans and to business information translates into a higher position in networks and interactions today than access to food or basic utilities, which are no longer in short supply (Ledeneva 1998: 179).
When studying how people understand and evaluate their own and other people's use of informal networks, Bourdieu's concept of misrecognition might show informing. In speaking about gift giving, for instance, Bourdieu contends that the gift-givers must 'misrecognise' the objective truth of the game and not openly acknowledge that they expect something of equivalent value in return for their gifts - otherwise, it is no longer gift giving (Bourdieu 1990: 68, 105). In the case of 'blat' and other utilisations of informal networks, misrecognition might imply that people understand their own reciprocal ties as simply 'helping our friends', while only recognising and blaming 'blat-relations' in the case of other people (Ledeneva 1998: 59-66, see also Jensen 2001: 3).
Conducting this fieldwork, as it deals with semi-legal or at least controversial activities, i.e. using informal networks and connections in order to obtain otherwise non-obtainable goods and services, we have to consider several problems. First of all, our informants may not be willing to let others - especially foreigners as ourselves - observe such transactions, least talk openly about them. Jack Douglas holds that 'all people to some extent have good reasons to hide from others what they are doing and even lie to them' (Douglas 1977:55). One of our main concerns then, is to adopt research strategies which will somehow enable us to reveal or penetrate these 'hidden actions' and 'lied-about' aspects of life, including a questioning of why, when and how certain aspects of life are hidden and maybe even lied about, if we learn that this is so. Furthermore, since we are looking at informal networks and the way these intersect with and exist within 'formal structures', we need to consider how we can grasp, trace, record and gain knowledge about such networks, probably including, among other things, that we ourselves engage in them.
We will hold as a basic condition that we are conducting an explorative investigation (Spradley 1980). This means that we conceive of our theories, concepts, methods and data as 'open' to mutual re-conditioning as our fieldwork proceeds. A 'model' of such an explorative investigation would be one of a cycle - as opposed to a linear process like that of deduction - in that we expect our focus, research questions, data and analysis to continually influence each other, directing and redirecting our attention and research strategies towards continually more detailed and focused data and models for analysis.
In uncovering the use and understanding of informal networks in relation to exchanges of ressources in Kedainiai, we are interested in understanding both what people do and how they think and talk about what they do - that is, their attributing meaning to and understanding of their social world. Much of this 'meaning' will be unconscious to and taken-for-granted by the local actors, and it will be implicit in social interactions and conversations, as it organizes and manifests itself in behaviour and speech (see e.g. Spradley 1980:11). Our job then, is to make explicit these implicit meanings by asking and repeating 'stupid' questions like 'what is friendship to you?', 'what is your relation with X?', 'how do I have to behave if I want to ask a favour of somebody?', 'is there a special way of doing things in Lithuania?' etc. To achieve a somewhat coherent understanding of actions, statements and perceptions, which may prove to be very different and maybe ambiguous, we will engage in participant observation in various social situations, as well as conduct different sorts of interviews and conversations with different actors in Kedainiai - ranging from 'informal conversations' to 'structured interviews' (see Bernard 1994).
For instance, people might prove more willing to talk on sensitive issues during a hunting trip than during an interview in a more 'formal' situation like a prearranged interview, where the interviewer records the conversation and takes notes. On the other hand, the second form of interview might prove useful in getting more detailed and elaborated information on different issues as well as on earlier statements and conversations. We are aware that exactly in the intersection between on the one hand, what people do and say in everyday interactions, and on the other hand how they explicate these actions and statements e.g. in face-to-face conversations and interviews with us, there may be discrepancies, (which possibly can be captured by the term 'misrecognition', or even 'lies'), and that these discrepancies might prove of great relevance. It may well also be that people are very reluctant to discuss these matters from their own experience, but are more willing to talk about 'what other people do'. Aside from pressing some more ethical issues like assuring anonymity, this calls for a continually crosschecking of data by talking to several informants.
One useful way of approaching our phenomenon of research would be to think of our fieldwork as a case-study. This involves '...a description of a specific configuration of events in which some distinctive set of actors have been involved in some defined situation at some particular point in time' (Mitchell 1984:237, our italics).
As contended in the analytical and theoretical section of this paper, the four settings proposed for investigation may be conceptualised as social systems manifesting themselves in social networks, continually structured and restructured, informing and informed, by the flow of actions, interactions and transactions of the involved individuals and continually criss-crossed by other networks and relations in the surrounding context. Following a similar line of thinking - and more explicitly informed by methodological and empirical objectives and considerations - Mitchell's perspective promotes a more specific focus on ways in which informal networks unfold in, and in relation to, social situations, events, actors and time.
Adopting this perspective will hopefully make us able to structure our data and analysis more narrowly along the way e.g. following more intensely some specific actors in some specific social situations in which our data tells us that there is a high probability of them 'making deals' about, or actually exchanging certain goods or services, which ideally should be obtained or distributed in other ways, or not at all. If this is not possible for us to observe, we can choose to engage in specific social situations and with specific actors from an experience-based estimation of the probability of them talking to us about these issues (i.e. learning to choose the right informants and forms of interviews). This could be the case for instance, on a hunting trip. In practice we will observe various actors interacting differently as they 'move between' different social situations across time, allowing us to record and analyse the different relations and networks that people engage in and use for different purposes.
Inspired by Cato Wadel (1991) we could ask ouselves certain questions in a social situation; What kind of situation is it? (e.g. a hunting trip), what kind of event occur? (e.g. people eating and drinking), who is interacting with whom? (e.g. a business man talking to an employee of the municipality), what is the purpose of the interaction? (e.g. agreeing on some issue of importance to both actors), what kind of skills are involved? (e.g. body language, tone of voice, management of dressing codes, mastery of a certain discourse and way of speaking, knowledge of certain issues, codes of conduct etc).
Considering the fact that we may not be able to observe transactions that could be designated as blat ourselves, we may become very dependent on interviews and 'talks' with informants, in order to gather information on the subject. In doing this we may find that we have to go 'indirectly' to the subject. One approach could be to start out asking about friendships and other relations, which do not have the negative connotations of blat. Later, as we ourselves become engaged in different networks with informants, we can start asking more specifically into the understanding and use of such networks.
We believe that the key to an understanding of informal networks and blat in Kedainiai lies very much in exactly that - engaging ourselves in networks and practices of different kinds, maybe even kinds resembling blat-relations, that is, exchanging different kinds of favours, services, goods etc. with local people.
Cato Wadel (1991) argues that a good way of gaining access in a field is to integrate oneself into the system one wants to investigate. Our choice of settings reflects this proposal - volunteering at the museum as well as joining the Rotary Club and the Hunting Club will hopefully integrate us in different networks in Kedainiai. While being present at the hospital does not necessarily offer this opportunity, we believe it to be a unique opportunity to observe interactions between actors with situationally rather rigidly separated and defined 'formal' positions (doctors and nurses) and 'informal' positions (patients).
We do not expect to gain useful data if we behave and are viewed by the locals exclusively as 'outsiders'. Even though we do not expect to loose our role as 'outsiders' or 'foreigners' completely during only 6 months stay in Kedainiai, we hope to learn about and master some of the local codes of conduct including knowledge of the values that generate these. This should influence the way we interact with people as well as the questions we ask, in order to make people trust us, so as to speak with us on more sensitive issues regarding certain kinds of transactions and exchanges. This 'learning by doing what others do', and its importance in relation to accessing the field and gaining information, has been described by many anthropologists. Clifford Geertz (1979) for instance, described how it was not until he and his wife fled and hided, as did the local villagers in the chaotic situation that emerged when police showed up at a Balinese illegal cockfight, that the Balinese really accepted and trusted him as one 'being in the same boat'. This is to press the issue that in order to gain information we need to integrate ourselves in social life and in social networks in Kedainiai. We believe that for instance joining the same Club as some locals is a way of 'being in the same boat' and thereby of building up trustful relationships with informants. In order to gain access to useful information, we need access to the social situations in which this information can be gathered, and in order to do this we probably need some people guaranteeing our integrity, giving us an 'OK-stamp'. The one of us who will try to join the Rotary Club maybe has to start out asking the one volunteering at the museum if he knows somebody at the museum who also joins the Rotary Club to be introduced to him, trying to cultivate a relation with him, asking him to be introduced to others at the Club etc, thus slowly building up a network on the town. This naturally requires some 'feeling one's way' on our behalf, as to how these procedures of 'gaining access', 'opening doors' and 'creating contacts' work.
One pressing issue in connection to our ethical considerations is how to explicate to our informants, what we are actually doing in the different settings, we engage ourselves in. If we tell people that we are 'investigating blat' (given the negative connotations of both words), we will probably have great difficulties making people talk to us. Furthermore our presence in the chosen settings will most likely be sanctioned, as people will probably be very suspicious as to what their information will be used for. Taking history into account, it should be clear that this fear is quite justified. Therefore we will explain the aim of our project as far as possible to our informants, without using such expressions as investigating blat or corruption, unless informants willingly initiates conversations about these matters. Again this demands for some sensibility and 'feeling one's way'. We will also assure that informants are aware that we are students, that our project is not political and that we do not co-operate with any Lithuanian governmental - or international institutions or organizations. We will furthermore assure anonymity to informants who wish so. This might be necessary in many conversations and interviews given the small size of the town and the specific networks we are focusing on, that is, relations between businessmen, former nomenclature, intelligentsia, 'nouveau riches', political and administrative authorities etc. In these networks most people will probably know each other and therefore we should be very sensitive and intuitive as to what kinds of questions we ask, in that people might suspect others to 'gossip' about them. As a fieldworker one will naturally influence the setting one is investigating. In our case, our engaging in - and asking into networks will influence these networks, maybe in a way that affects the relations between some actors in these networks. We should try to make sure that this influence is not negative, for instance in creating jealousy, suspicions, indignation or the like. 'Friendship in the field' is also a problematic issue. On the one hand it can be a precondition for getting informants to talk to you, (as well as a quite 'uncontrollable' result of just being in the field), and on the other hand it can also be the thing that prevents people from talking to you, depending on relations between informants. For instance, if 'fieldworker 1' creates a personal contact and relation with 'informant X' who is negatively viewed upon by 'informant Y', 'fieldworker 2' may have problems creating and maintaining a personal relation with informant 'Y', given the known relation between the two fieldworkers. Therefore we should try to balance between our 'personal' role (e.g. 'friend') and our more 'professional' role (e.g. 'student'). We will live separately, and try to meet with each other on more private arenas, so that people separate between us, as doing separate projects, thereby trying to avoid opposing loyalties getting in the way of our relations with informants. Furthermore we might conduct group-interviews as in one interviewer talking to several informants, but initially we will not conduct interviews with more than one interviewer present, as this might scare people and give them a feeling of being 'cross-examined'. We will as far as possible try to hold ourselves neutral in every issue that might be controversial.
Building up trust, creating contacts, engaging in networks ourselves, might seem contradictory to being neutral and adopting a 'professional role'. That is why we emphasize that we have to balance between - and manage several different roles as fieldworkers. We cannot and should not totally avoid creating friendships or the like in the field, and we cannot expect to be neutral on all controversial issues, since we as human beings have opinions that in some way will be reflected in our actions, statements and questions. It is almost unavoidable as a foreigner occasionally to 'drop a brick in it', which is why we should in some cases underline our roles as students who are in Kedainiai to learn about their 'way of doing things'. This calls for our engaging in different practices, making mistakes and learning from these. In relation to us engaging in transactions that are not equivocally positively viewed upon, we should again be very sensitive to local values, so that we do not offend anybody, least break the law. Altogether we will have to use our common sense as well as 'feel our way', when we set of to pursue the meaning and use of informal networks in the exchange of ressources in Kedainiai.
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1. Information about the settings, including which 'groups' of people we can expect to meet in these, has been provided by Donatas, who is a Lithuanian, and who is related to the founder of the local museum gallery in Kedainiai mentioned below.
2. 'Social statuses' can here be seen as 'recognizable, socially defined traits of a person, which confers certain rights and responsibilities upon him or her' (Eriksen 1998: 56f, our translation). Each person might have a number of different statuses, some formal, others informal, which are put to use in different situations and contexts (Ibid).