Corruptive Patterns of Patronage in South East Europe

Plamen K. Georgiev Corruptive Patterns of Patronage in South East Europe

VS RESEARCH

Plamen K. Georgiev

Corruptive Patterns of Patronage in South East Europe

VS RESEARCH

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1st Edition 2008 All rights reserved © VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften | GWV Fachverlage GmbH, Wiesbaden 2008 VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften is part of the specialist publishing group Springer Science+Business Media. www.vs-verlag.de No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Registered and/or industrial names, trade names, trade descriptions etc. cited in this publication are part of the law for trade-mark protection and may not be used free in any form or by any means even if this is not specifically marked. Cover design: KünkelLopka Medienentwicklung, Heidelberg Typesetting: SatzReproService GmbH, Jena Printed on acid-free paper Printed in Germany ISBN 978-3-531-16039-9

Contents

List of Tables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

7

Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

9

Introduction: Changing Paradigms of Patronage (A South Eastern European Outlook) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

1 1.1 1.1.1 1.1.2 1.1.3 1.1.4 1.1.5 1.2 1.2.1 1.3 1.3.1 1.3.2 2 2.1 2.2 2.2.1

2.2.2 2.3 2.4 2.4.1 2.4.2 2.4.3

Rethinking Patronages: Towards the Phenomenology of Patron-Client Relations . . . . . . . The Piety of Friendship and Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Benefactor/Patron-Client Relations Models . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . God as Benefactor/Patron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Reciprocities established . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Client’s “Payoffs” to Patrons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Critics of Sacrifice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patronages of Antiquity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Roman Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Athen’s Patronage: Aristotle v/s Cicero . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Greek Oligarchies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Nature of Greek Tyrannies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21 21 24 28 31 32 33 34 35 39 43 46

Discovering Balkan Patronages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Patronages (Re) defined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Religious Patronages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . National Patrons: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Ivan Rilski, Patron of Bulgarians . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Sava, Patron of Serbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . St. Sr. Cyril and Method, Patrons of Slavs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Diversified Patronages (a personalized pattern) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Patronage of St. Andrew (an overlapping pattern) . . . . . . . . . . . . The Post-Communist Legacy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Ethnic Patronages (Shifting Collective Identities) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Political Patronages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Party Patronage(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Nomenclature(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Party’s Appointment Authority . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

51 52 54 55 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 67 68 70 70

6

Contents

2.4.4 2.4.5 2.4.6

Political Cults and Loyalties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nepotism(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Quasi-Patronages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

72 75 76

3 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.4.1 3.4.2 3.4.3 3.4.4 3.4.5 3.4.6

Rationalizing Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . On the Stand of Corruption Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Concept of Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Seductive Involvements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Measuring Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Main Ambiguities . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corruption Indicators Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Choose Your Index”? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Anticorruption Surveys Market(s) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Corruption Beyond Time and Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Composite Corruption Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77 77 81 84 85 87 88 89 91 92 93

4 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 4.5 4.6 4.6.1 4.6.2 4.6.3 4.6.4 4.6.5 4.6.6 4.6.7

Corruptive Patterns of Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Balkan Political Agora: In Search of New Fields of Trust . . . . . . “Corrupt Me Please …” (Inclusion Through Exclusion) . . . . . . . . . . State Capture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Balkan “Clusters” of Corruption? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Administrative Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Western Balkan Nexus . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Constitutional Deficits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Poor Governance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Legacy of Distortion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Administration Deficits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Legal Framework Deficits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Civic Service Deficits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Public Procurement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

95 96 98 99 102 104 106 106 107 108 109 110 111 111

5 5.1 5.2 5.3

Competitive Global Patronages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Soros Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Gazprom Patronage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Siemens Affair (A Balkan Resonance) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

115 115 120 126

Conclusion: Quasi-Democracies as Fields of Corruption . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131 Literature . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

List of Tables

Table 1: Impact of forms of corruption for selected countries in SE Europe . . .

98

Table 2: Policy and regulatory environment by illegally ‘purchasing’ the laws, policies and regulations of the state (“State Capture” by corporates) State Capture Index and its Components (% of firms) affected by corporate purchase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101 Table 3: Impact of elements of the business environment as obstacles in wider SE European-Asian scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Preface

This book is the author’s response to the initial wave of democracy euphoria in South-East Europe, and the obvious regress of it after the “last catch” accession of Bulgaria and Romania (2007) into the European Union family. A core deficit in this respect is the lack of sustainable patronage, relevant to modern societal existence. The bitter fruits of some “dilemma of simultaneity”1 (Elster 1990), which might have failed to precisely predict the impossibility of transformation in Eastern Europe, has hit the target, as related to the breeds of “impatient capitalisms” that devour the region. Rising institutional asymmetries, the neglected “rule of law”, the lack of procurement procedures and public control over governmental expenditures as well as illegal schemes of privatisation, tax collecting and the unfair allocation of public funds have shaped mimicries of reforms in crucial spheres of social life. Corruptive patterns of patronages have very much spoiled the outputs of a most protruded and teasing transition. This undermines significant societal progress. System abuse of civic rights, conflict of interests, nepotisms, political partisanship, interweaving of institutions with organized criminality threaten to deviate the region from the general aims of democratic existence and modern societal advance. “Corrupt me please” – might be the desperate outcry of this self-destructive culture that has driven its new “clients” into ventures of systematic misuse of public resources, or the perplexity of the weakened states, as an alternative to rapid economic enrichment. However, what occurred (and still occurs) in South-East Europe – illegal privatisation, embargo trade, traffic of people, drug abuse etc. – is less to be discussed here in terms of “case studies”. We are more interested in the typical patterns of corruptive patronages on behavioural and cognitive levels. It is the social nature of these quasi-patron-clients relations that have grass-rooted in the niches of some late modernity reluctantly imposed (less even accepted) on the Balkans which engages us. In other words, it is the system-bound abuse of the “sovereignty of the spirit” (Hegel) swapped daily for “personal gains” that bothers us most. As we believe, patronages of a new quality have to be promoted in the shaping new global context of South-East Europe, based on what some scholars call “domestication” of new elites 1

See: Merkel, W., Plausible Theory, Unexpected Result: The Rapid Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe, in International Politics and Society, Nr. 2/2008, p. 11–12 .

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Preface

(Asch, 2004). A key word to enforce this process, as it seems to us, is Enkulturierung, to be propelled both politically and intellectually. This can occur only through rationally balanced reciprocial exchange, moreover clearly defined new social responsibilities of both patrons and clients. This seems the only realistic path to a new European integrity to which modern social science still has to contribute. I would like to thank beyond the usual courtesy Prof. Dr. Ronald G. Asch, Speaker of the DFG Research Group 1288 “Patronage, Friends and Clients”, at the Historical Seminar; Prof. Wolfgang Essbach from the Institute of Sociology, Freiburg University; and Prof. David Konstan, Brown University, USA. I am obliged to Frau Helga Hilmes (Secretariat) for her precise timing in terms of traditional German academic patronage. I especially thank the team of young researchers of the DFG Research Group 1288 for their intellectual friendship. As an older “European trotter”, who has bridged the Balkan “periphery” with its European core, mostly Germany, for decades I would like to leave them as a sign of good remembrance a piece of the legacy of St. Ivan Rilski – Patron of the Bulgarian nation: “Never take from a King or the hand of a man. God gives us usually enough of what we need …” I hope that this simple moral, which has upheld my nation for more than 1300 years of “stumbles and falls”, shall keep their spirit in a world that they can still shape better. And even make it less corrupt. One way to achieve this is to ignore most of its lavish temptations. Plamen K. Georgiev

Introduction

Changing Paradigms of Patronage (A South Eastern European Outlook) Guenther Roth ironically suggested in one of the first critical reviews1 on “Patrons, Friends and Clients”: “Eisenstadt who may be the busiest globe-trotter of his generation, looks at the world from the height of jet planes, touching down here and there at international crossroads with their worldwide sameness to impart his vision. He embodies a strikingly ecumenical sociology.”2 Indeed Eisenstadt has undertaken a most remarkable attempt to synthesize the paradigms of contemporary sociology, following the implications of Max Weber’s “Economic Ethics of the World Religions”. He has very much succeeded in this through the study of neo-patrimonialism and clientelism. As our reality in many ways bids farewell to some “fundamental rationalism”3 that has prevailed in the last century or so, we seem even less worried about dissembling monotheistic perceptions. Sociology has turned into a magician who pulls out of his sleeve rabbit-like ideas, offered at the free market of some “shortcut” intellectual exchange. Its multi-paradigmatic inconsistencies explain even less than they add to the rising ambiguities of a global world. The core characteristics of patron-client relations have been challenged both in their context and meaning by the transformation of Eastern Europe. Patron-client relations have worn out much of their immanent (or traditionally prescribed) capacity to operate in the old patrimonial frameworks and patterns. Global power and rising disparities (as effects of technology, new means of production, expanding markets etc.) overwhelm traditional systems of patronage. This has pushed both research and

1

Patrons, Clients and Friends: Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society. Review author[s]: Guenther Roth. The American Journal of Sociology (c) 1986 The University of Chicago Press. 2 Ibid. 3 Hans Martin Lohmann, Der Mythus der Vernunft. Die Ursprunge des europaieschen Denkens, in Neue Gesellschaft. Frankfurter Hefte, 5/2008, S. 72–74. See also: Helmut Heit: Der Ursprungsmythos der Vernunft. Zur philosophischen Genealogie des griechischen Wunders, Konnighausen & Neumann, Würzburg, 2007, 284 S.

12

Introduction

politics into the labyrinths of permanent change. Clusters of “compressed” societal entities replace the old collective identities. They are less bound to traditional patrimonialism(s), rely on temporary “leased” fields of trust, adhere not necessarily to mutually sharing strategies of reciprocal (asymmetrical) exchange. Patronages and patron-client relations of the present are moreover power-propelled, and thus hazardous in a new way. They have found out that peripheries could be not less important as “cross-points” of emerging glocalism(s) (Bauman). National states still matter, but as far as they guarantee bigger gains and some “fixed-term” market (geostrategic) advantages. Patronages and clienteles in South Eastern Europe are most inspired to redefine themselves into the new frameworks. As they become more vulnerable to the competitive forces of global markets, they find themselves even deeper involved in the bargained (ex) change of the shaping new order. The payoffs of these ventures turn less acceptable in many ways though. This may be the reason why neo-patrimonial relationships abandon traditional fields of trust and their uncertain loyalties. They feel more guaranteed by some “package”(tailored) exchange of resources. The “scattered lots” of the Balkans are even less integrated into the old patrimonial state, moreover the design of the new political architecture (Dayton) after the spread of Yugoslavia. They look more promising as wide-reaching “entities” or clusters of Eastern domains of bigger Europe. They are economically less efficient, still highprofit oriented. This makes them ambitious new clients of global patronage. They are instrumental but more politically bound. They count on a newly perceived global solidarity of free markets; still they rely on networks of “insiders” to counter back some soft colonialism in progress. Patron-client relations in a nutshell become more symbolic, ritualised, and less bound to commonly shared values. They are pragmatic, based on liable loyalties, act in “tailored” autonomies, and are widely market-oriented. This may only illustrate, but explains less of the rapidly declining state patronage in South Eastern Europe. We certainly need a more apt perspective to rationalize significant changes in the field. This is a great challenge for social science in the context of some late modernity that has still to come to the Balkans. One reason for this delay, as we will illustrate further, may be the neglected field of patronage and patron-client relations, which interdisciplinary science on this side still ignores. The structural functionalist, or late modern interpretative models, attempting to define some core of interpersonal relations and stress on the autonomy of power and the concomitant issue of its distribution, appear less relevant to the distorted postwar environment of South Eastern Europe. The perception of social order in terms of

Introduction

13

“limited good”, as defined by Foster and considered typical for peasant societies, is not less questionable. Most Balkan cultures have passed through their stages of modernization (industrialization, urbanisation of significant segments of their populations) in the era of communism. They, however, seem still trapped in their “mixes” of paternalist-subjective types of civic cultures. In so far as participation has been reduced to provisional roles in the framework of what has been defined as “facade” (“defected”, Merkel, 2000; “quasi-democracies”, Georgiev, 2007) patron-client relations are even less bound to the “shifting gravity” of newly perceived uncertainties. Rent seeking “cumulative investments”4 of re-monopolized means of production propel sub-cultures of institutional egalitarianism. This has strongly influenced the “general and specific exchange” and has made it even more vulnerable to illegal market activity, institutional fraud, or state and business capture. As Landé brilliantly suggested, clients or clientelistic relations are not only “marginal addenda” to more fully structured or organized social relations. They may also constitute – as they seemingly do in many Mediterranean, Latin American, and South-East Asian societies – a central aspect of the institutional pattern of these societies”.5 That these relations can be rationalized as institutional implications and/or “repercussions” only when they become part of the manifestation of the “central model of regulation of the flow of resources” is a brilliant achievement of modern social theory. It is moreover valid when they become part of the process of interpersonal and institutional exchange and interactions in society or a sector thereof.6 This might well explain the widely spread Latino pattern, binding new elites of South Eastern Europe in some new togetherness. It has inspired easy friendships, glamorous “show off ” lifestyles and wellbeing behaviors. As the new “barons” of the transition captured significant sectors of the perplexed states in turmoil, moreover arrogantly abused the public sector (neglected “rule of law”), a “self-defending” function of the structure of interpersonal relations has activated in its own way. Well experienced under the totalitarian regimes practices of “screwing the boss”, some solidarity at work, or even back-strikes on pseudo-corporative pyramids, echoed as 4

We do not consider here investments in symbolic capital as education; training programs related to professional, moreover party-ideological careers. The latter has specific impact on the individual careers maintained through the system of nomenclature(s) see 2.2.2. 5 Eisenstadt, S.N and Louis Roniger (1980), Patron-Clients Relations As s Model of Structural Social Exchange, in: Society for Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cambridge univ. press, p. 49. 6 S.N.Eisenstadt and Luis Roniger, (1980), Patron-Clients Relations as s Model of Structural Social Exchange, Cambridge university press, p. 49–50.

14

Introduction

repercussion of the passing by populist republicanism. As the “appointed capitalists” of the transition threatened “the bread and butter”7 of ordinary families, these counter-opposing behaviors have very much blocked the acceptable flow of patron-client relations. Patron-client relations rapidly lost the perspective of long-range endurance, moreover the voluntary principles of inter-engagements, to which they still seemed bound in the early years of transition. Dyad hierarchies became even less instrumental as their limited potential to accumulate or allocate the scarce resources turned irrelevant to the rest-ideological patronage inherited from the near communist past. Quick funerals of old “political friendships” occurred occasionally and this has been taken for granted. A desperate search for horizontal “political marriages” turned the widely adopted pattern of traditional patron-client survival. However, neither of the conventional dimensions (vertical/horizontal) seemed effective in the framework of the spreading old state and its perplexed institutions, moreover the pressure of global patronages, vigorously competing on the Balkans. Local businesses or even bigger “collective” joint ventures bankrupted before they could officially open, or shortly after. Gorgeous Christian-Orthodox rituals of long forgotten traditions, to inspire private initiatives of “newly baptized capitalists”, might be symptomatic for many patrimonial hopes buried. An inevitable abolishment of the “mythos by the logos” (Nietzsche) occurred, though ignored by social thought on this side. Corruptive patterns of patronages have gained less from some notorious “interpersonal sphere”, though, as a source of self- or group-maintenance through liberalized market activity. This happened through schemes of “state capture” and intrusion into the volatile public sectors. Most of the actors of these “national state survival” offensives have been politically encouraged to occupy abandoned niches of the semi-ruined centrally controlled state economies. They were even tolerated to generate their own fields of extortion under the umbrella of a popular “neo-liberalism”, widely promoted as substitute of the failed ideological determinism. This is a paradox of unprecedented kind: Most of the Balkan “captured states” are now facing the necessity to regain their inefficient investments in a provisionally proclaimed “independent 7

Bread has a special connotation in most Balkan countries, as a symbol of basic existential but also traditional patterns of general exchange. To “eat bread” means also to share collective existential forms in the family, the kinship or the neighbour community. The patron not only “employs”, he moreover “provides the bread” for the client. Orthodox virtues turned less capable in opposition to the egocentric nature of Balkan capitalism founded less on individual merits or inventive capacities, but on corruptive patronage. See: Plamen K.Georgiev, The Bulgarian Political Culture, Göttingen, 2007, pp. 13–14.

Introduction

15

sphere” of business. The only alternative left seems to restore illegally captured domains and integrate them into hybrid systems of quasi-corporativism, that have shaped. There seems to be no “middle of the middle”, indeed. The idea of national corporate groups, as guarantors of rapid economic advance, has been very much undermined by the obsessed competitiveness of rather exotic breeds of local entrepreneurships. The lack of managerial skills, the cultural and educational deficits of dilettante patronages as well as their unwillingness to adopt and upgrade acceptable terms of patron-client relations, has been widely compensated through oppressive strategies of leadership and extortion. A mass exodus to Europe and the advanced democratic world occurred. Most of the “new democracies” on the Balkans, in search of rapid foreign investments, aid and other direct sources of capital, failed to sustain their human capital. This gambled societal heritage of South Eastern Europe is not to be related only to a devastated post-war environment. It refers moreover to a deepened (chronic) deficit of less vibrant civic cultures and systematically misused public sectors. The nostalgia for the “strong hand” still shapes imageries of local patrons, eager to exploit populisms and nationalisms of most dangerous and less predictable kind. As the idea of the welfare state becomes even less realistic, the new agents of the transition, declared for “done”, have grasped new strategies. Financial pyramids and huge funds capital flows, as in the initial stage of transition, are gone now. EC money looks more promising in respect to investment programs or ambitious geo-strategic projects (energy, infra-structure, ecology). The brokers of this “wholesale” exchange, however, have less to do with the notorious almighty of the old nomenclature. The latter had only a galvanizing effect in the transitory era. The old “heroes” are now retired and live on their commissions. It is their networks of reliable “boys” that perform on the stage. The new nepotisms look even more acceptable as they are well integrated into the economies of the post-communist states. A “swarm” of young clients of the quasi-democratic institutions, recruited mainly from the sport, cadet schools, the ranks and files of the Komsomol,8 or even yuppies with western training, have occupied the arena of the “free market initiative”. Most of them operate under the umbrellas or “remote” control of oligarch groups, as enterprises, profiled through bypass schemes in extortion of public resources. Friendships are even deeper interweaved into mutual benefits and long-term obligations. It is the public, 8

Political youth organisation in most of the ex-communist countries in Eastern Europe organised according a common pattern of historical maintaining of communist power through ideological indoctrination and party planned careers (see: Nomenclature).

16

Introduction

widely perceived as “electorate”, less as “taxpayers”, which sustains this quasi-client status quo. The latter occurs through petty corruption, practiced widely, moreover as traditional Southern “gratitude” to networks of new vassals. Political patronages care less for the rational balance of the progressive “sell-outs” of the public assets. They rely on some monetary (post-Thatcherism) naïve notion of the “invisible hand” to master the chaos markets and societal order. Macro-politics is the powerful mantra of self-aware governments or their clientelist ruling coalitions. This has led to decisive shifts of loyalties and a massive decline of trust in most democratic institutions. The Balkan political systems are even more quested as they apparently fail to guarantee acceptable forms of democratic participation and representation. A “sword of Damocles” is hanging over the heads of post-war elites in South Eastern Europe. Most of them have obviously failed to deliver to keep pace with the imperative of modernity. The awareness of a “secondary deprivation” of most Balkan people from proper goals of democracy and societal advance is growing. The Balkan Sisyphus of transition can hardly compensate the deficits of the failed state patronage. Strategies of rapid gains, racketing of one’s own clan members or networks of “friends”, partisan involvement into risky ventures, end in mutual destruction. Patrons deliver jobs less to family members, relatives or close friends now as in the enthusiastic early days of transition. Clients are recruited among occasional acquaintances, controlled by committed “insiders” of most uncertain patronages. Patrons rely less on corporate partnerships. Most of them ferment before they merge. The system of general and specific exchange turns less predictable in this way as even sequential closures prove that informal structures can operate successfully only in the frameworks of some minimum of institutional (formal) gravity. Several tracks of comparative field research related to those and other paradigms of patronage and patron-client research seem of priority to us and concern the future of South Eastern Europe: 1. Much of the theory on patronage, moreover on corruption seems still highly normatively loaded. In so far as Weber and his ethical theory of capitalism have less influenced social thought in the East, quasi-determinist (materialist, but also idealistic) notions of the informal structures of most Balkan societies dominate. This might be the reason why some less relevant “social engineering” (state and institutional building) approach has very much blurred the realistic perception of patron-client relations in terms of proper democratic change and sustainable growth. 2. Cultural, ethnic and religious differences (Orthodox, Catholics, Muslims etc.) push many researchers into the realm of anthropological, teleological, ethno-

Introduction

17

graphic or even post-modern interpretations of the transformation of South Eastern Europe in an sich selbst (transl.) pattern. Indeed, the heterogeneity of the Balkan societal environment is to a great extent an objective obstacle for some universal, uniform solution of many deficits of the traditional systems of “general and specific exchange”. One way to avoid this is to study the complexity of a newly shaped Balkan globality in terms of mutually interferential cultures. 3. The Balkan entity has historically, culturally and to a certain extent politically shaped specific models of “diagonal” patronages (to differ, as we have pointed out before, from conventional horizontal/vertical aspects). This might well be thought of as part of the Balkan identity bound to some wider and broader (and not only emotional) perception of liberty. Comparative research usually fails when confronted with Balkan kinships, clans, relatives and even relations among friends. Only on the surface do they appear less compatible, or even deviating from some common European continental culture. Social psychology, ethnology, ethnography and even folklore are a mighty spring of relevant knowledge concerning a deeper comprehension of South European lifestyles, cognitive and behavioural patterns typical for their “general and specific exchange”. 4. Huge potential for relevant comparative research as related to issues of the shaping of new European identity is to be mentioned here only in respect to the modernization of most “new democracies” in Southern Europe. This is a challenge for social science, especially democratic studies, political sciences, comparative culture, history etc. Established researchers often claim that a number of crises of identities (still in progress) have shaped rather reluctant, less vibrant or introvert civic cultures on this side. This may well be true from the points of view of some Ivory tower of modernity. 4. What matters more in an interdependent global world, however, is an apt look from beneath, moreover through the eyes of the one who looks with hope and expectation to the learned, the visiting scholar. A soft paternalism of a new kind, less relevant to our egocentric modernity, might only support a new solidarity to be still promoted on this side. 5. The crucial issue of complex comparative research, as it seems to us, is the study of the most devastating moral aspects of abused feeling of social justice in terms of proper and modern democracy still sold in cheaper populist package on this side. The critically penetrating sociological, political, cultural, anthropological,

18

Introduction

newest history scrutiny appear most promising in the sub-fields of monitoring institutional malfunctioning, poor governance, the role of the independent media, the eroded system of “law and order”. As we could find out in the due of this research, those fields of study still seem very much enchained in old prejudices and partisanship dogmas. Civic cultures on this side can only grassroots but never rise up to the demands of a new Europe, without the moral support of the international community, or a wide penetrating public opinion. Empirical research is by no means to be left alone to analysts, much less political audiences. Shaping an open as well as transparent societal environment on this side is a new mission for modern social science and this is what gives proper meaning to it. 6. Concerning the methodology of comparative research in the field of patron-client relations, formalisms of different orientations (structuralism, functionalism, social engineering, model or even game theory etc.), have very much “aggregated” our present reality. Thus, the measurement of corruption, based on a number of cumulative and other indexes, or even of confessions of insiders, reaches some limits of rather “crunched” perception of corruption in its modern forms. This relates to administrative corruption and the public procurement, while “high rank” (political and/or corporate corruptions and corruptive patterns of patronage usually stay in the shadow of sophisticated practices. Comparative social research still has to discover and invent new methods and instruments for the precise screening of many “phenomena” as money laundry, financial frauds, conflict of interests, or even high-tech networked organised crime. A digitalized world needs new dimentions of rational findings and discoveries. This is a challenge for the new Argonauts of the XXI c., and the democratic world can only appreciate their commitments. 7. Last but not least – the field of patron-client relations is not only, as we hope to be able to illustrate, a field of tiresome, rather boring piles of empirical facts, less even narratives of interpretative achievements. It is a huge responsibility as it both shapes and gives new meaning to our reality. Therefore, all we could recommend here to many younger researchers in the field – a most independent critical outlook to the mountain of systematically (or less systematically) piled, but often less usefully rationalized “truths” for sail is needed. Even the heaviest looking mountain can be overwhelmed easily in a joyful journey of the young researcher’s inventiveness. This is the Muse to follow even if we have “to pay her taxi” as Vladimir Visotzki – one of the bards of the painfully suffered democratic idea in the East sang once … .

Introduction

19

As most “new democracies” in South Eastern Europe are even more challenged by “third” parties (EC, WB, donor and international NGO’s), the honeymoon of their quasi-democratic transition seems to be reaching its end. Romania and Bulgaria might be exemplary for some late perceived demand of self-disciplinary actions in the fight against corruption and organized crime to rise to the European democratic standards. The reluctance of political elites on this side to peruse legally “ordinary crooks”, not to mention publicly discredited representatives of mafia-like cohorts on higher political levels, is symptomatic. It reflects a deeply perplexed and corrupted judicial system, moreover some culture of intouchability inherited from the near past and “processed” in its sophisticated forms. The lack of acceptable patron-client relations that could flow into the mainstream of normality is even more disturbing. Once abandoned by the post-totalitarian state, many vital domains of traditional “general and specific exchange” have been left to the voluntarism of the new “bossism”. As oligarch groups dominate the scenery, they propel the new democracies in South Eastern Europe into new risks and global dependencies (growing depths and deficit, inflation, rising prices of energy, food etc.). An even vaguely perceived idea of proper EC integrity pushes their populations back into deep resentment. This endangers the volatile pre- and post contractual interrelations in a still conflict-loaded societal environment. A widely abused sense of social justice, routed in the Balkan soul, is still to be restored. This might be possible only by inventing the standards of proper democratic existence, moreover patronage and patron-client relations regulated by the “rule of law”. This necessitates a decisive shift from the deeply corrupted patterns of patronage and their morally devastating quasi-loyalties. It is another aspect of a postEisenstadt reality, which is to be tackled in a rapidly changed new South Eastern European context, 20 years after. Social science and complex interdisciplinary research have to unveil a rather blurred realistic perspective of patron-client relations as guarantees for societal advance on this side of Europe. Even deficits may turn into advantages, but only if patron-client relations are conceived rationally and not so much in some idealized interpersonal relational framework, that still seems to be prevailing. Globally operating anticorruption systems have to be fostered to restore the “rule of law”. The search of new” fields of trust” may be myopic as investments in friendships become even more costly (Hahn, 2007) and often turn them into bigger disappointments. A normal perception of patron-client relations might be the precious discovery of some “paradise lost” that could be regained by the inheritors of the lands of Orpheus. But not before they rise up to their new responsibilities.

20

Introduction

As the West has met the East, time has come to learn to live with its South, as Senghaas once suggested.9 This, according to most theories of communication, seems to be the only reliable pattern that might add (or fail to do so) significant qualities to the “general and specific exchange” in modern European terms. It is to be conceived not so much as sheer exchange of resources, or even values, between the “centre” and its “periphery”. It relates to sharing strategies of mutual involvement in the processes of modernization and complex societal upgrading. The Balkan “core(s)” of interpersonal relations, as the reader may find out further on, is not to be considered as “totally” deprived from its generic common European roots. It is the new gravity of spin-like performing patron-client relations, which interdisciplinary science should chase, grasp and promote with new commitment. Historically worn out and culturally unacceptable patterns of patronage and patron-client relations are irrelevant to the future. The abolishment of these structures is a condition sine qua non for a new European integrity in shape, as a pillar of peace and prosperity in the region and wide beyond it. This is a cause worth the sleepless nights, in hopes of a brighter day to come.

9

This has no connotation with some post-colonial models of interpretation of the transition processed on the Balkans, but more over refers to an idea of Sehngaas that “every European has his South”. The latter is to be decoded, as we believe in a wider and binding European cultural context, eroded by wars and divisions, but still to be grasped as a genuine Spirit of mutual traditions and commitments.

1

Rethinking Patronages (Towards the Phenomenology of Patron Client Relations)

Why do we worship, admire, and moreover obey those who pay the costly prise of our uncertain involvements? What do clients offer in return to patrons? Do patrons really protect us, or is it a sheer coincidence of evidences, that shape the traditional structures of this invisible exchange? Phenomenology could be a dubious muse. But it looks like she is the first to visit our restless minds in search of truths. One thing looks sure – our human existence roots, feeds (and even gets corrupted), in some exhaustive framework of patron client involvement. Patronages mould our societal environment. They also influence us through some “soft patrimonialism”, without which we consider ourselves deprived, or even lost. Friendships and patronages are part of our Alter Ego. We usually have less to add to a” dynamic equilibrium” of mutually shared (or disturbed) reciprocity.

1.1

The Piety of Friendship and Patronage

The idea to rationalize patronages in the complex frameworks of modern dependencies and changing scopes of freedoms is most challenging, but rather a slippery one. Patronages of the present have less in common with most of the virtues, moreover the responsibility of patronages of the antiquity. Our modernity has both added but also deprived us from some “qualities” of these instruments of reciprocal balance of interests, or even piety. Modern patronages seem vulnerable in a new way. Clienteles still run after patrons but are well aware that they don’t have to maintain their loyalties. Patrons are even less bound to some pre-contractual engagements. They prefer pragmatically balanced, moreover formal procedures to avoid deeper interdependencies. Interests are not enough to bare our “diffusive” fields of trust. Empathies also change, as competitive life styles propel situational “mariages” to acquaintances, or incidental peers. We have lost the orientation in a “classless society”, challenged by choices that often turn preliminary determined. Or less worthy than we have “expected” them to be … Ever since Eisenstadt and Roniger the field has gained more of empirical evidence but less thoughtful coverage of significant changes of patron-client relations of modernity. We have the “functionalists”, the “communitarians”, the “anthropolo-

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gists”, the “political scientists”, the “post-modern interpreters” of our “mono-” and “poli-phylies”. What we lack, however, is the understanding of patron-clientele relations as specific piety, which generates (and annihilates altogether) both structures and their adherent interpersonal relations. A brief look at the history of ideas might sober our perceptions on this phenomenon. In a most penetrating essay “God, Benefactor and Patron: The Major Cultural Model for interpreting the Deity in GrecoRoman Antiquity” Jerome H. Neyrey might have well succeeded to find a useful key to some long shut door, through which we may be still lucky to enter the realms of modern Patronage.10 As it seems our modern Ego has very much shifted us from some “natural” perception of patron-client relations. We are less concerned with the deprivation of “the art to exist through the other” (Aristotle). We even feel privileged behind the walls of our privacy. Still we are often in a desperate search of otherness (es).11 How come? Neyrey offers a cultural model (one of many) of benefactor-client relations, which much gains from a holistic (theological) approach to our present reality. As arguable, as it is, concerning it’s empirical backgrounds, it may be stimulating for further research. What is most interesting here is an enlarged model of patron-client relation’s moreover plentiful illustrations of it in antiquity. The model is moreover expanded by concern for types of reciprocity and classification of what is actually “exchanged”. Typical titles of teleological interpretations of God-as-benefactor are also thoroughly examined in the light of media of exchange, especially power, knowledge, and material benefaction. Let us discuss this in more details. New findings are very often the well-forgotten old ones... Several leading questions are asked in this study: Why does God give benefaction? What kind of reciprocity is in view? What kind of debt is incurred? Finally, what do clients return to God? Elites in antiquity stated that God wants nothing and needs nothing. Yet mortals have offered sacrifice, a form of inducement, which practice Christians and philosophers rejected. What could be rationalized through these be10

For a survey of the literature on Patron-client relations, see John H. Elliot, “Patronage and Clientage”, in The Social Sciences and New Testament Interpretation, (ed. Richard L. Rohrbaugh; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996) 142–156; see also Steffen W. Schmidt, James C. Scott, Carl Landé and Laura Guasti, eds. Friends, Followers and Factions. A Reader in Political Clientelism (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1977; S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends. Interpersonal Relations and the Structure of Trust in Society (Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1984); and Ernst Gellner and John Waterbury, Eds. Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies (London: Duckworth, 1977). 11 Prof Dr. Alois Hahn (Trier): Soziologische Aspekte der Freundschaft. Vortrag im Rahmen der Vortragsreihe Kollegs “Freunde, Gönner, Getreue”, 13. 12. 2007, University of Freiburg.

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havioural patterns, routed in different cultures and mentalities? But, as we may find out still based on some common grounds. Patrons are certainly among the factors that have moulded our social reality. Societal change, however, has not been untouchable privilege of patrons. It is more often that Clienteles have turned the public eye to new horizons and demands to change the “rules of the game”. Patrons and patronages allocate not only material resources. They operate more or less successfully with sympathy, paternalistic piety, loyalty, power and/or obedience, knowledge and trust. Most authors consider them therefore as ideal constructs that organise our beliefs, feelings, ideas, but also explicitly accentuate existential demands. Norman Johnson catalogued the “aims of the prayers” found in the apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, and provided a list of potential benefactions: 1) help in warfare, 2) deliverance from enemies outside of war, 3) safe journey, 4) rain, 5) food and drink, 6) health, 7) demon riddance, 8) procreation, 9) establishing/restoring the nation, 10) the Temple and its sacrifices, and 11) righteousness and justice.12 Similarly, Jon Mikalson13 undertook the same task for Greek prayers and listed the following benefactions: 1) “good will” of the god, 2) success in battle, 3) “information”, 4) agriculture, 5) health and healing, 6) wealth, and 7) ripe old age. Whether petition or praise, mortals consistently credit their gods with the ability to grant certain benefactions. Thus Deodorise of Sicily praises the god Uranus for the following benefactions: “Their first king was Uranus, and he [a] gathered the human beings within the shelter of a walled city and [b] caused his subjects to cease lawless ways and bestial manner of living, discovering for them the uses of cultivated fruits, how to store them up, and not a few other things of benefit to man; [c] he subdued the larger part of the inhabited earth … [d] And since he was a careful observer of the stars he foretold many things which would take place throughout the world; [e] and for the common people he introduced the year on the basis of the movement of the sun and the months on that of the moon“ (3.56.3–5).14

The Deity bestowed on mortals an orderly life: inducement (dwelling in cities, agriculture, possession of habitable land); influence (ability to read the patterns of stars and the sky, and a calendar which regulated annual and monthly life); power (shelter and protection of a walled city); commitment (benevolent, overarching reason for 12

Norman B. Johnson, Prayer in the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha. A Study of the Jewish Concept of God JBL Monograph Series II (Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, 1948) 7–34. 13 John D. Mikalson, Athenian Popular Religion (Chapel Hill, NC: UNC Press, 1985) 18–26 and 39–49. 14 Ibid.

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1 Rethinking Patronages

doing any of this). Similarly, Dio Chrysostom praises Zeus as “many-named”.15 He explains each title, linking it with it corresponding benefaction. Zeus is addressed as “King” because of his dominion and power; as “Father”, on account of his solicitude and gentleness; as “Protector of Cities” in that he upholds the law and the commonwealth; as “Guardian of the Race” on account of the tie of kinship which unites gods and men; as “Lord of Friends and Comrades” as he brings all men together and wills that they be friendly; as “Protector of Suppliants” since he is gracious to men when they pray; as “God of Refuge” as he gives refuge from evil; as “God of Hospitality” because it is the very beginning of friendship not to be unmindful of strangers … and as “God of Wealth and Increase” since he causes all fruitage and is the giver of wealth and sustenance (Oration 1.40–41; see Oration 39.8). 1.1.1

Benefactor/Patron – Client Relations Models

Social historians, anthropologists or sociologists as related to patron/client benefactor relations, have offered numerous models. The one commented here informs researchers on what data is likely to appear in old historical sources, and how to interpret it when discovered. It contains three main components: a. characteristics of patron – client relationship, b. types of reciprocity (characterizing the exchange between patron and client), and c. classification of what is exchanged in such type of relationship. A. Patronage. Patronage is usually defined as analytical construct, which social scientists apply to rationalize a range of different social relationships: God – man, saint – devotee, godfather – godchild, lord – vassal, landlord – tenant, politician – voter, and so forth.16 Bipolar/dichotomies are usually loaded with different semantic burdains. Still they may be most useful. They are instrumental in so far they prompt on some “excluded third” (Hegel), or “otherness” (Bauman). This property of antinomies is often neglected by formal research approaches. For example a Patron may be considered “good“, “wise” and/or “generous” – v/s “ill-”, or “narrow-minded”, or even “corrupted”. Aside from the normative “labelling” such antinomies speak less on power relations. They more likely reflect specific interests of participants (asym15

Zeus alone of the gods has the epithets of “Father” and “King”, “Protector of Cities”, “Lord of Friends and Comrades”, “Guardian of the Race”, and also “protector of Suppliants”, “God of Refuge”, and “God of Hospitality”, these and his countless other titles signifying goodness and the fount of goodness (Oration 1.39). 16 A. Blok “Variations in Patronage”, Sociologische Gids 16 (1969) 366; see also Gellner, Patrons and Clients in Mediterranean Societies, 1–7.

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metries). Still they tell a lot as related to specific culture(s) of interpersonal relations. Most findings refer to interpersonal relations among elites, insofar as we find rarely comments on friendships (less even patronage) among lower classes. Thus our analytical typologies usually drawn out of different societal contexts might substantially blur (in structural and cognitive aspects) the “pictures” presented. Most of the interdependences of patron-client relations, or friendships, significantly differ across cultures and religions. This is a premise to be bared? Born in mind, moreover by enthusiastic young researchers. In general, most social scientists agree on the following elements (characteristics) of benefactor-client relations in some universal (not especially in terms of Weber) perspective. The list below, based on the expositions in Eisenstadt and Roniger,17 contains useful suggestions and clarifications made by other scholars as well18: 1. Asymmetrical relationship, i.e. between parties of different status, thus representing a vertical dimension of superior and inferior relationships. 2. Simultaneous exchange of different types of resources, above all instrumental, economic and political ones by the benefactor, in response to which the client promises reciprocity, solidarity and loyalty. 3. Interpersonal obligations are prevalent, couched in terms of personal loyalty or attachment between patrons and clients.19 4. Favouritism is frequently present.20 5. Reciprocity: as basic goods and services are exchanged, clear notions of reciprocity arise; the client who incurs a debt has obligations to the patron.21 17

S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends, 43–64, esp. 48–49. On formal characteristics of this type of relationship see Bruce J. Malina, “Patron and Client. The Analogy behind Synoptic Theology”, 143–45, and Halvor Moxnes, The Economy of the Kingdom (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1988) 40–47; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Patronage in Ancient Society (London: Routledge, 1990) 1–8. 19 John Rich “Patronage and Interstate Relations in the Roman Republic”, in Patronage in Ancient Society [ed., Andrew Wallace-Hadrill; London: Routledge, 1990] 128) describes the importance of loyalty/faithfulness in the patron-client relation: “In one of the most important of its many uses fides means ‘protection’.” The weaker party is said ‘to be in the fides’ of the stronger. At the formation of such a relationship, the weaker party is said to give himself into or entrust to the fides of the stronger and the stronger to receive the weaker into his fides.” 20 Richard Saller, “Patronage and Friendship in Early Imperial Rome: Drawing the Distinction”, in Patronage in Ancient Society (ed., Andrew Wallace-Hadrill; London: Routledge, 1990) 52–53. Plutarch states:” There are favours that involve causing no offence, such as giving a friend preferential help in obtaining a post, putting some prestigious administrative function into his hands, or a friendly embassy” (Precepts for Politicians 19–20). 21 Ibid. P. 21, 27–29. 18

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6. “Kinship glaze” over the relationship reduces the crassness of the exchange; the patron is “father” to the client.22 7. Honour, both given and received, is a significant feature of these relationships.23 Human benefactor-client relationships thus tend to be: asymmetrical, reciprocal, voluntary, often including favouritism, focused on honour and respect, and held together by “good will” or faithfulness. Changes occur, when this scheme is applied to the relationship of gods and mortals, i.e. in teleological frameworks. The latter are of specific interest for us in so far as networked power hierarchies of modernity tend to get access (and control) of both power and wealth through some overwhelming patronage(s). They rely less on traditional patrimonialism(s), moreover on symbolic values as instrument for exchange. This “metaphysic” transformation might be another promising key to understand their complex structures. B Reciprocity and Types of Patronage. To better grasp what patrons and clients exchange, we have to consider first the concept of reciprocity: what types of reciprocities are there, moreover between what kinds of partners is each type of reciprocity practiced? Authors as Bruce Malina24 mediate to biblical cultural theories of exchange, especially that of Marshall Sahlins.25 Theorists identify three types of reciprocity (pertinent to the ancient Mediterranean): 1. Generalized reciprocity, the solidarity extreme; 2. Balanced reciprocity, the midpoint; 3. Negative reciprocity, the unsocial extreme.26 Generalized reciprocity refers to “altruistic” interactions, whereby the interests of “the other are primary” (i.e., “solidarity extreme”). It is usually extended to kin-group members. Balanced reciprocity looks to mutual interests, in more balanced pattern (i.e., quid-pro-quo exchange). It often has one’s neighbours and villagers in view. Negative reciprocity seeks self-interest at the expense of “the other”, who might be is a stranger or an enemy – hence it is defined as “unsocial extreme”.

22

Dionysus of Halicarnassus narrates that Romulus wished patron-client relations in Rome not to resemble the harshness shown by the Greeks: “The Athenians called their clients ‘thetes’ or ‘hirelings’, because they served for hire, and the Thessalians called theirs ‘penestai’ or ‘toilers’, by the very name reproaching them with their condition” (2.9). So he recommended that the poor and lowly be described by a “handsome designation”, namely “patronage”. 23 Veyne, Bread and Circuses, 124–30. 24 Bruce J. Malina, Cultural Anthropology and Christian Origins (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1986) 98–106. 25 Marshal Salins, Stone-Age Economics, Chicago: Aldine-Atherton Press, 1972. 26 Ibid. Stone-Age Economics, p.193–96.

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27

Philo describes these three abstract types of reciprocity when he asks the question: “Why did God create?” He begins with a text, “Noah found grace with the Lord God” (Gen 6: 8), then asks about this “grace”, whether it was something earned or deserved, and thus expressive of a balanced reciprocity. Philo rejected any notion of “balance” here, however and offered another explanation. The latter prompts to a different form of reciprocity, not balanced, but generalized: [Moses] … found this to be the highest truth, that all things are the grace or gift of God – earth, water, air, fire, sun, stars, heaven, all plants and animals … But God has given His good things in abundance, not because He judged anything worthy of grace, but looking to His eternal goodness, and thinking that to be beneficent was incumbent upon His blessed and happy nature. So that if anyone should ask me what was the motive for the creation of the world, I will answer that it was the goodness of the Existent, that goodness which is the oldest of His bounties and itself the source of others (Unchangeableness of God 107–108).

Thus the Creation (in theological terms) might be defined as a singular act of generalized reciprocity, which appropriately suits God: “to be beneficent was incumbent upon His blessed and happy nature”. To be God (Patron) means to bestow unmerited blessings and to act according to the “solidarity extreme”. Patrons of “great calibre” usually incorporate this noble altruism. They have adhered to this old biblical pattern. But as we can find out also betrayed it. Our pragmatic mind still appreciates patron-client relations of that type in a secular world. This often makes human behaviour more predictable. C. What is exchanged? To finally brief this model, which we consider overriding in many respects most sophisticated concepts, we have to consider what kinds of favours are bestowed (exchanged) in the “generalized” and “balanced” types of reciprocity of benefactor-client relations. One could attempt a comprehensive compilation of things for which mortals petition the gods and for which benefactor are praised. We usually need empirically reliable (operational) typologies to classify the material(s) in these exchanges. Fortunately some theorists provide such models for classifying societal structures and their relevant interrelations. Talcott Parsons, might be exemplary (and still acceptable) as one of the leading “system structure” theorists whose heritage has been even “digested” for Biblical studies.27 The means to achieve effect(s) on others can be compressed into four “general symbolic media”, 1. Power, 2. Commitment. 3. Material goods and 4. Influence. Kings and generals protected and delivered to their subjects, because of their power. Gifts of seed, food, and dowries for daughters, and hospitality, illustrate such induce27

Parsons, T., Politics and Social Structure, 352–404, originally published as “On the Concept of Political Power”, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 107 (1963) 232–62.

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ment. People who consulted oracles or prophets (as in regards to influence,) were seeking both influence-as-knowledge and influence-as-access. Finally “commitment” refers to faithfulness, loyalty, obedience, as well as to fictive-kin bonds, grants of honour and respect (i.e., doxologies and hymns to the gods). It is also adopted as some language of “friends” and friendship. Rome’s legions risked their lives for it (commitment) and so participated in extending Rome’s power. In recompense for this Rome granted them pensions or lands in a colony (inducement) or public honouring, such as a Roman triumph (commitment). 1.1.2

God as Benefactor/Patron

There is a special Greek term for “benefactor” (Û), though it would be a mistake to collect instances of it alone to conduct examination of “benefactor” (patron) based on single term only.28 Three points are worth to be mentioned here: 1) the ancients used many synonyms for “benefactor”; 2) they combined certain titles apropos of “benefactor”, such as “savoir an benefactor”; 3) they strung together many titles of a deity. The six most frequent, significant names expressive of benefaction, related to a deity are briefed below: 1. “King” (  ). When Dio calls Zeus “king”, he refers to the positive results of his rule: “In like manner do the gods act, and especially the great King of Kings (  ×   ), Zeus, who is the common protector and father (μã    ¬) of men and gods” (Oration 2.75). “King” and “father” is often found in combination, suggesting the positive governance by a benefactor. 2. “Father” ( ). Greeks frequently call god “Father”. For example, Dio Chrysostom states: “At that time, the Creator and Father (μ Î    ¬) of the World, beholding the work of his hands …” (Oration 36.60). Cicero comments: “ … the poets call him ‘father of gods and men,’ and our ancestors entitled him ‘best and greatest,’ putting the title ‘best,’ that is most beneficent, before that of ‘greatest,’ because universal beneficence is greater, or at least more loveable, than the possession of great wealth” (Nature of the Gods 1.64). The meaning of this title must be derived from examination of the specific pater28

The semantic field for benefactor/patron is very rich, and includes most notably the following terms: 1. Technical terms for “benefactor” (Û,   , ,  , |  |    ,    , Û  , |   ; 2. synonyms for “benefactor” ( , , ,  ; Patronus, patrocinium, amicus, praeses, clientela; praesidium, beneficum); and 3. related attitributes ( /  ; μ  , μ ; liberalis, benignus, beneficus).

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nal role, that is, the rights and duties of earthly fathers. Those included protection and nurture of his children, but also socialization and the like.29 In time Caesar described himself as the Pater Patriae, clearly extending the notion of domestic benefactor to the political arena. “Father”, then, was a term most suitable to a Benefactor. 3. “Savior ()” The various studies of “saviour” indicate that the term enjoyed a wide range of meaning.30 A saviour is one who:cues another from danger and peril, such as war, illness, judicial condemnation, floods and famines; 2) protects and preserves the polis and its citizens; 3) inaugurates a golden age; and 4) benefits others.31 It will be difficult to know just what nuance of “saviour” an author has in mind without specification. If it refers to rescue, then the deity’s power might be in view; if maintenance of good status or general benefaction, then inducement. 4. “Benefactor (Û)”, like “Savior”, is a term of many meanings. As one scholar noted, “Gods and heroes, kings and statesmen, philosophers, inventors and physicians are hailed as benefactors because of their contributions to the development of the race”. While kings exercise power benevolently and philosophers provide wisdom, most benefactors bestowed material benefits, that is, inducement. Philo calls attention to the benefaction of commitment, which God cultivates. We commonly find Û in combination with other titles, often with , a pattern common among mortals and immortals.32 5. “Creator (μ )” Whereas μ  served as the common Greek description of the deity’s creative activity, the LXX totally avoided it and chose instead  . Although μ  ripened in meaning over the years, it never 29

See Jerome Neyrey, “Father”, The Collegeville Pastoral Dictionary of Biblical Theology (ed. Carroll Stuhlmuller; Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press 1996) 315–319. See also John J. Pilch, “ ‘Beat His Ribs While He is Young’ (Sir 30: 12): A Window on the Mediterranean World”, BTB 23 (1993) 101–113. 30 Arthur Darby Nock (“Soter and Euergetes”, Essays on Religion and the Ancient World [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1972] 2.721) notes gods acted as saviours: “Zeus as father of men and gods, was strong to aid; Artemis protected women in childbirth; Athena guarded the Acropolis … In fact, any deity was credited with powers which men lacked, and could aid as humanity could not.” 31 Werner Foerster, “  ,  , TDNT 7.967; the original citation is found in Ditt. Syll3 II.589, 26–31. 32 Plutarch describes how some men vainly present themselves: “Yet other persons publicly styled themselves Benefactors (Û ), Conquerors (  ), Saviors ( ) or the Great (!  )” (Plutarch, On the Fortune of Alexander 338C; see also Polybius, Hist. 9.36.5).

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lost its sense of builder, or workman. In terms of general symbolic media, “creator” contains power (to order and maintain the cosmos), inducement (foods and animals for human use), commitment (faithfulness in maintaining a world fit for god’s offspring), and influence (wisdom which is imbedded in creation). 6. “Sovereign” ( ). This is considered as unusual term for a benefactor for it often describes the relation of master to slave. It expresses above all power, and fear, and thus obedience (see Philo, Heir 22–23). Yet it is frequently found in Hellenistic prayers, perhaps because it emphasizes the dependence of the person petitioning the deity. Some writers use it in combination with other benefactor terms, thus “softening” its hard edges.33 Christian usage, however, generally connotes divine benevolence and power. Benefactor titles are not just paired, but also often strung together. Plutarch quotes a Stoic about God: “Zeus the Savior and Sire, the Father of Right, of Order and of Peace” and “Savior, Gracious, Averter of Evil. A formal reflection on this piling up of titles is found in another title, “many-named” ( μ).34 Finally, Seneca provides the perfect illustration: “You may address this being who is the author of this world of ours by different names; it will be right for you to call him Jupiter Best and Greatest, and the Thundered and the Stayer … Any name you choose will be properly applied to him if it connotes some force that operates in the domain of heaven – his titles may be as countless as are his benefits” (Benefits 4.7.1).35 Although focused on the role of the patron in ancient systems of patronage, another figure needs be mentioned in this modelling framework, the one of the “ middleman”. The ancients described him by variety of names and functions. Patrons and/or clients frequently used forms of mediation, which served as go-between for heavenly

33

Philo reflects Greco-Roman usage when he speaks about reverence for the emperor as “ Master and Benefactor and Saviour and the like (   Â Û  Â  )” (Flaccus 126). 34 An inscription concerning Klarian Apollo reads: “self-existent, untaught, without a mother, undisturbed, of many names (  μl) although not spreading abroad his name, dwelling in fire …” in G.H.R. Horsley, NDIEC 2 (1982) 39. Moreover, a poem describes Artemis as a little girl on her father’s lap, asking for a gift that would put her on a par with her brother; she asked “Give me many-namedness” (  μ¬) cited by J. M. Bremer”, Greek Hymns”, in Faith, Hope and Worship. Aspects of Religious Mentality in the Ancient World (ed. H. S. Versnel; Leiden: Brill, 1981) 194–195. 35 Philosophical critique of popular god-talk argued that god is “un-nameable” ( μ ). See Harry A. Wolfson, “The Knowability and Describability of God in Plato and Aristotle”, HSCP 57 (1947) 233–247.

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Patron or earthly clients.36 Greco-Roman deities employed intermediaries to communicate with and affect mortals, such as Hermes/Mercury, or Oracles/prophets, or Sibyls. Mortals in turn employed persons called “priests” to sacrifice, petition, and consult the deity. The Romans had colleges of priests in charge of civic religion, whose head was known as the pontifex maximus. Mortals used mediators for purposes of trade, politics, legal matters, and the like.37 If typical patrons expected some return for patronage, so too the intermediary received a tariff for services rendered. If the ancient deities were inaccessible, so too earthly monarchs, some go-between was necessary to safely and honourably approach the one who lives “in unapproachable light”. Blessed gods were similarly thought to be above direct involvement in human affairs, for which purpose they employed angels, minor gods and the like. 1.1.3

Types of Reciprocity

“Reciprocity” is usually considered as a fixed, ubiquitous element of benefactorclient relationships.38 Some evidence points to a contest of benefaction: who can give the most and best benefits.39 Winners usually received rewards or other forms of recognition. Even those obliged to perform “liturgies” could expect some returns for their benefactions.40 Clients disliked being in any debt to their benefactors, for this “debt” implied an expected recompense to the benefactor.41 Many benefactors bestowed their largesse with the clear expectation of some return, as Cicero (Duties 1.15.47–48) and Pliny (Letters 9.30.1–4) witnesses. The inscriptions collected by Danker and others regularly attest that benefactors were awarded public honour-

36

On brokerage in patron-client relations, see Eisenstadt and Roniger, Patrons, Clients and Friends, 228–245; Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Patronage in Ancient Society, 81–84, 226. 37 A. Oepke, “μ ”, TDNT IV 599–601 and 609–611. Collins, (Diakonia, 96–132, 133–149) has two chapters on “words” and “deeds” of the go-betweens, which serve as excellent summaries of the types of brokerage found in the ancient world. 38 A. R. Hands, “Giving for a Return” in his Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968) 26–48; Saller, Personal Patronage under the Early Empire, 15–25. 39 Seneca speaks of a “most honourable rivalry in outdoing benefits by benefits” (Benefits 1.4.4; see Isocrates 1.26); see Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome, 31. 40 See S. R. Llewlyn, “The Development of the System of Liturgies”, NDIEC 7 (1994) 93–111. 41 “They who consider themselves wealthy, honoured, the favourites of fortune, do not wish ever to be put under obligations by our kind services. They suspect that a claim is thereby set up against them or that something is expected in return. It is bitter death to them to have accepted a patron or to be called clients” (Cicero, Duties 2.20.69).

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ing,42 which if withheld would insult the benefactor. A debate among Greco-Roman philosophers on the proper motive for giving benefaction, and the ideal type of reciprocity points in a different direction however. Seneca, for example, insists that benefaction is not “bargaining”. He contrasts his ideal benefaction with commerce: “No one enters his benefactions in his accountbook, or like a greedy tax-collector calls for payment upon a set day, at a set hour. The good man never thinks of them unless he is reminded of them by having them returned; otherwise, they transform themselves into a loan” (Benefits, 1.2.3). A benefactor is not a money-lender (Benefits, 4.2.3), nor does keep track of is benefactions: “In benefits the book-keeping is simple – so much is paid out; if anything comes back, it is gain, if nothing comes back, there is no loss. I made the gift for the sake of the giving” (Benefits 1.2.2-3). Seneca also insists that divine favour is altruistic. He voices Stoic belief that to give benefaction is an essential characteristic of the nature of god. God seeks no servants. He himself does service to mankind. The ideal earthly benefaction is to “follow the example of the gods” who show kindness “without any motive of reward and without attaining any advantage for themselves” (4.25.3). Among elite thinkers divine benefaction has been ideally described as altruistic (generalized reciprocity). 1.1.4

Client’s “Pay offs” to Patrons

Mortal patrons and clients accepted the reciprocal nature of their relationship. Clients usually knew what patrons expected of them in return. Contrary to Seneca, S. Dixon argues that typical patrons in the Roman world bestowed benefits for some return, normally understood as “praise” and “honour”.43 She cites Cicero’s critique of patronage in this regard: “A great many people do many things that seem to be inspired more by a spirit of ostentation (Gloria) than by heart-felt kindness; for such people are not really generous but are rather influenced by a sort of ambition to make a show of being open-handed” (Duties 1.44). Patrons often tend to act thus out of 42

Danker, Benefactor; see also Hands, Charities and Social Aid in Greece and Rome, 175–209. Note the following benefaction inscription: “… the king’s most important reward (μ Î, μ ) is praise, universal fame, reverence for his benefactions, statues and temples and shrines bestowed on him by his subjects – all these are payment (μ Â) for the thought and care which such men evidence in their continual watch over the common weal and its improvement” (Lucian, Apology 13), cited in J. R. Harrison, “Benefaction Ideology and Christian Responsibility for Widows”, NDIEC 8 (1998) 110–111. 43 Suzanne Dixon, “The Meaning of Gift and Debt in the Roman Classique/Classical Views 12 (1993) 451–464. Lucian (Apology anything without pay.”

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some “balanced reciprocity”, expecting a return of praise and respect from their clients. Ingratitude moreover ranked as one of the worst interpersonal evils. On Seneca’s “axis of evil” ingrates are the worst of a very bad lot: “Homicides, tyrants, thieves, adulterers, robbers, sacrilegious men, and traitors there always will be; but worse than all these is the crime of ingratitude”.44 Patrons and clients projected this sense of duty and debt to heavenly benefactors and mortal clients. Such, indeed, was the view of most ancients, with the exception of a few elites who engaged in a philosophical critique of popular religion. Clients, then, owe the Deity honour and praise. Although popular piety presumes that God wants or needs a return (sacrifice, honour and gratitude), the critics of popular religion denied this: God and the gods “need nothing” ( ). This statement, found as early as Euripides “God wants for nothing if he’s truly god”, and the product of Greco-Roman philosophical god-talk,45 has been widely accepted. We may find it in authors with evident Greco-Roman background. Irenaeus, for example, insists that God “needs nothing”, although he mandates as a response a “sacrifice” of praise. 1.1.5

Critics of Sacrifice

Philo and Seneca, offer important critiques of sacrifice. So Philo, for example: “God alone is the giver; we do not give”. Mortal clients thus should not attempt to have an impact on their immortal Patron by means of inducement. But of course they did. Philo elevates “thanksgiving” to “pre-eminent” status among the virtues: “Each of the virtues is a holy matter, but thanksgiving is pre-eminently so. But it is not possible to express our gratitude to God by means of buildings and oblations and sacrifices … for even the whole world were not a temple adequate to yield the honour due to Him. Nay, it must be expressed by means of hymns of praise …” (Philo, Planter 126). He further on rephrases the exchange between God-benefactor and mortalsclients: Gods “give”, but mortals “give thanks”. For, mortals have “no power to render in return anything beyond it” and “the property” (inducement-as-sacrifice) already belongs to God. All that is left is commitment. 44

See Suzanne Dixon, “‘A Lousy Ingrate’: Honour and Patronage and Ancient Rome”, International Journal of Moral and Social Cicero says: “No duty is more imperative than that of proving 1.15.47); see Seneca, Benefits 1.10.4; 4.20.3; 7.31.1–3. 45 Seneca: “Whoever teaches men to be grateful, pleads the cause both of men and of the gods, to whom, although there is no thing that they have need of since they have been placed beyond all desire, we can nevertheless offer our gratitude” (Benefits 2.30.2).

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We do not need to confuse praise and gratitude with “thanks”, as J. H. Quincey warns, however: The Greek habit in accepting an offer, service, etc., was to confer praise and not thanks. The Greeks saw an obligation created by a favour received and, in their practical way, sought to discharge it.46 The mortal-to-mortal exchange was thus consciously “discharged” as quickly as possible. Incurred obligation was repaid by praise and honour, often considered as commodity more precious than gold. Some mortals dealt with their benefactor gods in this manner, but others were more motivated to maintain the relationship by means of commitment, that is expressions of gratitude or “sacrifices of praise”.47

1. 2

Patronages of Antiquity

Why Rome first but not Greece as we turn back to the paths of patronage as shaped in SE Europe. States building ideas and power relationships have been very much influenced and even more inspired by some overwhelming Roman patronage than the “defuse” culturally penetrating Greek patronage. One point for this might be the prerequisites of ancient patron-client relationships available on the Balkans. Since antiquity the Balkans were already occupied by Illyrian tribes in the West.48 Starting in the 2nd century BC the rising Roman Empire began annexing the Balkan area, transforming it into one of its most prosperous and stable regions. To this day, the Roman legacy is clearly visible in the numerous monuments and artefacts scattered throughout the Balkans. It is not less to be found in the Latin based languages, used by nearly 25 million people in the area. The Roman influence failed to dissolve Greek cul46

J. H. Quincey, “Greek Expressions of Thanks”, JHS 86 (1966) 157. In addition to “sacrifices of thanksgiving”, i.e., animal sacrifices mention of “sacrifice of praise” is also found; see Everett Ferguson, “Spiritual Sacrifice in Early Christianity and Its Environment”, ANRW 2.23.2. 1151–1189. 48 In the Illyrian wars of 229 BC and 219 BC, Rome overran the Illyrian settlements in the Neretva river valley and suppressed the piracy that had made the Adriatic unsafe. In 180 BC, the Dalmatians declared themselves independent of the Illyrian king Gentius, who kept his capital at Scodra. The Romans defeated Gentius, the last king of Illyria, at Scodra in 168 BC and captured him, bringing him to Rome in 165 BC. Four client-republics were set up, which were in fact ruled by Rome. Later, the region was directly governed by Rome and organized as a province, with Scodra as its capital. Also, in 168 b.c, by taking advantage of the constant Greek civil wars, the Romans defeated Perseus, the last King of Macedonia and with of their allies in Southern Greece, they became lords of the region. The Greek territories were split to Macedonia, Achaia and Epirus. See: Jelavich, Barbara. History of the Balkans. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983. 47

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ture, however, which gradually acquired a predominant status in the Eastern half of the Empire, more so in the southern half of the Balkans. Our thesis is that Roman types of patronage had certain advantages (as related to ancient Greek) concerning a more radical pattern to achieve its integrity, binding heterogeneous cultures and pagan traditions into an entity more complex as its usually accentuated militant, or “order of law” imperative. The fall of Rome is not less a result (along with other complex factors) of the decline of Roman patronage, eroded by “mixed” types of patronage that had historically shaped at this side of the continent. In one way or another they turned to be more sustainable and adaptive. 1.2.1

Roman Patronages

It is usually considered that Rome was a highly hierarchical and class-divided society, there was still the possibility of mobility between most classes as by the second century BCE class was no longer determined solely by birth. Classes moreover superseded the old patrician/plebean dimension as Rome neared its apotheosis of Empire existence. This trend commented recently by historians is considered to have less to do with the factors that determined its fall. Rituals or imaginaries of class division have been still reserved for patricians in this era of “liberalization”. The large gulf between the wealthy upper classes (the senatorial and equestrian classes, and the poorer lower classes thus stayed, though in “softer” terms. It was still possible – although quite difficult – to move upwards by acquiring sufficient wealth. Wealth (but also symbolic capital) has not been always decisive for the shaping of patronage through the ages. A brief view of the class division in ancient Rome might remind of specific “structural” features of Roman type of patronage, which had impact on the most diverse “mixed” culture of patronage in SE Europe, moreover, the civilized world. • The senatorial class (senatores) – its basis was political. It included all men who served in the Senate, and by extension their families. This class was dominated by the nobles (nobiles), families whose ancestors included at least one consul (the earlier qualification had been a curule magistracy, i.e. curule aedile ). The first man in his family to be elected consul, thus qualifying his family for noble status, was called a “new man” (novus homo). Senators had to prove an own property worth at least 1,000,000 sesterces; there was no salary attached to service in the Senate, and senators were prohibited from engaging personally in non-agricultural business, trade or public contracts. Men of the senatorial class wore the tunic with broad stripes (laticlavi).

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• Equestrian class (equites) – its basis was economic. A man could be formally enrolled in the equestrian order if he could prove that he possessed a minimum amount of wealth (property worth at least 400,000 sesterces); by extension his family members were also considered equestrians. If an equestrian was elected to magistracy and entered the Senate, however, he moved up to the senatorial class; this was not so easy or frequent. Equestrians were primarily involved in the types of business prohibited to senators. Equestrians wore the tunic with narrow stripes (angusti clavi). Belonging to one of these upper classes had many significant consequences for Romans besides prestige, for social class determined one’s economic and political opportunities, as well as legal rights, benefits and penalties. One cannot but draw parallels and asks the usual question – is there anything new under the sun? Our answer is yes, as related to the field of patronages at least, which has opened chances for many local (Balkan) cultures. The latter might be considered as “greatest plagiaries” of culture, but not less re-creators of some “replicas of antiquity”. Rome had nothing comparable to the middle class of modern societies. The gap between these two upper classes and the much larger lower classes was immense. As long as one was a freeborn Roman citizen, however, there was still some possibility of moving into the equestrian class. This occurred mainly through the acquisition of wealth. Entry into the senatorial class, even for wealthy equestrians, was however most difficult, since for centuries a small number of elite families had monopolized this class. The lower classes (in an conventional hierarchical order) were mainly represented by: • Commons (plebs or vulgus) – those were small or other freeborn Roman citizens. Their special marker was a dress for citizen males – the toga. All Roman citizens had conubium, i.e. the right to contract a legal marriage with another Roman citizen and beget legitimate children who were considered as Roman citizens. • Latins (Latini) – these were the freeborn residents of Italy (until 89 BCE, when they were all granted full citizenship) and of certain other Roman municipalities (provinces) who had some legal rights but were not considered as full Roman citizens. Former slaves who had been freed by Roman citizens (informally) were a special category, “Junian Latins”. • Foreigners (peregrini) – these were other freeborn men and women who inhabited the vast Roman territories. In 212 CE most freeborn people living within the Roman Empire were granted Roman citizenship. • Freed people (liberti or libertini) – these were men and women who had been slaves but had bought their freedom or been manumitted. They were not fully free as various restrictions on their rights and owed certain duties to their former mas-

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ters, who now became their patrons continued to involve them in the old pattern of dependencies. But they could become citizens (in case heir former masters were citizens) and they had been formally manumitted; they were not, however, eligible for public office.49 • Slaves (servi) – these were human beings born into slavery or sold into slavery through war or piracy. They were considered as property of their owners by law, but by custom some slaves (especially urban, domestic slaves) might be allowed their own savings (peculium). They used this chance to buy off their freedom, or their masters could manumit them, so some mobility into the previous class was still possible.50 During the Empire, most of these social classes continued, although after the grants of full citizenship in 212 CE the foreigner and Latin classes (except for Junian Latins) virtually disappeared. There was a new and tiny class at the very top of the social pyramid, comprising the emperors and their families. From the time of Augustus, the state was identified with the imperial household (domus). Women were formally excluded from political offices and the emperors consistently stressed their domestic roles. A new category in the class of freed people emerged since freedmen of the emperor were frequently given important bureaucratic posts. This garnered a great deal of wealth, and exercised considerable influence. Even imperial slaves had a certain status. The imperial household created thus status anomalies in several of the social classes. The nature of the senatorial class also changed during the Empire. Although the Senate and magistrates continued to exist, they no longer had any real political power, and their membership in this class depended ultimately on the favour of the emperor. Nevertheless rank retained its importance and became even more clearly marked and formalized. The law explicitly divided Romans into two groups, the honestiores (“more honorable people”, including senators, equestrians, municipal 49

This was a fairly poor class. Still there was some possibility for them to achieve relative social advance (through wealth) this was a class, which was not possible to leave, though it encompassed only one generation. The next generation, their freeborn children, became full citizens (i.e., members of the commons, though there was a social stigma attached to being a freedman’s son) and could even become equestrians if rich enough. Freed people had low social status, and probably were success in a trade, and few might even become wealthy. They had no special distinction of dress, though their names indicated their status as freed people. 50 Roman slavery was not racially based, and slaves had no special distinction of dress, though slaves who had run away were sometimes made to wear metal collars with inscriptions such as the following: “I have run away. Capture me. When you have returned me to my master, Zoninus, you will receive a reward.”

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officials, and soldiers) and the humiliores (“more insignificant people”, including all other groups). Legal penalties were significantly harsher for the latter group. It was not enough to belong to one of the upper classes – status and rank had to be seen, to be publicly recognized, in order to be meaningful. Hence the clothing of upper-class Roman males had distinctive features. This made their rank immediately visible to all around them. Patron-client relationship was thus a major instrument for the public display of status. The Romans called mutual support between upper-class men of relative – though competitive – equality amicitia, “friendship”. Nearly every aspect of Roman life was affected by the widespread system of patronage. The latter was based on publicly acknowledged inequality between patron (patronus) and client (cliens). The prevalence of patronage in Roman society was both a result and a cause of its hierarchical, status-conscious nature, as well as of the wide differences between the upper and lower classes. There were two types of patronage: • public – in which a patron became the protector and benefactor of a group (e.g., a craftsman’s guild, a religious association, even an entire city); such patronage usually involved large gifts of money for public buildings, alimentary schemes, public entertainment, etc., but could also involve various forms of protection and advocacy. • personal – in which a patron aided an individual of lower status through money, gifts, dinner invitations, help with lawsuits or business affairs, and other forms of advice and protection. Patronage relationships might be maintained through several generations of the same families. Personal patronage extended to a man’s or woman’s freed people as well as to freeborn individuals of a lower status, but the former involved legally binding duties and services that the freed person owed his or her patron in exchange for manumission. Public patrons expected to receive public acknowledgment from their client groups in the form of statues and inscriptions. Personal patrons expected also various forms of public displays of deference such as the morning greeting, accompanying the patron to the Forum, etc. During the Republic, both types of patrons demanded political support from their clients. This type of support became much less significant in the Empire, though social support and deference remained very important. An important daily public ritual associated with patronage was the salutatio, or morning greeting, when clients flocked to the homes of their wealthy patrons. This was a formal occasion, requiring both patron and client to wear togas. Thus the difference in their clothing would be another visual reminder of their difference in status. Clients clustered in the atrium, the vestibule, and even the streets outside the patron’s house, waiting to be summoned individually to greet the patron in his

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tablinum. After the greeting they might be required to accompany the patron to the Forum or law courts if he needed a public entourage. Certainly there could be a paternalistic benevolence on the part of the patron and loyalty on the part of the client, but nevertheless public display was at the heart of this system of recognition and acknowledgement. Patronage was the grease that kept the wheels of the Roman economy, society, and politics turning.515 The rituals of patronage derived from the Roman lifestyle inscriptions throughout Italy and the provinces commemorate even women as public patrons.52 An imago (plural, imagines) was a wax portrait mask of a man who had held high political office (curule aedile and up). A funerary relief dating from the end of the first century BCE was usually flanked by imagines in order documenting the social rank of the family. Families of senatorial status prominently displayed the imagines of their distinguished ancestors in the public part of their houses (the atrium and the tablinum). They could be thus seen and admired by all clients and visitors. The imagines played an even more dramatic role in families’ major public events, such as funerals. The more imagines a family could display, the more status it had. The denial of the right to make an imago of a particular man and/or to display it publicly was a severe punishment imposed if he was convicted of a crime or proscribed. During the Empire, this was part of a strategy called damnatio memoriae, the official “erasure of memory”.53

1.3

Athen’s Patronages (Aristotle v/s Cicero)

It is widely accepted that Athens had evolved a radically democratic ideology, which differed substantially from the aristocratic culture of republican Rome. In particular, Rome had a developed system of patronage, which operated “across class lines”, 51

Marius said that once a man reached the curule rank (dictator, consul, interrex, praetor, magister equitum, or curule aedile), he could no longer be a client. (“Review of Personal Patronage under the Early Empire, by Richard P. Saller”, by A. N. Sherwin-White. The Classical Review, Vol. 33, No. 2. (1983), pp. 271–273.) 52 Wealthy woman who put up a large public building in the Forum of Pompeii as Eumachia, a priestess who was a public patron of the guild of the fullers, have been honoured with statues. Personal patronage was more problematic, however, especially if a woman’s clients were men. This seemed to undermine the concept of natural male superiority and created opportunities for sexual innuendo. Elite Roman women certainly did serve as patrons for men, especially during the Empire, when connections to the imperial family gave women access and influence in the courts and in the structure of power. Cit.: McManus Barbara, F. (2003) The College of New Rochelle. 53 Ibid.

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whereas in classical Athens such an arrangement has been entirely lacking. In a proposed model of how affection or friendship inflected the conception of social relations, moreover the disparity between the two societies, D. Konstan (1999) eliminates (formally) casual dependencies, caused by the presence and/or absence of patronage. In this case, as he suggests, friendship may serve as a model or metaphor for the social bond as such. A tendency in this direction is observable in the Athenian democracy – the fact that Athens was a relatively egalitarian society, favoured this development: “… In a society marked by an open acknowledgement of hierarchical relations, such as ancient Rome, friendship would play, at least in one respect, a different role than it does in one characterized by a presumed or ideal equality among citizens, as was the case in classical Athens. Friendship was, (as Konstan argues), basically conceived in both societies as an intimate, affective, elective, and reciprocal bond between two or more people. The requirement of intimacy or long acquaintance meant that one’s circle of personal friends was normally understood to be restricted to a relatively small group of people. Nevertheless, the idea of friendship or personal affection could be extended to include broader segments of the population, with a corresponding dilution of the intensity of the bond.”54

In a self-consciously hierarchical society like that of classical Rome, however, friendship is less likely to serve as an expression for solidarity among the entire population, because it is inhibited, as it were, from crossing the barrier between classes: “In such societies, however, there may arise specific forms of vertical association, such as patronage. These relations are likely to exist in tension with friendship, with its implication of equality between friends: in Aristotle’s jingle, ‘amity is parity’. And this contrast or tension between friendship and patronage is indeed evident, I (Konstan) argue, in ancient Rome, and may have contributed … to blocking the extension of friendship as an all-embracing social bond.”55 54

An electioneering manual attributed to Cicero’s brother Quintus explains that the “word ‘friends’ extends more widely in campaigning than in life generally, for whoever displays any sign of favour toward you or attends to you or visits you at home is to be considered among the circle of your friends” (16; cf. Seneca Ep. mor. 3.1). Aristotle too observes that: “Those who are friends to many [poluphiloi] and treat everyone in an intimate manner do not seem friends to anyone, except in the political sense [politikôs]; they also call them ingratiating [areskoi]. Now, it is possible to be a friend to many in the political sense and not be ingratiating, but truly decent [epieikês]” see David Konstan, “Aristotle versus Cicero”, A Lecture performed for the DFG Research group 1288 “Patrons, Clients, Friends”, University of Freiburg January, 14, 2008. 55 This is not to say that there cannot exist personal friendships between members of different social orders, in Rome or in other societies marked by sharp class divisions – even between slave and free; but it does mean that friendship is unlikely to be appropriated as the general term for the bond that unites the different fractions of society as a whole.

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We may speculate further as extending this idea beyond Roman, Athenian, Byzantium, or even some “long distanced” (Eurasian) “affiliation environments”. Their “interferential centres” of cultural gravity, have certainly been influenced the patronage systems of antiquity, though not so much (or only) through the established “democratic dichotomy” of Rome v/s Athens. This implies a new grade of emancipation of interdisciplinary science, as related to some still strongly accentuated Euro centrist scholarly tradition. As we claim the Balkans, (considered less in an „overwhelming” Mediteranian scope) have shaped specific patron client relations of “mixed types”. Balkan paganisms and monotheistic religions (God Perun of the Slavs, or God Tangra of the proto-Bulgarians) might be more than illustrative in this respect. Those religious patronages have operated (before the Baptizing of Balkan people) as some “backing” patronages in a highly competitive and diversified cultural environment. They have for centuries vigorously opposed, but gradually “reshaped” some Greek, or even rest-Roman patron-cultural tradition. The most diverse Balkan “affiliation environments” still carry some idiosyncrasy of their own. It is the one of identities shaped through asymmetries, compensated by cross-cultural affiliation bindings and wide stretching patronages. The military democracy of the II Bulgarian state (found 861) as counter opposing to Byzantium might be exemplary for this “mixed” types pf cultural patronage and friendship relations. Clans and family here were highly accentuated, though in some militant ranking (less class) order. We have discussed this in another study. As related to the dominating “ideology” of ancient Greece it may be more useful to stress here on the different status and forms of religious bindings, as “generic factor” of patron client relations. They have shaped moreover different qualities of affiliations as friendships, loyalties, or even empathies. These could be drawn out of the immediate societal (cultural, economic, existential) involvements in ancient Greece. Our springs of relevant knowledge are the existing order of governance, the patron-client interrelations (division of power), the economic forms (division of labour) of subordination etc. Kinship and families in ancient Greece have certainly played an important role. In many ways they differ from the established hierarchical class structure of Rome. A kind of “diagonal” vector (to go beyond the trivial notion of social hierarchies) has not less determined patron-client relations and friendships in ancient Greece. Athens could be considered as one (of many) type of differently accentuated affiliation environments, which may be briefly commented here: “The functions of monarchy had been largely religious, but, while the king was necessarily a priest, he was not the only priest in the community. There were special priesthoods, heredi-

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tary in particular families, even in the monarchical period; and upon the fall of the monarchy, while the priestly functions of the kings passed to republican magistrates, the priesthoods which were in the exclusive possession of the great families tended to become the important ones. Thus, before the rise of tyranny, Greek religion is aristocratic. The cults recognized by the state are the sacra of noble clans. The religious prerogatives of the nobles helped to confirm their political ones and, as long as religion retained its aristocratic character, it was impossible for democracy to take root. The policy of the tyrants aimed at fostering popular cults which had no associations with the old families, and at establishing new festivals.”56

Patronages could be interpreted as diverse “cases” of processes as Vergemeinshaftung (and/or Vergesellschaftung).57 The latter as related to the sociological heritage from the past seems not less problematic however. A sketch of Greek history, as modern historians suggest, is not possible in the sense in which a sketch of Roman history, or even of European history, seems possible. Greek history is not the history of a single state. When Aristotle composed his work upon the constitutions of the Greek states, he found it necessary to extend his survey to no less than 158 states. Greek history is moreover concerned with more than 150 separate and independent political communities. It is not the history of a single country or a colony of the Roman emperor type. The area occupied by the Greek race extended from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, and from southern Russia to northern Africa.58 Any “overriding” narrative of ancient Greece can thus hardly fail to give but a false perspective in this respect. Experience shows that such approaches resolve into the history of a few great movements (or their best thinkers) confine itself, to the history of Greece in the narrower sense i.e. of the Greek peninsula.59 D. Konstan is for sure among the modern scholars of great calibre who courageously acknowledges the narrow mindedness of rationalizations of patron-client and friendship relations in the case of some “Athens per se”: “I may note (so Kon56

Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Britannica: History of Ancient Greece. See Rapsch, Alexandra, Freundschaft. Historische und gesellschaftliche Bedeutung von Homer bis heute, GE 2008, Ibidem Verlag, Stutthart, 2004. 58 The Greek word at the beginning of the 6th century B.C. presents a picture in many respects different from that of the Homeric Age. The Greek race is no longer confined to the Greek peninsula. It occupied the islands of the Aegean, the western seaboard of Asia Minor the coasts of Macedonia and Thrace, of southern Italy and Sicily. Scattered settlements are found as far apart as the mouth of the Rhone, the north of Africa, the Crimea and the eastern end of the Black Sea. The Greeks are called by a national name Hellenes, the symbol of a fully developed national self-consciousness. They are divided into three great branches, the Dorian, the Ionian and the Aeolian-names almost, or entirely unknown to Homer. The heroic monarchy has nearly everywhere appeared. In Greece proper, south of Thermopiles, it survives but in a peculiar form, in the Spartan state alone. 59 Cit: Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Britannica: History of Ancient Greece. 57

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stan) that the vocabulary of social relations is not a just reflection of static social formations or “ideal types”, in Max Weber’s phrase. “It moreover” emerges in the context of struggles between different segments of a society, as they fight it out, so to speak, on the ideological plane. Terms like “friendship” and “patronage” have a political history, with one or another party exploiting them as catchwords”.60 It is worth chasing this most realist vision in search of arguments for some idiosyncrasy of patronages and friendships that have shaped on the Balkans. This, as it appears, happened less on the “classical fundaments”, moreover the “rubbles” of some discontinuous path dependences. It is an own pattern of creativity though it looks less consistent, as compared to other “cases” or patronage and their “affiliation environments”. The change from monarchy to oligarchy, for example, was completed at Athens before the end of the 8th century, and at a still earlier date in some of the other states. The process, by which this change has been effected, was, in all probability, less uniform than has been generally assumed. Greece proper our information is “fullest” in the case of Athens and Argos indeed. In the former case, the king was gradually stripped of his powers by a process of devolution, however. Three annual and elective magistrates, between whom the executive, military and religious functions of the monarch are divided, replaced a hereditary king, ruling for life. At Argos the fall of the monarchy is preceded by an aggrandisement of the royal prerogatives. There is nothing in common between these two cases, and there is no reason to suppose that the process elsewhere was analogous to that at Athens. What we could conclude here is that political power had some decisive impact on patronages of antiquity, moreover as we claim in its riper shapes of class structured societies. An interesting approach to this might be the interpretation of its “extreme” forms, or deviations from some generally accepted notion of democracy. 1.3.1

The Greek Oligarchies

Furthermore, the oligarchy was the form of government everywhere and it is that succeeded to monarchy. Political power was monopolized by a class of nobles, whose claim to govern was based upon birth and the possession of land, the most valuable form of property in an early society. Power was confined sometimes to a single clan (e.g. the Bacchiadae at Corinth); more commonly, as at Athens, all houses that were considered noble were equally privileged. In every case there was an adviser of the executive, a council, representative of the privileged class. Without such 60

Ibid.

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a council a Greek oligarchy was inconceivable. The relations of the executive to the council varied. At Athens the real authority was exercised by the archons; in many states the magistrates were probably subordinate to the council (cf. the relation of the consuls to the senate at Rome). It is also clear that the way in which the oligarchies used their power varied also. We know that oligarchy held its ground for centuries, in a large proportion of the Greek states; and a government (like that of the oligarchies of Elis, Thebes or Aegina), could maintain itself for three or four centuries cannot have been merely oppressive.61 We may draw two conclusions here: Firstly, that a differentia specifica related to both the structure(s) and qualities of Athens patronage and this of ancient Rome of the republic really existed. Secondly, that they have been significantly influenced by ideologies (in pre-mature forms as paganism and religion). Thirdly, that specific values and behavioural norms were also “embedded” in the forms of rule. This must have played some “meta” function in the shaping of patron-client relations, or friendships, to differ from most determinist visions of antiquity. It is well known that everyone in ancient Greece defined their lives in relation to the sacred realm and in relation to the political organization of their city-state. Those “domains” of societal binding were interfering less with the existential forms in the case of ancient Greece, however, compared to Rome of the republic. As many analytical sources prove religion and politics in the Athens republic were deeply interwoven: arguably, there was no obvious separation between the two. It must be remembered that each city-state had it’s own patron deity, a relationship which played a decisive role not only in the shaping of local politics and community feelings, but also in the nature of the myths recounted in that region. The stories about Athena could be narrated in one way in Athens where she was the patron goddess, and in another way in Sparta, where she was not. Patron deities had a special kinship with their cities, playing a role in how local citizens saw them and understood their relationship to outsiders. Much of this changed during the Hellenistic Age, as marked by the conquests of Alexander the Great after 334 BCE. Under the rule of Macedonian lords, various Greek communities began to take a different perspective on religion. The latter moved them away from community-oriented practices and more towards individualistic religious beliefs. Private associations were formed and interest in science (astrology) bloomed. At the same time, politically enforced veneration of divine rulers like Alexander began to develop. Such veneration was used to gauge one’s adherence to social and political norms. This occurred in a 61

Ibid.

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conscious, overt manner that contrasts sharply to more unconscious ritual practice used in Greece in prior ages. This probably helped drive people to the individualistic practices as more “authentically” religious.62 Another aspect of overall patronage-client relations (in terms of Greek cultural influence) is the colonial system of Greece. It is worth to stress on some specific qualities of this in so far as it interfered less with the coexisting “affiliation environments”, or political friendships: “Alike from the Roman colonies, and from those founded by the European nations in the course of the last few centuries, Greek colonies are distinguished by a fundamental contrast. It is significant that the contrast is a political one. The Roman colony was in a position of entire subordination to the Roman state, of which it formed a part. The modern colony was, in varying degrees, in political subjection to the home government. The Greek colony was completely independent; and it was independent from the first. The ties that united a colony to its metropolis were those of sentiment and interest; the political tie did not exist. There were, certainly, exceptions.”63

At least in three respects, the Greek settler was at an advantage to the colonist of Roman times. The differences of race, of colour and of climate, with which the most problems of modern colonization are connected, played no part in the history of the Greek settlements (along the Black sea coast for example). The races amongst which the Greeks planted themselves were in some cases on a similar level of culture. Where the indigenous people were still backward or “barbarous”, they came of a stock either closely related to the Greek, or at least separated from it by no great physical differences. Of the races with which the Greeks came in contact the Thracian was far from the highest in the scale of culture; yet three of the greatest names in the Great Age of Athens are those of men who had Thracian blood in their veins, viz. Themistocles, Cimon and the historian Thucydides. These objectives seem to have not less influenced Greek type of patron-client relations and friendships. We may still reconsider mountains of prejudices, as piled by post-colonially inspired research: “In the absence of any distinction of colour, no insuperable barrier existed between the Greek and the hellenized native. The demos of the colonial cities were not largely recruited from the native population, nor were they’re anything in the Greek world analogous to the ‘mean whites’ or the ‘black belt’. Of hardly less importance were the climatic conditions. In this respect the Mediterranean area is unique. There is no other region of the world of equal extent in which these conditions are at once so uniform and so favourable. Nowhere had the

62

See: Cline, Austin, Ritual and Festivals of Ancient Greek Religion, in Your Guide to Agnosticism/Atheism … 63 Cit: Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Britannica: History of Ancient Greece.

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Greek settler to encounter a climate which was either unsuited to his labour or subversive of his vigour. The Greek colonist, like the Greek trader, clung to the shore. He penetrated no farther inland than the sea breeze. Hence it was only in islands, such as Sicily or Cyprus, that the process of Hellenization was complete. Elsewhere the Greek settlements formed a mere fringe along the coast.”64

1.3.2

The Nature of Greek Tyrannies

Another movement of high importance in its bearing upon the economic and religious development of Greece, as well as upon its constitutional history, is the rise of tyrannies (7 th century). In the political writers of a later age the word possesses a clear-cut connotation from other forms of monarchy. It is distinguished by a twofold differentiation: a) the tyrannus is an unconstitutional ruler, and b) his authority is exercised over unwilling subjects. The line between these two was not drawn so distinctly however between the tyrant and the legitimate monarch in the 7th and 6th c. Even Herodotus uses the words “tyrant” and “king” interchangeably so that it is difficult to decide whether a legitimate monarch or a tyrant is meant. The distinction between the tyrant and the king of the Heroic Age is a most valid one, however. The “traditional” notions of ancient Greek tyrannies might be another misleading issue, as related to forms of patron client relations. In many ways they have been blurred by the antinomies of conflicting ideologies of the 19th and 20th c. This relates to the “matrix” conceived impact of empowered classes (or cliques) on the “ruled”: „It is not true that his rule was always exercised over unwilling subjects; it is true that his position was always unconstitutional. The Homeric king is a legitimate monarch; his authority is invested with the sanctions of religion and immemorial custom. The tyrant is an illegitimate ruler; his authority is not recognized, either by customary usage or by express enactment. But the word ‘tyrant’ was originally a neutral term; it did not necessarily imply a misuse of power.65 In Greece proper, before the 4th century B.C., it is confined to a small group of states round the Corinthian and Sardonic Gulfs. The greater part of the Peloponnesian was exempt from it, and there is no good evidence for its existence north of the Isthmus, except at Megara and Athens. It plays. no part in the history of the Greek cities in Chalcidice and 64 65

Ibid. The origin of the tyrannis is obscure. The word tyrannus has been thought, with some reason, to be a Lydian one. Probably both the name and the thing originated in the Greek colonies of Asia Minor, though the earliest tyrants of whom we hear in Asia Minor (at Ephesus and Miletus) are a generation later than the earliest in Greece itself, where, both at Sicyon and at Corinth, tyranny appears to date back to the second quarter of the 7th century. It is not unusual to regard tyranny as a universal stage in the constitutional development of the Greek states, and as a stage that occurs everywhere at one and the same period. In reality, tyranny is confined to certain regions, and it is a phenomenon that is peculiar to no one age or century. (See: Ancient History Sourcebook: 11th Britannica: History of Ancient Greece).

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Thrace. It appears to have been rare in the Cyclades. The regions in which it finds a congenial soil are two, Asia Minor and Sicily.”66

It would be incorrect to claim that most Greek states passed through some “stage of tyranny”. Tyranny began in the Peloponnese a hundred years before it appeared in Sicily, and it has disappeared in the Peloponnese almost before it had began in Sicily. The greatest of all the tyrannies that of Dionysus at Syracuse, belongs to the 4th century. Nor must it be assumed that tyranny always comes at the same stage in the history of a constitution; that it is always a stage between oligarchy and democracy. At? (In) Corinth it was followed, not by democracy but by oligarchy, and it was an oligarchy that lasted, with a brief interruption, for two hundred and fifty years. At? (in) Athens it was not immediately preceded by oligarchy. Between the Eupatrid oligarchy and the rule of Peisistratus there comes the timocracy of Solon. These exceptions do not stand-alone. The cause of tyranny is, in one sense, uniform. In the earlier centuries, tyranny was always the expression of discontent; the tyrant was always the champion of a cause. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the discontent is necessarily political, or that the cause, which he champions, is always a constitutional one. At Sicyon it was a racial one; Cleisthenes was the champion of the older population against their Dorian oppressors. At? Athens the discontent was economic, rather than political; Peisistratus was the champion of the Diacrii, the inhabitants of the poorest region of Attica. The party strifes of the early history of Miletus, which doubtless gave the tyrant his opportunity, were concerned with the claims of rival industrial classes. In Sicily the tyrant was the ally of the rich and the foe of the demos, and the cause which he champions, was a national one, that of the Greek against the Carthaginian. We may moreover suspect that in Greece itself the tyrannies of the 7th century were the expression of an anti Dorian reaction. It can hardly be an accident that the states in which the tyrannies are found at this epoch, (Corinth, Megara, Sicyon, Epidaurus), were all of them states in which a Dorian upper class ruled over a subject population. In Asia Minor the tyrannies assumes a peculiar character after the Persian conquest. The tyrant ruled as the deputy of the Persian satrap. Thus in the East the tyrant was very much perceived as the enemy of the national cause; in the West, in Sicily, he was considered its champion.67 We may be moving to a more realistic perception of patron-client relations as agents of significant, but also desired social change trough the ages. This relates (or

66 67

Ibid. Ibid.

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may be a specific product) of the decline of old forms of solidarity (or the emerging of new forms there of). These are rather neglected fields of research by modern anthropologists, or historical sociological research. The reasons are manifold. Most of them reflect some “escapism” of the necessity to redefine ideologies in more complex, cross-cultural societal contexts. It is not up to the singular scholar to articulate, less to enflame intellectual movements with sheer ideas. Inventive research is usually conceived as some echo of a rest-reformist age, “compressed” by our fragmented modernity (Bauman). Not to mention the vulnerability of modern patronage and patron client relations deprived in many ways from the virtues of antiquity. Friendship could be considered more likely as some “backing” structure of patronages, but not necessarily as universal “glue” of societal relations. Indeed many scholars still prefer to treat ancient friendship as a matter of obligation, almost “contractual in character” and involving little or no personal feeling. This view owes to the vogue for interpreting social relations in pre-modern societies with the use of some warn out “matrix” of modern rationalism. Konstan is right: “Reciprocity is a useful concept for understanding various relations such as the code governing benefactions and the gratitude that is due in return for such services, a topic that has been amply investigated. But it is not the key to ancient friendship.” On the contrary, friendship may be described, as precisely the area of social life in which reciprocity ceases to operate – a sphere sealed off from the public ethic of exchange and governed rather by an ideal of generosity: “Thus, Aristotle writes in his Rhetoric (2.4, 1380b36-81a1): ‘Let loving [to philein] be wishing for someone the things that he deems good, for the sake of that person and not oneself, and the accomplishment of these things to the best of one’s ability.’And he adds (1381a1–3): ‘A friend [philos] is one who loves [ho philôn: present participle] and is loved in return [antiphiloumenos]; those who believe that they are so disposed toward one another believe that they are friends [philoi].’Aristotle’s definition shares with modern conceptions of friendship an emphasis on affection and selflessness. So too Cicero observes that the Roman word for friendship (amicitia) derives from the verb amare, ‘to love’ (Cicero De amic. 26; cf. Partitiones oratoriae 88 on caritas and amor as the constitutive elements of amicitia).”68

Balkan patronages might have inherited less form some Roman tradition, but they have dared to “remould” even the “soft-paternalism” of Greek patronages. This they have done through a pattern of initial denial, cultural plagiary, but moreover most persistent own cultural creativity. The art to cope with different “otherness” or even successfully reshape them through their “mixed” patronage and involving “affiliation environments” is very much a unique cultural patent of the lands of Orpheus. 68

Konstan, David, “Aristotle v/s Cicero … .”

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They may look most inconsistent, robust, or even “barbarous” to the outsider. Still they were the only possible call of own freedom. The indigenous people of the Balkans have inhabited the Peninsula more than 7000 years before BC. It is the “Hartland” accentuated in “miniatures” which these patron client relations have sustained and upgraded. They look guaranteed through some “flexible uncertainty” of their own, which has helped them to survive through asymmetries, and less though rationally balanced reciprocities. This was the only “chance” of history in which the enclave domains of “general and specific exchange” could exist. In so far as the latter operate under re-defined cultural and political terms – this chance is still to be perceived anew. Patron-client relations, moreover affiliation environments don’t change over nights, however. As we leave the fascinating world of antiquity, we might still discover that the Balkans is less deprived from the ideals of antiquity. It is the scopes of their own freedom to be still expanded, so that they could carry on their new responsibilities.

2

Discovering Balkan Patronages

Balkan patronages and patron – client relations, have shaped in an asymmetric, evolutionary discontinuous and rather deviated pattern as related to some common European trend of cultural development. “We are Europeans but not quite” (A. Konstantinov). This witty phrase might be exemplary for some tricky way to compensate the pressure of more advanced cultures and their politics, to defend a less certain Balkan identity. The Balkans are usually considered as “less lucky” product of history and politics, moreover their social reality, frame worked by inconsistent nation building and cultural deficits.69 Series of down falls pinpoint most Balkan cultures (Georgiev, 2007) which has shaped some “fatalism” (Semov, 2000) and a rather idealist perception of societal realities. This is a great challenge for the interdisciplinary research, often blurred by “anthropomorphism” or historical formalism. Both seem equally helpless when “applied” to the diverse complexity of the Balkans. In so far as social class, determinist, or even post modern analysis of interrelations between “rulers” and “ruled”, “new-elite(s)”, and/or “political class (es)” v/s “clans”, etc. seem to have reached the extremes of a most boring casuistic, we are keener on a different angle of view, when approaching these controversies in their SE European context. The abundance of hypothetic suggestions of some concordance(s) per se, seems even less relevant to the unconsolidated Balkan environment. Its chances (Weber) may (or may not) be fulfilled indeed; still they are taken for granted. This is another challenge for the interdisciplinary research of patron-client relations in some provisionally defined “European” context. A brief overview of vertical and horizontal aspects of power, – in so far as we define patronages as instruments of power domination and interpersonal (group) dependencies – is inevitable here. We will? discuss in this chapter: a) The traditional religious patronage(s), b) The political patronage(s) and their specific sub-fields: The Party (communist) patronage, the nomenclature(s), the nepotism(s), as performing 69

We offer here a synthesis of immediate observations and own participative involvement in such type of patronage and patron-client relations (moreover at critical moments of their transformational – as crisis of legitimacy, breaking systems of beliefs, rapid shifting of identities etc.) This “method” might be defined as some ad hoc Erlebnissoziologie applied in the framework of a system-structural sociological tradition, which we consider as one of the greatest achievements of modern social science.

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in the transitory context. We will also comment on ethnic patronage(s), as they have played significant role on the Balkans. In so far they have shifted from some traditional patrimonialism to a growing awareness of basic human and civic rights (less constitutional), we consider them as “ingredients” of the shaping new collective identities in the structure of the secular state. Last but not least, we shall discuss a theoretical framework of ours defined as “quasi – democracies” as specific fields of corruption in most sectors of the Balkan societies in transition. It might be a useful instrument for interdisciplinary research, related to in depth studies of transformational change. The phenomena of quasi-royal patronage, which the return of Simeon SaxeCoburg-Gotha from his 50 year Madrid exile offered (2000) is only briefly mentioned here. This patronage is less to be considered as some echo” of power aspirations of the old nomenclature (or new/old elite) in the case of Bulgaria. It is more relevant to attempts to revive patronage based on some rest-patrimonialism, still available in number of post-communist countries in the region. It is less probable that they challenge the established “republicanism” in SE Europe after WWII. Moreover these patterns are proof of the deficit of modern patronage, deeply damaged in the years of totalitarism. As the Balkan escape the old bindings of the party-state patronage to catch up with modern democratic development in wider European context, this “hypothesis” is even more explicitly verified.70

2.1

Patronages (Re) defined

We will? define our concept of patronage, moreover that it differs from the prevailing historical-anthropological approaches to this phenomenon, which culminated with the remarkable study of S. N. Eisenstadt and L. Roniger (1985). The latter may be conceived as an effort of some overwhelming behavioural research tradition to catch up with the complexities of modernity. Patronages of the present, as we claim, operate less as sheer instruments of “general” and “specific exchange”. One proof 70

According to latest research of leading strategic institutions in USA, the “entity” of the Balkans might well have to be re-considered in broader terms, moreover in the context of a possible Turkish accession into EC. Recent debates (related to Georgia, Kosovo,) add to the idea to upgrade an over stretching “networked zone” beyond the Peninsula, over the Black sea, with open reach to the Caucasus. This might return the debate to ideas of Balkan federalism(s), as in the 30’ease – supported by “mixed” international patronage. See: Plamen K. Georgiev, Competitive Patronages in SE Europe, Conflict Studies Quarterly, RAN, Moscow, Nr. 3.

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for this might be the mainstream of research, which has stressed in the last decades more on asymmetries, but has offered less convincing “reciprocities” of some universal patron-client exchange. The discourse has very much lost its tranquillity of certainty, as patron-client relations seem even less based on some “operational reciprocity”.71 The rapid advance of technology, communication facilities, moreover the new arsenals of power change the paradigms of patron-client relations. The latter acquire new structural (and qualitative) characteristics. They are more determined by global perspectives and hang less on old dichotomies of local (national) divisions. Any delivery of posts and jobs in the frameworks of the post patrimonial state, the shrinking public sphere, or whatever old Parson’s notion of “system-perception” of our societal reality, seem less relevant to societies in transition. This refers moreover to Merton’s organizational strategies. In so far these theoretical frameworks reflect a bipolar division of the world after WWII this is easy to understand. The attempts to apply some theory of chaos to immanent “self-regulatory” capacities of societies in transformation brought new embezzlements. A return back to the revived state- and institutional building concepts, seems more promising. The latter are not less loaded with contradictions, however, in so far as most of them still feed on developmental, post/colonial, or strategies of rather outdated “social engineering”. What we witness is a rapid erosion of traditional patron-client relations; affiliation environments (friendships), as old “philias” and/or “amities” in deeply divided societies seize to feed on the neo-patrimonialism of the welfare state. New global interests, change the gravities and (a) symmetries of patronage-client relations. This occurs through new instruments of power. We prefer to define patronages therefore as: • Power generated fields of interferences, involving states, or para-societal settings (networks of corporate, political etc. inter-relations) into (a) symmetric dependencies and bindings of general and symbolic exchange. • The latter are situationally (less voluntarily) structured and bound to more involving (demanding) behavioural patterns (among other instruments of coercive power); Patronages (and their clientele) compete for long-term advantages, preferences, or pre-positioning in a world of rising complexity, growing risks and uncertainties. These relate to the access, control and exchange of both material and symbolic 71

Konstan, David, “Aristotle vs. Cicero: Friendship and Patronage in Two Social Systems”. Lecture performed for the DFG Research group 1288 “Patrons. Friends, Clients”, University of Freiburg are Br. January, 14, 2008.

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goods. While the first tend to some obviously growing scarcity (Giddens), the latter become abundant; the qualities of modern patron client relations substantially change. We may brief here the growing, but also aging populations, “short-cuts” in the system of the democratic state, the lack of normative framework(s) as regulators of mutually binding, sustainable patronage and patron-client relations etc. As cultural differences and boundaries loose meaning, patronages of the Balkans become even more rigid, but less relevant to some systematically structured modernity. Both “losers” and “gainers” of some “obsessed competitiveness” seem equally blurred and perplexed in this less transparent “matrix”. New national elites (recruted mainly from the scattered ranks of the old nomenclatures, party appointed “capitalists”, the sport, and/or show business) appeal even less to deeply frustrated citizenries. Significant societal change is very much chained to a “go for it style”, moreover discredited by the “protruded patterns of transition”. Before we comment on these and other deepening deficits, we have to discuss the traditional patronage and patron-client relations as they have shaped on the Balkans. Significant, moreover immanent societal change can in no other way be grasped, if not fully rationalized.

2.2

Religious Patronages

Stronger Catholicism in the Western Balkans -Slovenia, Croatia and Herzegovina and mainly the Adriatic coast – whereby Bulgaria, Romania, Macedonia, Monte Negro, Serbia, and Greece, are dominated by the Christian orthodox confession – represent the diversity of religions on the Balkans. There are significant numbers of Muslims in Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia (less nowadays in Serbia). Substantial proportions of Muslims live in Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but in other SE European countries, as well. Some of them are considered (in most disputable terms) as “converted” Christians, as the Ottoman Empire practiced a policy of systematic assimilation of different ethnic groups (the millets system) – i.e. converting non-Muslims into Islam. This was realized through abolishing taxes and/or delivery of small land property, clothing etc., to indigenous people who adopted Islam. A more painful pattern of assimilation was the system of “enichari” recruitment – young boys at the age of 7–12 were taken from their families, and trained as loyal, extremely oppressive forces of the Sultan. There are several ethnic-religious “mixes”, as a result from this long year assimilation policy of the Ottoman Empire – moreover its highly disputable cultural heritageas the pomaks (the Rhodopy mountain). These are converted into Islam Bulgarians,

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who identify themselves as Muslims – but use Bulgarian language as the only communication means. An opposite, “mirror case” of these (but only formally) might be the gagauzi people. They communicate in Turkish language, but practice Orthodox Christian rituals. They have well kept Christian churches in their villages and Gagauzian autonomy on the territory of Moldova (ex Soviet Russia). Practically they consider themselves as descendents of Bulgarian Christian refugees, who escaped the Turkish atrocities after the Russian-Turkish war from 1825 and after on. This complex diversity, and other factors as well (cultural rivalries between East and West Rome) have shaped the heterogeneous societal environment of the Balkans. Orthodox Christian beliefs are also “vector”-polarised, Bulgarians for example are Greek Orthodox, but not Russian, whereby Serbs are closer bound to the Russian Orthodox Church. Romanians are also Orthodox with certain percentage of Catholics mainly in the Western parts of the country. Christianity goes beyond the Black see to Georgia, Armenia (The Gregorian Church as the oldest with a history of 1700), and further on to Eurasia linking the Russian Orthodox Church (the old Kiev Lavra), as another significant centre of Christianity after the fall of Eastern Rome. The spreading of Christianity on the Balkans is a most controversial process, which has shaped not only the religious heterogeneity, but has also cultivated through the ages some spiritual opportunism of a rather persistent character.72 Christian fundamentalism had less chances to overwhelm the collective identities of the Balkans, even though. One reason for this might be the nature of local paganism(s) consisting of different streams and cultural influences. These have never succeeded to comprise into some systematic “mix” through the long ages of Byzantine political and cultural influence, less even under the oppressive Ottoman rule. 2.2.1

National Patrons

St. Ivan Rilski, Patron of Bulgarians St. Ivan Rilski is the patron of Bulgaria and founder of the one of the few gorgeous monasteries on the Balkans, kept after the invasion of the Turks in 14th century. The 72

Bulgaria adopted Christianity in IX c. through an oppressive reform under Boris I. This is reflected in an originally Bulgarian movement of the Bogomils – which until XI c. spread as form of Manichean heresy, penetrating in broader European cultural context as a philosophy of denial of both the State and the Church. It pleaded for some early protestant reformism, and the idea of linking God closer to popular demands and natural existence.

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Rila monastery – is situated at the heart of the Rila Mountains, some 100 km away from Sofia, to the South, bordering Greece. St. Ivan Rilski (also known as Johan von Rila, his Testament has been kept from the XIII c.) preached: “Never take from a king or other men, except what is given to you by God and nature”. This moral legacy is remarkable as related to the widely spread (petty corruption), considered “rooted” in the habitues of the Balkans. Some authors explain it with the traditional scarcity. These are most arguable simplifications however. This pattern of traditional “general and specific exchange” (in forms of gifts and presents, but also charities) relates more likely to an older pagan tradition as its background. The Orthodox Church (opposing to other religious influences) encouraged rather more “liberal types” of patronage in scarce but moreover challenged environment. Patron client relations have been strongly influenced by an older Byzantine tradition of exchanged “generosity” and “commitments”. One is for sure: in the early 17th c. Gerlach gives written evidence that most of the Clergy posts of the Greek Orthodox Church, were commissioned. Orthodox clergy sent to missions to the North of the peninsula at wider distance from Constantinople – as in Tarnovo (Bulgaria) or Tetovo (Macedonia) were moreover semi-literate. There is evidence for wide spread corruption (nepotism, cronyism, or buying of posts) interweaved in “adaptive pattern” to local pagan traditions and ritual practices, of number of Balkan proto-cultures inherited. As old religious sources witness – King Asen I, who ruled over the Bulgarian Kingdom short before its fall under the Turks (XIV c.) decided to visit once the Holly man. He brought traditional presents, food and offered him gold, as reimbursements for his 12 years of sufferings. St. Ivan Rilski “did not even near the King” – as old religious sources comment. He stayed at distance, and not long after he preferred to withdraw – “rejecting to accept any gifts whatsoever from the King, who had to leave disappointed”. This behaviour symbolizes a generally (codified) attitude of Orthodox Church to State and Power. It relates to some deeply penetrating notion of chastity, which might have lost much of its old meaning on the Balkans. It is worth to be mentioned here that the Orthodox Christian mentality is still bound to such virtues often interpreted by modern scholars as source of religious sectarianism or deeply rooted patrimonial feeling. The latter has influenced patron-client relations, and is reflected in some of their present forms. St. Sava, Patron of Serbs (A State building pattern) The Patron of The Serbs is St. Sava. The biggest river that flows through Belgrade is also called Sava. Sava was the son of Stephen I, founder of the Nemanydes dynasty,

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and also known as Sabas. He became a monk on Mount Athos in Greece when he was seventeen. With his father, who abdicated in 1196, he founded Khilandrai Monastery on Mount Athos for Serbian monks and became Abbot. He returned home in 1207 when his brothers, Stephen II and Vulkan, began to quarrel, and civil war broke out. Sava brought many of his monks with him, and from the headquarters he established at Studenitsa Monastery, (he founded several monasteries) began the reformation and education of the country, where religion and education had fallen to a low estate. He was named metropolitan of a new Serbian hierarchy by Emperor Theodore II Laskaris at Nicaea; was consecrated, though for political reasons unwillingly, by Patriarch Manuel I in 1219; returned home bringing more monks from Mount Athos; and in 1222 crowned his brother Stephen II King of Serbia. Through his efforts, he finished the uniting of his people that had been begun by his father, translated religious works into Serbian, and gave his people a native clergy and hierarchy. St. Sava made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, was later sent on a second visit there on an ecclesiastical mission, and died on the way back at Tarnovo, Bulgaria. St. Sava is the patron of Serbia. His feast day is January 14th. The Orthodox Churches of most Balkan countries had significant contribution for the survival of many Balkan people after the fall under the Turks – moreover for a cultural “buffering” from Asian threats for Europe – another path dependency that had a great impact on patron-client relations in the region is the loss of their own aristocracy. Most of the Balkan Royal descendents (as in the case of Bulgaria, Serbia) have been exterminated short after the invasion of the Turks. Patriarch Evtimij – The Highest Church priest of the Bulgarian Church was send in exile. King Ivan Shishman – the last of the Bulgarian kings – died in a battle against the Ottomans. This “double – trouble” (cultural and state deprivation) of abolishing of the Balkan national elites as we have illustrated in another study shapes a kind of “catastrophic matrix” in which most Balkan cultures) have very much been trapped ever since the fall under the Ottoman rule. It is in a way “inherited” in some self-destructing egalitarianism, opposing both aristocratic elites, but also any hierarchism. What Balkan people seem to appreciate more is the authority of “the strong man”, less this of “the wise” one.73 St. Sr. Cyril and Methodius (A cognitively penetrating pattern) St. Sr. Cyril and Methodius – one of the best centres in this respect is The Sofia Dujchev Centre (Archive), but also in Athens or Macedonia – could be mentioned 73

Georgiev, Plamen K., The Bulgarian Political Culture, V&R unipress, Göttingen, 2007.

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here as exemplary for the most significant cultural achievements and contributions of the Balkan Christianity. They invented the Cyrillic alphabet and spread through it Christian ideas among significant segments of the Slavs. This old type of cultural patronage of the Eastern Orthodox Church went as far as Bohemnia (territory of the Check republic), to Ukraine and Russia, linking Christianity beyond to Georgia, Armenia, and the Near East. This “cognitively penetrating patronage” is still to analysed and revealed in its complexities. The Balkan people (we may omit the term nations in so far as we comment here on older centres of Christian civilisation) have contributed for the European civilization through this wide reaching “multi-vectored” pattern of cultural influence and presence. It flows into the mainstream of the Kiev Lavra and the Russian Orthodox Church, but also links successfully Western Europe in a wider cultural Eurasian scope. It is a cultural contribution of great calibre and part of our European tradition to be appreciated more than the sheer notion of “buffering” the Western civilization from Asian intrusions and cultural threats.

Diversified Patronages (Personalized patterns) Orthodox Churches in SE Europe are visited (or referred) to mostly on occasions as baptizing, funerals, religious fests, more rarely as systematic pietic practice on individual, less even on family level. There is a deeper devotion to the Orthodox Church, which is rather diverse and personalized, however. If one cares to study the religious patrons of over 450 well kept monasteries in Bulgaria only – he may find out most interesting forms and shapes of binding patron-client relations. The latter concerns not so much (or only) specific systems of the deliveries of jobs – the Orthodox Church had less to allocate, compared to the Catholic Church. It has also practiced this in less formalized (institutionalised) manner. The Orthodox Church used (and misused) moreover offerings and sponsorships (kthitors). It feeds on some kind of “ethics of scarcity” (only formally to be referred to Weber’s ethics of protestanism). A comparative research of patronages in SE Europe might unveil interesting regularities in this respect: Accentuated moral and ethnical values, as promoted in different patterns and styles by certain saints, (usually patrons of local churches and communities), go well together with extractive forms of favorisms exemplary for some pagan traditions still left. Why do Balkan people from one region (or community) chose this and no other patron to worship? A deeper personal attachment to local village patron saints is of-

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ten inherited by generations. Local saints and patrons are even more appreciated as protector, benefactor, or life path companion of whole families and clans, than highly ranked (canonized) ones. The system of Christian names given and traditionally celebrated each year is notorious in this respect. Typical names as Ivan, Peter, Nicolai etc., link individuals but also kinships, relatives and friends into a most committed networks of friendships. The latter even at long distance from some “enclave” of abandoned affiliation environment, are “mobilized” in amazing patterns of overreaching solidarity. This is a mighty spring of mutual commitment shared publicly on many occasions, and even ritualised. The rich iconography tradition of the Orthodox Church and the wall paintings spread through Byzantium, or the woodcarving on gorgeous Orthodox Church altars – give unique chances to study artefacts as related to number of unique art schools that emerged on the Balkans. The rich cryptographic heritage of the Balkans, still keeps less known details on patron-client systems, which emerged and vanished in a most unexpected way. It is worth studding these less sustainable, but in a way “lucky” forms of patronage and patron client relations. They might be stimulating for our modern communitarian culture challenged in so many irresistible ways.

The Patronage of St.Andrew (An overlapping pattern) Early Christian History holds that the apostle Saint Andrew is said to have preached on the southern borders of Ukraine, along the Black sea. Legend has it that he travelled up the Dnieper River and reached the future location of Kiev, where he erected a cross on the site where the St. Andrew Cathedral currently stands, and prophesied the foundation of a great Christian city. Andrew is the patron saint of Romania, Scotland and Russia, and Luqa – Malta. He was also the patron saint of Prussia. The flag of Scotland (and consequently the Union Flag and the arms and Flag of Nova Scotia) feature an altire in commemoration of the shape of St Andrew’s cross. The saltier is also the Flag of Tenerife and the naval jack of Russia. This patronage might well be a good example of how religious and cultural influences overlap territories, linking people and even lifestyles. They “ network” some times obviously different cultural entities in less transparent (symbolic and other) structural forms. We may recommend the interdisciplinary researcher in the field to trace those networks of traditional religious patronages. He may well find that in certain historical periods they have been selectively canonized by the Catholic Church

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(but also the Orthodox one) as to come closer, or go apart from each other, thus compensating tentions, or restoring cultural geo-strategic asymmetries, or balances of power and religious influence.74 2.2.2

The Post-Communist Legacy

During the Communist regime the Orthodox Church played a rather peripheral role. The communist modernization of a Soviet Russian developmental pattern (industrialization, collectivisation of the land etc.) had a decisive impact on this legacy. The Orthodox Church in most Balkan countries has not been suppressed, less even mistreated, as in the case of Russia during the early days of bolshevism moreover under Stalin’s regime. Ruined Christian churches of the present days are mostly result of an overwhelming misery of many devastated local communities, lack of resources, but as the war in ex-Yugoslavia has also showed, some latent (or inspired) religious hate, that goes in hand with extreme vandalism. Scratched eyes of saints on icons dated from XVI c. or earlier in Christian monasteries in Srebrenitza, but also Macedonia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and other areas of ethnic and religious conflicts witness on this. Secularism dominates in most post communist countries on the Balkans. According to the first nation wide representative sociological surveys on religious attitudes in Bulgaria for example (Oshavkow, 1980) nearly 34% of the enquired (in totalitarian environment) shared that they practice certain religious rituals. Religious interests have obviously risen among the younger generation after 1990. In so far this relates to the perception of newly found confessional rights in a democratic environment, they are less to be considered as some systematic religious emancipation. Religion is not taught (yet) in primary and secondary schools. There are number of high schools of Orthodox studies as well faculties of theology at most established univer74

The discourse on some revival of religious and national identities in Eastern and SE Europe after 1990 has been reflected in the European historiography in recent time. The trend of rising interest towards states and countries patrons has been explained as filling an obvious deficit of states and societal identity in countries of transition. Of special interest here is the research on “political hollies” which play the role of national patrons as (re- or de-socializing) symbol figures of constructions of national histories. Next to well-known Central European holly figures analysed (Krista Zach, S. 152–180) we may brief here as well St. Sava, St. Ivan von Rila und St Kliment von Ohrid (Rohdwald, S. 181–216). Such “structural features of continuous consistency” (St.Troebst) involved in a comparative analysis in wider and culturally more homogeneous context might be of importance for the overriding of some traditional demarcation line between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. see: Samerski, Stefan (Hrsg.): Die Renaissance der Nationalpatrone.Erinnerungskulturen in Ostmitteleuropa im 20./21. Jahrhundert. Köln u. a.: Böhlau Verlag 2007; 221 S.

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sities on the Balkans. The number of Muslim religious schools (secondary and high school level) has also increased in the last decades. Another aspect worth to be discussed briefly here is the mushrooming of many Krishna, Mormons, and Followers of Jesus from the first day, sectarian types of patronages. The latter made use of the liberalized constitutions of the new democracies. Some patronages of that type are involved in charity and aid-delivery, but also in scientology and other sectarian activities. Representatives of the younger generation are most vulnerable to their influence. Most of those quasi-patronages feed on the loss of social life perspectives for many individuals unable to meet the challenges of the transition. Suicidal acts occurred on this base less, however. The Evangelic Church has also activated mainly among ethnic minorities as the Roma. Their extremely poor life conditions and most uncertain confessional belonging open a field of less studied phenomena of “shifting identities” on the Balkans. Most of these are vulnerable to manipulations, including political (buying of votes). This pattern of competitive “bidding” of patronages seems another mighty source of corruption involving marginalized groups. Greece could be considered as exemplary of some “good practice” in legal control over quasi-patronage activities (as Satanism, Wodoo etc.) Which does the law sanction? Even though an Orthodox notion of some “purity of beliefs” might under certain conditions enflame religious or nationalist feeling. The notorious “megali idea”, has been often related to some Orthodox fundamentalism eroding the secular state. The latter could be not less dangerous than the Islam fundamentalism.

2.3

Ethnic Patronages (Shifting collective identities)

The Ottoman “millet” system assigned some legal personality to non-Muslim minorities in a manner considered by some authors as unprecedented even today. In this system, the heads of millets had the authority to rule their communities, to represent them at the Royal Court, and to collect taxes.75 This is often interpreted in terms of some “tolerant role” of the Ottoman Empire, but in many cases reflects partisan approaches. Practically the national liberation movements in most Balkan countries

75

See: Oran Baskin, 2004 Cahier d’études sur la Méditerranée orientale et le monde turcoiranienn°18, juillet-décembre 1994, Regions and national identity among the Balkan Muslims: A comparative study on Greece, Bulgaria, Macedonia and Kosovo.

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have been prepared to achieve their goals through long years of most committed and persistent cultural resistance against the Ottoman Empire. These burst out in a number of revolutionary uprisings and riots, but were moreover backed by forms of religious and ethnic/cultural patronage: mainly through a wide spread system of communal schools and education. Orthodox Church patronages and voluntary sponsorships (kthitors), moreover personal contributions of ordinary Christians, have intensively contributed to this process in different periods. Some of these personalities raised to national liberation leaders as the Apostle of Freedom of Bulgaria, Vassil Levski. The nationalist liberation movements has been also strongly backed by foreign, especially Russian but also Western European support (France, G. Britain, USA). Most Balkan peoples won their independence from the Ottoman Empire between 1820 and 1878. Russia being the most influential country in this process was also Orthodox as most of the Balkan peoples. This had a great impact on most of the young nations in shape. It also had its resonance in many “enclave” affiliation environments in the context of the spreading Empire. Albanians, who won their independence as late as 1912 were Muslims like the Ottomans, for example. The Bosnians, considered to be “more Turkish than the Turks”, were “eager to take up the arms against the ‘infidels’ when Greeks revolted 1821”76, as some witness historians clam. Even though there had never been nationalist movements in Bosnia against the Ottomans – this is less to be considered as result of empire loyalties. Muslim identities on the European continent have been moreover shaped under some quasi-patronage of “unsystematic Islam”. The latter was broadly applied as model of assimilation of different ethnic groups on the Balkans, especially those at distance from some Asian-outreaching Ottoman political “center of gravity”. These environments have shaped in patron-client relation of most inconsistent, still autonomous type. They were in a way alienated from the highly centralized and authoritarian patterns of the “general and specific exchange” in the decaying Ottoman Empire. Most of these local ethnic patronages operated through clan-structures in which Muslim religion had a subordinate, or even insignificant role to play. Neighborhoods of most “mixed” ethnic entities (both traditional Balkan towns, and villages) are exemplary for these structures shaped. Many of the Western Balkan Muslims have also mingled with some Western European (Austrian Empire) tradition of patronage that has penetrated the “periphery” of the Ottoman domains of power. This added differ76

Ibid.

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ent quality to their patronage and patron client relations, less dependent on the center. It also sustained their local traditions and higher autonomies as related to nonMuslim ethnic groups. To cite an example from the Eastern part of the Empire: The Armenian people was called by the Ottomans “Millet-i Sadika” (The Loyal Community) as they caused no problem to the Ottoman Empire until the nationalist groups in Eastern Anatolia took up the arms in 1894 (under Russian influence). These nationalist groups were solely Gregorian, i.e., Orthodox Christians. Armenians who were Catholic or Protestant did not develop any strong nationalism, nor did they fight against the Ottomans in the ranks of Russian army in the WWI. It may be interesting to remind here that Catholic or Protestant Armenians were not included in the 1915 deportation ordered by the Young Turk government that ended with the genocide of 1,5 million Armenians in 1915. This selective (but not less destructive) pattern of counter backing the influence of Orthodox Christianity, as potential threat to the Ottoman Empire is also witnessed in its European parts, as in Bulgaria. In a similar pattern the famous Army of Chaika Chaikovski (Sadak pasha) has been recruted mostly by loyal to the High Gate Bulgarians. It played a “dual role” nourishing the patriotic sentiments of the Bulgarian upper classes, while at the same time suppressing the nationalist feelings among the Bulgarian population. The Army of Chaika Chaikowski (s been supplies?) was fully supplied by a number of prosperous Bulgarian cities, and was in many ways considered as their “own” army. This had an enflaming effect later in the April 1876 uprising of the Bulgarians against the Ottoman empire, which ended with the massacre of 30 000 Bulgarians (including children, women and old men) and lead to the Russian-Turkish war (1878) and the liberation of the country after 500 years of Ottoman oppression. Reliable academic sources indisputably prove that it would be most exaggerated to claim for some Ottoman exceptionalism, as favoring the sustainable maintenance of ethnic patronages, as ingredients of some process nation building on the Balkans. We have enough historical and anthropological evidence to consider that these processes reflect less general regularities of some European path, strongly accentuated on the ideas of both cultural and political emancipation. Ethnic patronages moreover refer to number of “open questions” between: Greece and Turkey (concerning their ethnic boundaries), Romania and Hungary (referring to ethnic minorities defined differently), Bulgaria and Macedonia (concerning the Macedonian language, considered as dialect of Bulgarian) etc. Ethnic patronages are less some natural springs of “nationalisms”. They are moreover used to undermine the European stability.

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Most of them have to a great extent fulfilled their historical mission. The modern secular state offers more progressive forms of “general and specific exchange” based on the premise of democracy and individual (less quasi-collective) rights. It is a matter of quality than sheer borders and “shifting identities”. Constitutional frameworks of integration of all types of ethnic identities are a premise for peaceful and democratic future development of the region. An “ethnic case” might be exemplary in respect of the problems to be still settled. The only sizable minority of Greece lives in the Western Thrace, close to the Turkish border. Greece calls it “Muslim minority”; Turkey identifies it as “Turkish minority”. Both countries claim to be legally right: Greece – because Article 45 of the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 24 July 1923 protecting the rights of this minority identifies it as “Muslim Minority”.77 The minority is not solely made up of Turks only, however. Turkey claims to be right, as the Convention and Protocol on the Exchange of Greek and Turkish Populations of 30 January 1923 that regulated the compulsory exchange of the said (loyal to the Sultan) minorities in these two countries and allowed the existence of respective minorities in Istanbul and Western Thrace (établis), mention of “Turks” and not of “Muslims”. The official établi documents in French delivered at the period identify the Istanbul minority as “Greek” and the Western Thrace minority as “Turk”, a term used by most Greek governments until the coup d’Etat of 1967 in Turkey. If we look at the ethnic composition of the Western Thrace minority and then see how the “non-Turkish” (or more precise non Muslim) members of this minority identify themselves, we may reach even new ambiguities. The ethnic composition of the West Thrace minority seems to support the official claims of Greece. Among approximately 120,000 Muslims some 30.000 are Pomaks, some 5000 are Gypsies, the rest being Turkish (Muslim). Pomaks are considered of Bulgarian descent by Bulgaria, of Greek descent by Greece, and of Turkish descent by Turkey. Fred de Jong, a Dutch scholar profiled in research on Western Thrace78 might be exemplary as beneficent of some academic revisionism backing “empirically” Turkey’s aspirations for EC entry. He prefers to identifies the Pomaks as: “… a people whose ethnic origins are not known precisely; they usually speak a dialect of Bulgarian language,

77

In this treaty, “Non-Muslim” is the term used to identify those minorities to be protected in Turkey. 78 Couple of Turkish governments have generously supported Western scholars in the field of ethnic anthropological research especially in its European ex-domains of rule until the break of the Ottoman empire.

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and Turkish as a second language; they are a Turkified Muslim people” (!)79 This is a totally misleading, moreover empirically irrelevant statement. Pomaks (inhabiting the Rhodopy mountains, South of Bulgaria) speak no Turkish whatsoever. They actually never did. Pomaks have suffered several assimilation waves before and after the era of communism. They are most vulnerable to aspiring religious patronages from the World of Islam. This refers not so much to neighboring Turkey, but moreover to Arabian (uahabedian) influences. The latter have infiltrated the Balkans (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo) in the last decades. They are considered more fundamental and dangerous, compared to other ethnic patronage for their secessionist claims. That: “Pomaks are devout Muslims; they live in mountainous regions and learn Turkish, as they go to school and establish contacts with the Turks”, moreover that: “Gypsies are also Muslim.” – are other two even most misleading statements of B. Oran – another expert in the most inflammable field of ethnic patronages. Pomaks have a most uncertain Muslim identity. Most pomaks in Bulgaria, especially the younger generation that have socialized in the modern secular state identifies themselves as Bulgarian citizens. They have adopted constitutional (republican) identity. Nearly 100 000 pomaks changed their Muslim names in 1985 with Christian. This has been widely motivated by their desire to avoid segregation in the context of the secular state. Other 3–4 000 of this ethnic group have re-determined their Christian confession after 1990. Aside from the oppressive policy of the totalitarian regime to “change” the names of Ethnic Turks in Bulgaria as preventive step of some “ethniccollision”, this process has been very much chanalized in the traditional tolerant pattern of multiethnic existence. It has also gained from the EC accession of Bulgaria (2007). Roma people, who outnumber 2,5 millions in Romania, nearly 1 million in Bulgaria, and presumably about 2 in ex-Yugoslavia – amount to a total of 12 million, are concentrated mainly in Eastern Europe. Having established themselves on the continent (first settled on the Balkans in 14th c. after the Turkish invasion), they are integrated (on different level) in the structure of the modern secular state.80 Their nation79

Fred de Jong, “The Muslim Minority in Western Thrace”, in Georgina Ashworth (ed.), Muslim Minorities in the Eighties, Sunbury, Quartermaine House Ltd., 1980, p. 95. 80 See: Georgiev, Plamen K. The Integration of the Bulgarian Citizens of Roma Dissent in Modern Bulgarian Society, Ph.D. 220 pp. (based on the empirical results from the first nation wide representative sociological survey 1982–1984 on those issues), Institute for Sociology, Sofia, 1982; available at The Bulgarian national library “Cyril and Method”, Reserve Section.

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al identity is based on objective premises of both territory and language. Most of them are bi-lingual (depending on the country they are residents of). Communicative capacities of these highly adaptive and in many cases gifted people include several additional languages used mostly orally. That Gypsies “are Turks” is a scientifically irrelevant moreover politically dangerous labeling used by Oran. Roma people (as they prefer to be called in the context of most new Balkan democracies) are descendents of one of the 8 language groups of North India. Presumably they were one of the nomadic tribe, who left their ancient territory for reasons of wars or massive disasters and moved to Europe in 14 c. (as August Alfred Pot – a well recognized Austrian scientist proved in the early 19 c.).81 The examples might only prompt that ethnic patronages (moreover their quasiforms) are less instrumental in the contexts of the secular democratic state. In so far as most of them are still highly conflict loaded; they could be used as generators of new misunderstandings.82 The continent’s South Eastern region is a home to eight million Muslims, roughly one-third of all Muslims in Europe. Speaking of a “Muslim community” could be not less misleading. Belonging to four ethno-linguistic groups, the position of Muslims in their Balkan home countries differs considerably. So does the socio-historical context in which their communities have developed. Bosnia, for example, has seen a realignment of ethnic and religious identities over the past 15 years. In Albania, declared the world’s first “atheist state” in 1967, Islam is the dominant religion, but the majority of the population is secular. Ethnic patronages look even more rudimental in the context of the modern secular state. They are moreover to be considered less relevant to the democratic future of and developmental perspectives of SE Europe.

81

The first empirical representative survey on the integration of Roma in contemporary Bulgarian society (1982) resulted in counting over 760 000 Roma (data until blurred by the official census). The birth rate among Roma is 3,6: 1 compared to ethnic Bulgarians. Some 15–17 different Roma groups as related to traditional crafts and professions practiced have been also defined. Around 27% of Roma in Bulgaria declare Christian confession, 40% Muslim, (self identified, but verified through a anturage enquiry). The rest 1/3 have been identified as not bound to any confession. 82 An Oskar price winner – a Balkan film director – whose name makes no difference – had to return his prestigious price in 2007. It turned out that he has used footage of the atrocities of Serbs in the Bosnia war – which were taken at dead Serbs, later sold successfully to the North American cinema audience as “killed Bosnians” … This reminds literary of the scenario for the start of WWII and the invasion of The Nazi army in Poland. The trigger of this historical event was the invention of nazi-propaganda showing a duzen of murdered Grenzsoldaden der Wehrmacht which later turned to be German prisoners used for this purpose …

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In so far as many ethnicities found their way out of the deep isolation in the era of the communism, they could be successfully integrated only through policies of equal opportunities, further education and civic involvement in the democratic societies at this side. The Balkans has still to gain more than to lose from this clearly defined European perspective.

2.4

Political Patronages

The decline of the overwhelming totalitarian state patronage(s) and its typical patron-client relations was influenced moreover by the imperatives of modernity, than some “end of ideology”, “conspiracy theories”,83 or deep crise in the system of “real socialism” in its SE European context. Political friendships, nepotisms, cronyism, and various favourisms, appear less culturally, moreover politically re-determined in the frameworks the vaguely defined (constitutionally) post communist environments. The decentralization of power, the abolishment of state monopolies, the perspective of EC accession, the transition to market economy etc. might in a nutshell comprise the major factors that had impact on the process of transformation in most Balkan societies. The latter has increased their societal entropies, as penetrating authors witness (Merkel, 2008).84 Deprived of the old patronage, the national elite(s) grasped the historical chance to pre-position themselves in the new frameworks of new power relations after 1990. They failed to upgrade sustainable patronage on the rubbles of the past, which is among the biggest deficits of the some transformation promoted. Corruption in its traditional forms (gifts, briberies) expanded through “new” discovered instruments (state capture, trans border smuggle, institutional frauds). “We want in now” was the inspiring mantra of this unleashed market incentive, which overwhelmed. The challenged party-state patronage(s) adopted strategies of delivery of power and it’s transforming into own economic one. The political patronages have relatively soon discovered their quasi-concordance(s) fields to be exploited better some notorious “bipolar” model of rule. The mushrooming of new parties and “movements”, (moreover quango-patronages) propelled partisanship, patterns of “state in the state” func-

83

See: Wippermann, Wolfgang: Agenten des Bösen. Verschwörungstheorien von Luther bis heute. Berlin: be.bra Verlag 2007. 208 S. 84 See: W. Merkel, Plausible Theory, Unexpected Results: The Rapid Democratic Consolidation in Central and Eastern Europe, in. International Politics and Society, 2/2008, p. 11–29.

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tioning, oligarch networks, backing their new “representative” democratic ventures. The traditional paternalism of most Balkan cultures seemed the only gravity that has prevented a total collapse in SE Europe. A scrutiny of the major premises of this “chaotic change” is to be presented here. 2.4.1

The Party Patronage(s)

Most communist parties on the Balkans (moulded by the Commintern)85 were highly centralized, militant-like hierarchy structures of bolshevik origin, based on MarxistLeninist ideologies. Tito was the first to quit with this overwhelming political patronage of Moscow and in a way opened up to W. Europe. This was only possible through a new ideological inventiveness, known as a platform of “non-capitalist” road of development. It was initiated as worldwide movement of states like India, or even Cuba. Albania offered a counter strategy of “closing” itself and established closer relations with China. As the Brezhnev era marked some ideological loosening from Moscow, Romania (Chaushesku) turned to France and Italy, whereby Bulgaria (Zhivkov) operated as middleman of some Russian-German extended patronage (BRD & DDR)86. What is even more relevant to the study of party patronages in SE Europe in the era of communism is their highly differentiated profile. In so far those patronages have been centrally “steered” (Moscow) but also bound to some own national political tradition, they could be defined as ideological plagiaries, highly eclectic, unsystematic. All of them (except some political tradition in couple of Central European states) have been elaborated aside from the mainstream of political life in Western Europe. This gives different connotation to politics in its SE European pre- and even post-communist context. We shall draw out some characteristic features of those “sub-types” of party patronage and their “ruling styles” (cults), below, moreover that they have shaped specific party-clientele loyalties. The latter, as we claim, had impact (as “path depend85

The Balkan Communist Federation was an organisation in which all the communist parties in the Balkans were represented. It was dominated by the SU and the Comintern requirements. The Federation had been previously called the Balkan Democratic Federation and the Balkan Socialist Federation. It advocated a Balkan Federative Republic that would have included Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Greece and Turkey. Some projects also involved Romania. The body was disestablished in 1939. 86 The BG debt amounting to 20 billions usd was controlled until mid of the 90 es by 600 German private banks.

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encies”) on societal changes in most Balkan countries after 1990 and still influence their less consolidated environments87. – Party monopoly and vertical and horizontal interweaving of Party and State. This patronage operates in a pyramid pattern on top of Politburo (10–12 or more members), Secretariat and Central committee. This three-gremial-control practically all spheres of society – army, police, economy etc. – The Central Committee (CC) involves “apparatchiks”. They have no political power in the sense of decision-making but get certain mandates to control the fulfilment of decisions taken by the CC and its Secretariat. Usually they report to the heads of Dep. of the Central committee – Economical, Science and Technology, or even Media and Cuture etc. – Some internal (specific) hierarchy within the structures of the CC (usually determined by closer relations and loyalty to the General (or first) secretary of the Party is also available. Usually the Organizational departments have the strongest power in this party patronage: they are authorized to make appointments, deliver higher party and governmental post, change top-diplomatic personnel etc. – The Org-Department(s) also coordinate the work of the Party between Congresses. The latter are considered as the highest organ of power – they perform publicly as representative forums, though in most cases decisions are taken in advance by Politburo. – Congresses elect members of the CC, or have the authority to change members of Politburo (this may be done on the base of proposal of the General secretary), voted with majority of 98–99%. The operational level of these “party machines” would be hardly rationalized without some notion of the specific type of Clientage selected (and cultivated for decades on) within the system of the relevant communism regimes. It has certain general 87

As W. Merkel explicitly illustrates the consolidation of democracies in Eastern Europe is a process to be still highly differentiated in respect of its structural and qualitative patterns (“dilemma of simultaneity”, Offe). Assesses the democratic quality in an open Eurasian context on 4 levels: constitutional, representative, behavioural and democratic consolidation, and using empirical data provided by The Bertelsman Transformation Index (BTI), – which conveys the state of affairs by late 2005, Merkel ranges most countries of SE Europe as Macedonia (7.55), Serbia-Monte-Negro (7.4), Albania (7,25), Ukraine (7.1), Bosnia-Herzegovina (6.8) in a group defined according the premises of his theory as “defected democracies”. On the other side Croatia (9.1), Bulgaria (8.45), Romania (8.2) is grouped as some “cluster” of “constitutional democracies” among Central European countries as Slovenia (9.55), the Check Republic (9.45), Hungary (9.4), Lithuania (9,25) etc.

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(ideological premises) but also specific features, relevant to the established socialist and/or social democratic parties traditions. They had certain scopes of independence in so far “in pace” with Moscow. 2.4.2

Nomenclature(s)

The term nomenklatura (Russian: ), derived from the Latin nomenclatura means a list of names. The nomenklatura referred to the Communist party’s authority to make appointments to key positions throughout the governmental system, as well as throughout the party’s own hierarchy. It consisted of two separate lists: one of key positions, appointments to which were made by authorities within the party; the other (reserve cadre lists) for persons who were potential candidates for appointment to those (or other administrative) positions. Politburo as the highest authority, through its Secretariat (executive party organ) also maintained a list of ministerial and ambassadorial positions which it had the power to fill, as well as a separate list of potential “backing” candidates to occupy those positions. Coextensive with the nomenklatura were patron-client relations. Officials who had the authority to appoint individuals to certain positions cultivated specific loyalties among those whom they appointed. The patron (the official making the appointment) promoted the interests of clients in return for their support. Powerful patrons, such as the members of the Politburo, high rank genrals, etc. had own networks of clients. An official could be morover both a “client” (in relation to a higher-level patron) and a “patron” (to other, lower-level officials). Because a client was beholden to his patron for his position, he was motivated to please his patron by carrying out his policies. This power structure in the context of Bulgaria, Romania or Albania, and Yugoslavia, (untill the death of Tito), consisted practiaclly of groups of regional vassals (clients) who had an overlord (the patron). The higher the patron, the more clients he had. Patrons protected their clients and tried to promote their careers. In return the clients remained loyal to their patron. Thus, by promoting his clients’ careers, the patron could advance his own power. 2.4.3

The Party’s Appointment Authority

The nomenklatura system arose early in Soviet history. Lenin wrote that appointments were to take criteria into account as: reliability, political attitude, qualifications, and administrative ability. Stalin, who was the first general secretary of the party, was also known for his assiduous attention to the details (files system) of the

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party’s appointments. Seeking a more systematic fashion of appointments, Stalin built the party’s patronage system and used it to distribute his clients throughout the party bureaucracy. Under his direction in 1922, the party created departments of the Central Committee and other organs at lower levels, that were responsible for the registration and appointment of party officials. These organs supervised appointments to important party posts. According to American sovietologist Seweryn Bialer, after Brezhnev’s accession to power in October 1964, the party considerably expanded its appointment authority. Practially this system of patronage has been implemented in the 50 ese (but also adapted) by most Balkan communist regimes. However, in the late 1980s, some official statements indicated that the party intended to reduce its appointment authority, particularly in the area of economic management, in line with Gorbachev’s reform efforts. The new line of perestrojka initially refered to the established system of appointments to positions on the all-union level. The higher ranks of the old nomenklatura felt threatened with the loss of their power hierarchy. Frustration among local nomenclatura lead to a “chain” reaction of desent. It became obvious that the old party clienteist system is threatened by collapce. Yeltzin’s capture of power put an end to this disorder (possible civi war) in Russia. The banning the Russian communist party short after the arrest of Gorbatchov, symbolized the abolishment of the old system of state-party patronage in Russia and short after in all Eastern European countries (domino effect).88 Several factors explain the entrenchment of patron-client relations. First, in a centralized totalitarian government system, promotion in the bureaucratic-political hierarchy was the only path to power. Second, the most important criteria for promotion in this hierarchy was not merit but approval from one’s supervisors. The latter evaluated their subordinates on the basis of political criteria and their ability to contribute to the fulfillment of the economic plan. Third, political rivalries were present at all levels of the party and state bureaucracies but were especially prevalent at the top. Power and influence decided in this way the outcomes of these struggles, and the number and positions of one’s clients were critical components of that power and in88

All of the 2 million members of the Soviet Russian nomenklatura system understood that they held their positions as a result of a favor bestowed on them by a superior official in the party, and that they could be replaced if they manifested disloyalty to their patron. Self-interest dictated that members of the nomenklatura submit to the control of their patrons in the party.Clients sometimes could attempt to supplant their patron. Krushcev, one of Kaganovich’s ‘s former protégés, helped to oust the latter in 1957. Seven years later, Brezhnev, a client of Khrushchev, helped to remove his boss from power. The power of the general secretary was thus consolidated to the extent that he placed his clients in positions of power and influence. The ideal for the general secretary, as Michael Voslensky notes, “is to be overlord of vassals selected by oneself ”.

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fluence. Fourth, because fulfillment of the economic plan was most decisive, systemic pressures led officials to conspire together and use their ties to achieve that goal. Patron-client relations had thus implications for policy making in the party and government bureaucracies. Promotion of trusted subordinates into influential positions facilitated the policy formation and policy execution. A flexible and most effective network of clients helped to ensure that a patron’s policies could be carried out. In addition, patrons relied on their clients to provide an accurate flow of information on events throughout the country. This information assisted policymakers in ensuring that their programs were being implemented. What is of special interest to the comparative study of collective party patronages in the pre-communist is the shaping of specific party-clientele loyalties (the Party is always right), moreover specific types of “personality cults” – less related to some charismatic power (maybe with some exception in the case of Stalin). These cults were usually moulded by the protocol and the propaganda (political persuasion). In so far those “cults” had impact on specific “leadership styles” (indoctrination, image etc.) cultivated, and are residual in the post-communist nexus of the Balkans after 1990, we shall briefly comment on them. 2.4.4

Political Cults and Loyalties

Milovan Gjilas was among the first to write of the nomenklatura as the new class in his book “New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System”89 – As he claimed, it was widely seen (and resented) by ordinary citizens as a bureaucratic élite that enjoyed special privileges. Practically it had simply supplanted the earlier wealthy capitalist élites by capturing not only the “means of production” but morover power on its verical and horisontal dimentions. This has deeply erroded the socialist collective forms of control. The process of traditional class reshuffle has been very much propelled by personality cult of party leaders. Personality cults appeared in the case of Romania (Chaushesku), Albania Enver Hodja), Tito’s Yugosavia and Bulgaria (Zhivkov). These involved highly personalized loyalties and political friendships, dated usually from the revolutionary period, but not necessarily. They operated as high rank party-client relations, guaranteeing the power of the totalitarian regimes through personal commitments, compensated with concessions and enrichment of selected circles of most dedicated high rank cadres and their clans (families). 89

Milovan Gjilas (1983, 1957). The New Class: An Analysis of the Communist System, paperback, San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.

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The totalitarian regimes compensated in this way both the vulnerability of its power, but also its inefficiency to catch up with the standards of the western welfare states. A specific “dualist” (highly consumer oriented) culture of power elites in this way shaped a variety (clusters of Balkan cults and heir loyalties). These might be conceived as complex (instrumental) levers of buying influence and sustaining power through institutionalised (and other less transparent forms) of extortion, allocation of public wealth and privileged position to loyal cadres. Any deviation (or hesitant behaviour) from this system of politically bargained loyalties leads to “exclusion”, “isolation” or even more severe punishments. Let us brief on some features of these Balkan cults, which have in survived or transformed in some way (nepotisms, clienteles, political clan-traditions, leadership styles etc.) to the present. While Zhivkov, who ruled 34 years in Bulgaria was considered as patrimonial communist party leader closest vassal to Kremlin (he survived couple of general secretary lines), Chaushesku developed a rather more independent (formally) type of personality cult. He was for long time conceived as the “bad boy” for Russian interests on the Balkans, went aside from the ideological line of Moscow, etc. The cult of Enver Hodja is a product of a most represive internal “apparatus” of security organs and interweaved traditional clan structures as the backbone of some “sultan type” of authority. Hodja has for decades on sustained a critical mass of existential uncertainty and personal cult tyranny. He went that far to totaly isolate both clients and patrons of his “ruling system”, from all outside (moreover western) contacts, depriving Albanians from any private property (except means of existential survival). It was only short before the collapse of Chausheskou in Romania that his policy of massive saving (he ambitiously paid off most of the foreign depth of the country) became known to the civilized world. The regime supplied associated professes with 4o W lighting bulbs, whereby an University professor was “legible” to buy even 100 W. Shortages of food, accommodation, building materials etc., kept generations of Romanians on the verge of survival. This has embedded most humiliating forms of obedience, enhanced fear and resentment. These most exhaustive patterns of totalitarian rule (in a way typical for all Balkan countries) have deeply eroded their civic cultures. They have moreover deeply injured the sense of social justice. This notion has been propelled even to wider extremes in the years of transition, through illegal privatisation, shadow schemes of corruptive enrichments, state capture and massive institutional fraud. Most of the political actors of the initial phase of transition made best use of this “irrational attachment” of some rest-patrimonialism, steered into the frameworks of corruptive patronage under the umbrella of the new democratic power. The belief that “it is the West”, moreover “im-

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perial powers” who have to be blamed for an overwhelming misery in many Balkan countries, is still widely used by populist movements at this side. It is moreover the “double face” Janus of these fragmented “imageries” of Balkan cults (and their slippery clientele loyalties) that hamper proper democratic advance. The cult pattern in the case of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) was in a way more sophisticated. This might be explained with its position as neighbouring the West Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). This had certain impact less on the party patronage, moreover to the leadership style. The nomenclature cohort of Honecker (mainly recruted form Saxony) also enjoyed a “system” of privileges. The latter was based not only on ideological loyalty, but also on merits and significant contributions to the modernization of the Republic. What was considered still as “highest party-state trust” – were the “zero” bank accounts, which allowed prominent scientist, sport champions, members of the higher state and party hierarchy etc. to spend unlimited sum of money for whatever they, or members of their families might need. In one way or another the cult of Honecker was accentuated on some reasonable and more acceptable pragmatism, to differ from the highly voluntary and lucrative forms of party elite enrichment in the Balkans. Honecker was also considered as inheritor of some older revolutionary tradition (Ulbricht), which had to fade away with the Commintern, but was still appreciated. Gorbatchov’s perestroika has challenged most system(s) of overwhelming partystate patronage in its national forms. We may even go beyond this triviality – the abolishment of the party patronage in most Eastern European countries is to be considered not less as result of some objective for modernisation (moreover the deepening deficit of it) in its complex new forms. This call of history and politics has reached the Balkans after ages of systematic deprivation of chances for significant, but also desired societal change. This happened however in some “crunched”, rather delayed and pervert forms in so far the power was concentrated in most resistant ruling communist parties on the Balkans. The collapse of the totalitarian regimes in SE Europe (the “domino effect”) is not less to be conceived as result of some deeper moral decay of old state-party patronage, overwhelmed by the democratic changes. Its Clientage lost the old state monopoly, less the premises of mental control (media indoctrination). It gained moreover on some “synergy” of highly obedient and most frustrated citizenry loyalties. Thus the “output” of the painful transition in SE Europe differs substantially from the democratic achievements in most Central European countries. Dissident movements played a modest (symbolic) role at this side (Bulgaria, Macedonia, Rumania). In most cases they have been recruited or manipulated by the political patronages of

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the near past, through different schemes of influence and control. This is another proof for the lack of democratic quality, moreover sustainability of the shaped new patron-client relations. The latter gravitate to old patrimonial dependencies, sustain clienteles of “straw men” involved into most hazardous quasi-corporativisms, and promote new vassal interrelations in wider networked glocal and global context. 2.4.5

Nepotism(s)

Paradoxically, nepotisms as part of the party/state patronage and means of sustain historically its overreaching power, played a rather “multiple” role in the transition of SE Europe. Education and modernisation, but as well the changing political context after 1968 (The Prague Spring, France and Germany) lead to some shift. The nepotims (based on kinship and clan loyalties) were sustained through a segregating (ideologically) system of education and careers “planning” in the era of socialism. The younger generations seemed less inspired by the personalized party patronage (cults). They were aware of the higher prise of being involved into “a system”, which offered much (allocation of luxurious immobile, on “stately reduced” prices, appointments to diplomatic post, a precarious system of privileges including access to deficit goods, or special services), but had to be paid with precious values of civic freedoms and even personal commitment. Traditional nepotisms turned less efficient in a context of open market competitiveness and free exchange of one’s own merits and expertise. This might well explain why substantial parts of Balkan intelligentsia (mainly urban) stayed aside from the political bargaining, or left the ranks of “politics” short after the changes. This pragmatic cohort of “class” inheritors of the old system practically abandoned its stagnated state-patron-client model of participation. They have recognized a more independent role and new chances to be taken, within a freelanced market initiative and a new democratic environment. Few of them dared to undertake the risk of upgrading their independence business however. The “rubbles” of state patronage turned even more attractive as they have ever thought. Thus most of the “reserve” cadres of the nomenclatures (Komsomol, sport or even “youth scout” organizations) have been encouraged in one way or another by some family tradition of “power” and “leadership” to join the new corporative structures (in many cases designed by party strategists as levers of some new state-buerocratic protectionism). Most of the old parties rapidly lost on “young electorate”, as their patronage seized to allocate public wealth and symbolic capital. The scope of interest of nepotisms has concentrated on market economies, highly competitive, but less binding to the state-patronage free initiatives. Nepotism(s) in many ways abandoned (if

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not betrayed) the old ideological legacy of their creators. This also has increased the societal entropy, in so far as the diversification of the old patronage of the state increased both participants and dilettantism, related to the upgrading of adequate, moreover democratically acceptable patron client relations. 2.4.6

Quasi-Patronages

Those involve segments of the old nomenclature, (mainly the security organs and the police)90, but also enriched “petty oligarchs” that have gained from the years of embargo, or were networked into more powerful corporate groups in wider Eurasian scope. They operate as their overseas new clients, in so far as their sources of extortion feed mainly on regional markets. They seem most interested in a new “lag” of some protruded transition and “adapting” to structural, moreover legal requirements of EC. Most of the “appointed capitalists” have built their quasi patronages, capturing significant segments of the public sector, or smaller “re-tail market” domains of existential survival. They have misused the liberalized bank sector and in many ways control its policies, or even flows of public financial resources. This has guaranteed their intouchability through highly corrupted institutions (courts, police, customs, political lobbyism). It may take not too long until those players in a quasi-market economy (state monopolies swapped for quasi-corporative) may look for more than sheer political representation in the Balkan democratic parliaments. As some of them captured significant segments from their states, they aspire moreover to a new “overwhelming” power, as the only guarantee of their challenged legitimacy. What we may be facing is a “time out” of the rest-party-state patronages very much still in use on the Balkans – as result of their failed attempts to deliver significant societal change. Obvious regress might be not less decisive in respect of some inevitable modernization and proper democratic (legal) adjustment of the distorted Balkan environment. We may be entering an era of real politics in SE Europe after “stumbles and falls”, moreover political mimicries. Transparency, “rule of law” and proper involvement into a new EC integrity as shaping in a global world, seem the only way out of some dangerously deviated orbit of democratic gravity of SE Europe.

90

Most totalitarian regimes on the Balkans (Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, ex-Yugoslavia) were police states, where by a more exact term would be militia – as semi militarised organs of state party oppressive powers. All those countries had highly developed and overwhelming “security organs”, operating as secret police and all penetrating networks of oppressive power.

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Rationalizing Corruption

3.1

On the Stand of Corruption Theory

“Between consent and force stands corruption/fraud (which is characteristic of certain situations when it is hard to exercise the hegemonic function, and when the use of force is too risky).”91 Antonio Gramsci, Notes on Machiavelli Theory is a most capricious muse. It seems to have grasped the reality in some overwhelming way, but the latter “escapes” even most sophisticated conceptual frameworks sooner or later. A look at the theoretical heritage on corruption offered in the last decades refers back to old Merton (the managerial aspects of state and corporate bodies interrelations), feeds on some rest-Parson social system constructivism, or even overrides some empirical sociologist fundamentalism (Habermass or Luhman). Comparative studies as “The Causes and Consequences of Corruption: A Review of Recent Empirical Contributions” of Ades, A. and R. D. Tella (1996) might be exemplary in this respect.92 The civic culture (Almond and Verba) theoretical approach – in so far as trust in institutions and/or the co-patriot still count among the parameters of corruptive behaviour, might also be mentioned here. The historical cultural approach – represented by Gramsci, but also modern historians engaged in revision of some state building tradition as cultural process (Asch, 2004) could also be ranged here.93 We cannot omit established researchers in the field as M. Khan (2005). In an extended annotated bibliography he considered corruption as related to it numerous indicators. Most of these publications, offer no discussion on the concept or some “general theory of corruption”. They prefer instead to “upgrade” empirical literature on corruption, which uses most often subjective indices and less consistent survey data. The results are most often bravely presented as contributions to understanding 91

Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, Eds. (New York: International Publishers, 1971): 80, n.49. 92 Ades, A. and R. D. Tella (1996). “The Causes and Consequences of Corruption: A Review of Recent Empirical Contributions” in B. Harris-White and G. White Eds. Liberalization and the New Corruption. IDS Bulletin, Vol. 27, and No. 2: 6–11. 93 Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Nowell Smith, Eds. (New York: International Publishers, 1971): 80, n. 49.

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the “causes of corruption” and/or the theories on its consequences.94 There are three main proposals, which are still worth to be mentioned here: – The first one is the economist’s approach, which consists of diluting the value of the central rights of bureaucrats by increasing the level of competition in the economy. It is based on the observation that corrupt activities take rarely place in situations of perfect competition. – The second approach is based on raising the deterrence provided by the legal system by increasing the probability of detection, apprehension and conviction and the penalties for malfeasant behaviour. – The third one is some “easy way” notion to control corruption, which emphasize on revising the wages of bureaucrats who have the discretion to engage in corrupt activities. Adherents of these strategies argue that bureaucrats should be given similar incentives and remunerations as their private sector equivalents, which reduce “seductive”, corrupt environment. Most authors have found that corruption is higher in countries with economies dominated by a small number of firms, or where domestic firms are sheltered from foreign competition by high tariffs. They also argue that corruption is higher in countries where judicial institutions are not well developed, or are not independent on political influences. The effect of the independence of the judiciary on corruption is considered as negative, though mild. Most authors argue that corruption improves social welfare; both because it is a way to avoid cumbersome regulations and because it is a system of building in rewards for badly paid bureaucrats. Data indicate that corruption lowers investment, thereby leads to reduced growth. In one-way or another it appears that the era of “grand theories” is gone. An exemplar exception might be the attempt of Caiden (1988) to offer a general theory of official corruption in Asian context.95 Caiden presents interesting and comprehensive forms of official corruption. As there are many varieties of corrupt behaviour, so there are multitudinous factors contributing to corruption. He deals with ideological, external, economic, political, socio-cultural and technological ones. Despite the unevenness of research data the attempts to detect generalized patterns of corruption among different geographical regions have been made corresponding to their relative wealth, political stability, social cohesion, cultural mores, administrative capability and degree of moderniza94 95

Khan, M. Political and Administrative Corruption, Annotated Bibliography. Caiden G. E. (1988). “Toward a General Theory of Official Corruption”, Asian Journal of Public Administration, Vol. 10, and No. 1: 3–26.

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tion. Caidan described both the adverse and beneficial effects of corruption. Detailed case studies of specific corrupt practices, however, have disapproved most of the supposed benefits claimed for them. To define official corruption Caidan has used Joseph & Nye’s definition of corruptive behaviour. The latter is considered as deviating from formal duties of a public role because of private – personal, close family, private clique, pecuniary, or status gains, or violates rules against the exercise of certain types of private regarding influence. Nye specifically included bribery, nepotism and misappropriation. Official corruption is thus rationalized as the act of misconduct that disgrace public office and make the offenders to remain in office. It stresses the behavioural element – intentional deviation for personal gain. Obviously corruption is a complex phenomenon involving many different factors and forces. Caiden discussed on four types of corruption. They are: foreign-sponsored, political scandal, institutionalised and administrative malfeasance. Public officials, politicians, representatives of donor and recipient countries, bureaucratic elites, businessmen and middlemen, petty officials and interested individuals, have been defined as actors of those various forms corruptions. Corruption might be thus theorized in general as behaviour, which deviates from the formal duties of a public role, in pursuit for private gains. Although the wider public conceives corruption as a problem of social justice, the academic literature has explored it as a problem of development usually in a narrow sense of economic development. Recent attempts to compensate this deficit have been undertaken by authors as Jung-Sung, (2006).96 He defines corruption as “abuse of power that is a breach of formal justice” and a violation of “obligations of fairness” by individuals for their private gain, which involves betrayal of public trust”.97 Corruption in terms of J. Rawls’ theory of justice98 can be justified only when the gain in substantive justice is large enough to clearly outweigh the loss in formal justice and other alternatives are unavailable. Unjust rules, in terms of substantive principles of justice, or implemented ability and observability, give partial justification for corruption as self-defence. Hence – unjust rules and institutions tend to breed institutional corruption. Any gains in efficiency from corruption are accompanied by negative externalities such as losses for honest com96

Corruption as Injustice; You Jung. Sung, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Paper presented at 2006 Annual Meeting of Midwest Political Science Association Chicago, April 20–23, 2006. Retrieved 2006-10-05 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/ p136779_index.html. 97 You Jung-Sung, A Normative Theory of Corruption as Injustice (Abstract). 98 Rawls’A Theory of Justice (1971).

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petitors and erosion of social trust. Thus corruption is considered not functional for economic efficiency as well as for human development in the long run.99 One can argue on different semantic, cultural, or even logical interferences that occur in the attempts to work out an acceptable definitions moreover theoretical frameworks of corruption, by interpreting its different meaning or functions in a variety of societal contexts. Offering a gift, in terms of some pragmatic rationalism of the European, is more habitual, than instrumental, as in the case of number of “less developed” countries. Number of traditional cultures uses these practices to sustain their “fields” of trust. In most cases those relations escape the benefit-factor/client matrixes of exchange relevant to our rational modernity. An universal (common sense) comprehension of corruption as some moral “decay” of personalities, their networks and societal systems seems still operational however. It is rarely revisited in academic observations; in so far as most norms and values are not only complex but also power related. The way corruption is widely defined, as “misuse of public power for private profit” might be an example of some vague consensus prevailing in most modern societies. As public spheres shrink pressed by new asymmetrical hierarchies, it appears that only a strict juridical definition of corruption as an “act of bribery” and/or transfer of tangible resources (Andvig et al 2000) is most relevant to the rationalization of this deviant behaviour. We might have reached the limits of moral relativisms (or cynical breeds of its) in this respect. As market competitive forces overwhelm not only nations but also whole cultural entities, corruption simply turns into an instrument of providing one’s “own safety”. It is a means of some “parallel integrity” in a disintegrated world, which operates more on exclusive and segregating terms. The outcry “Corrupt me please” is a cynical metaphor quite popular but also relevant to captured spheres of activity in most countries of SE Europe. Corruption might generally appeal less, but the involvement in corruptive patterns of patronage is often considered as a radical way to improve ones situation. Moreover they are conceived as “risky fields” compensating the uncertainty and loss of life perspective. 99

Jung. Sung argues that the private sector as well as the public sector is prone to corruption, that market failures as well as government failures produce incentives for corruption, and that principal-principal relations as well as principal-agent relations are prone to corruption (this very much related to the types of patronage that “produce” incentives for corruptive behaviour, or even shape specific corruptive patterns in quasi-democratic societies in transition (see: Plamen K.Georgiev, Adjusting Quasi-Democracies in SE Europe, in (Georgiev, 2007); Formal justice such as control of corruption and substantive justice such as democracy (procedural justice) and income equality (distributive justice) tend to mutually reinforce each other. Ibid.

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The reason why public trust is vulnerable to betrayal comes not only from some formal asymmetries of power though – as informational, technological, wealth, potential advantages etc. It is moreover, as we claim, the social nature of a new power propelled patronages, which generates new (most sophistic) forms of corruption relevant to our modernity. The decline of the “principle-agent model” of corruption might well be an omnipotent illustration of this trend. Principle-agent and principleagent-client models (as useful as they seem to explain corruption in larger organizations) are very much at doubt when facing modern network technologies and informational resources. The latter are widely used as advantages in a digitalized world. As Jung-Sung suggests the principal-agent model has focused on explaining the opportunistic and corrupt behaviour of agents as betrayal of “trust of the principal”, assuming the principal is not corrupt and the rules of the organization are fair and just. Corruption of an agent is also betrayal of “public trust”. The corrupt client is also violating the principle of fairness and betraying the trust and expectations of other clients and the public. Moreover, the rules of an institution or organization may be unjust. Furthermore, principals may be corrupt, too.100 This diversity leads to new ambiguities, as most anticorruption programs seem to be promoted in some Jurassic Park of post-modernity inflamed by corruption.

3.2

The Concept of Corruption

– Corruption means to destroy (from the Latin corruptus);101 in one way or another it is widely accepted that corruption: • is not a rare phenomenon; • takes many forms with different types of participants, stakes, techniques and has different degree of cultural legitimacy; • is not only about stealing: it can also relate to the abuse of power in decisionmaking processes. It is a behaviour that generally speaking deviates from ethics, morality, tradition, law and civic virtue. 100 101

Ibid. In most Orthodox Christian cultures corruption is conotated with the Slavic word pokvara, which has a broader meaning of deeper damage of both body and soul. In so far as its carriers are considered to have surrendered to some “Satan spirit” and are vehemently schismatized by the Orthodox Church it is also related to a deed for which no indulgence is possible.

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– In the context of our modernity corruption may be defined as any conduct which amounts to: • influencing the decision-making process of a public officer or authority, or influence peddling; • dishonesty or breach of trust, by a public officer, in the exercise of his duty; • insider dealing/conflicts of interests; [and] • influence peddling by the use of fraudulent means such as bribery, blackmail, which includes the use of election fraud. Any person who directly or indirectly accepts, agrees or offers to accept any gratification from any other person to benefit him-/herself or any other person is considered guilty of the crime of corruption. Although there is an active and a passive side to the crime, both parties are equally guilty of corruption. Whilst there is no single definition for corruption, common definitions include: – Corruption involves behaviour on the part of persons in which they improperly enrich themselves or those close to them by misusing power with which they have been entrusted. Thus corruption is the misuse of public power for personal gain.102 – In broad terms, corruption is the abuse of public office for private gain. It encompasses unilateral abuses by government officials such as embezzlement and nepotism, as well as abuses linking public and private actors such as bribery, extortion, influence peddling, and fraud. – Corruption arises in both political and bureaucratic offices and can be “petty” or “grand”, “organized” or “unorganised”. Though it often facilitates criminal activities such as drug trafficking, money laundering, and prostitution, it is not restricted to these activities. For purposes of understanding the problem and devising remedies, it is important to keep crime and corruption analytically distinct.103 – Corruption is an abuse of (public) power for private gain that hampers the public interest. It entails a confusion of the private with the public sphere or an illicit exchange between the two spheres. – In essence, corrupt practices involve public officials acting in the best interest of private concerns (their own or those of others) regardless of, or against, the public interest. 102 103

See more on: National Integrity Promotion Campaign – Namibia. Handbook on fighting corruption, the Centre for Democracy and Governance.

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Related to typical actions corruption is: – An act, done with intent to give some advantage inconsistent with official duty and the rights of others. This includes bribery, but is more comprehensive; because an act may be corruptly done, though the advantage to be derived from it is not offered by another. (Law Library’s Lexicon) – Corruption involves behaviour on the part of officials in the public and private sectors, in which they improperly and unlawfully enrich themselves (and/or those close to them), or induce others to do so, by misusing the position in which they are placed. (World Bank) – The solicitation or acceptance by a public official, directly or indirectly, of an undue advantage, for the official himself or herself or another person or entity, in order that the official act or refrain from acting in the exercise of his or her official duties. (Article 8 of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime) – To spoil or destroy by putrid decomposition; to turn from a sound into an unsound condition; to infect, taint, render morbid; to adulterate; to debase, defile; to putrefy, rot, decay; to destroy the moral purity or chastity of; to destroy or pervert the integrity or fidelity of (a person) in his discharge of duty; to induce to act dishonestly or unfaithfully; to make venal; to bribe; to pervert the text or sense of (a law etc.) by altering it for evil ends. (Oxford English Dictionary) – Guilty of dishonest practices, (such) as bribery; without integrity; debased in character; depraved; perverted; crooked; wicked; evil; decayed; putrid; infected; tainted. Applies to one, esp. in public office, who acts on mercenary motives, without regard to honour, right or justice. (Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary of the English Language). We consider the definition used by the World Bank as most operational for the purposes of this study and prefer to stick to it. Even though, it is more than obvious that complex interdisciplinary research has to discuss marginal field of the phenomena as performed in different societies and cultural environments. Corruptive practices are considered immanent to totalitarian societies – centralization of power, systematic abuse of civil rights, party overwhelming patronage, or nepotistic tradition. They are to a great extend however performed in latent, (mimicry), moreover shadow like manner usually taken for granted. Hence the less persuasive conclusions that corruption “does not exist” in totalitarian environments. An academic definition of corruption should involve, as we believe, not only the dominating norms and values of given society, moreover its collectivistic v/s intra-individualistic societal bondage, considered relevant to its historical and political type (Haug, 1993). As we shall illustrate further on such environments (democratic v/s quasi-democratic) give birth to specific types of corruption.

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Seductive Involvements

Corruption, conceived in this way, very much escapes the “distanced sociological” formalism that has dominated social research for decades on. It might be better rationalized as a process of seductive involvement of individuals (and even bigger societal entities and groups) into other system(s) of belief that occasionally “improves”, but could also slowly erode, and convert identities in a specific way. The promotion of violence, the colonial era, or the one of the Cold war considered gone, give plenty of examples of such effects. Most of them have been prescribed to different systems of “ideology” indoctrination, religious fundamentalism, or even some cultural tradition. We shall omit here debates of these issues in so far as we consider it counter productive to the obvious demand of a new rationalism in the field. The issues at stake seem not so much who corrupts whom, but with what effect? Moreover how can corrupt environments be prevented from erosion and inevitable societal reverse? This implicitly includes the answer of questions “how does it happen”, which we consider the heart of the matter, or an objective of this text. We give full credit to conclusions of recent research, that the private sector has rarely been studied in respect of corruption. Ordinary people, as well as the media, commonly use the term “corporate corruption” to describe a genuine pattern of corruptive behaviour in highly competitive market societies. Scholars usually use terms as “business ethics”, avoiding thus the word corruption in the private sector. Thus, the abuse of “private power” is to a great extend excluded from the definition of corruption as many authors notice. This interpretation can be most misleading, because, for a corrupt transaction between a public official and a client, often only the public official is regarded as corrupt, while the client who has used private resources (money, or other positional advantages) is not regarded as corrupt. We call moreover certain kinds of misbehaviours “corrupt” not only in the public sector, but also in the private and non-profit sectors. There is corruption in the universities, the corporations, the labour unions, the media, the banks, and even the churches (Meyer 1975). The social reality of countries in transition offers an amazing variety of corruptive inventiveness. In most cases it seems “institutionalised” in quasi-autonomies, pseudo-corporative, or over-border networked structures. They feed on the resources of religious, national, ethnic or even cultural settings and capture spheres of both state and public interests. These “short-cuts” of patronage and their specific patron client relations “engage” as part-time intermediaries organized crime groups in less transparent, but institutionally supported “shadow” activities. Even theories of “the dirty

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hands” – in search of some excuse of obviously corrupted or anti legal activity in favour of “communal” interests – can not be persuasive, when it comes to the effects of corruptive life styles and embezzlement endangering whole societies and bigger societal entities (Thompson, 1987). Glocalism (Bauman) might also be considered as an instrument of most seductive involvements, packing entities into “clusters” of corrupted societal domains. Patronages (moreover quasi-patronages) of such types endanger not only some homogeneity of societal spaces, but moreover the perception of their “normalities”. This may turn (and turns) whole regions into “black holes” of significant but less desired, or totally unacceptable societal change. What are the similarities and differences between private sector corruption and public sector corruption? Are there any fundamental differences between them? Does corruption have some public characteristics? What are the criteria for “private gain” as a core element of corruption, especially when private interests are threatened or invaded by unjust laws and unfair administration of laws? These are only few of many open questions that are important but have not been addressed by the literature (Jung-Sung, 2006). There has been general consensus about the need to interpret the term “private” more broadly, so that it may include one’s family, relatives, friends, political party, but also those with connections (such as a friend of a relative). The need to interpret the term “gains” (benefit, or profit) so that it may include not only monetary gain, but also power, prestige, and any kind of favour or benefit, seems also in demand. Favourism and nepotism are usually regarded as part of corruptive exchange. The question of how corruption is to be viewed as “self-defence” from the infringements of self-interest by unjust laws or unfair administration has seldom been discussed, however. This poses a query as to the conditions under which corruption can be justified. In a nutshell – such questions have significant implications on the lives of many people. There is less doubt that unjust societal systems breed institutional corruption beyond the concept of individual corruption. We shall comment on this further on.

3.4

Measuring Corruption

The stand of “theory of corruption” is even more confusing, concerning its operational instrumental capacity. Most of the offered models feed on developmental (cultural) superiority, “rationalize” specific behavioural patterns eclectically, or comprise less consistent results form anthropological studies of the distanced past. Di-

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chotomies leased from old hierarchical, (system bound) notions of our modern world are still prevailing. That corruption is routed in traditional societies, but “embedded” in most sophistic forms in our modernity, is an obvious reality. Modern societies are even more vulnerable in so far allocation of wealth and power occurs less in the old vertical or even horizontal dimentions of the welfare state. Globally networked corruption is immense problem. Most comparative measurements, moreover their vague assessments, barely contribute for positive change. Their controversies also influence institutional policies. This might explain the rethorics of world leaders, less happy with their “corruptive indexes” ratings. The latter are often used as labelling metaphor, moreover as instrument to influence donor’s interest to different regions of the world. A critique of the cross-county indicators to measure corruption has appeared ever since the first indexes to measure the “invisible” developed. Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index, most widely used, has been quested abundantly: Whose perceptions are they anyway? Are perceptions adequate to actually occurring corruptive behavior? Thomson & Shah (2005) in a critical draft explicitly stress: “The widespread usage of the corruption indices necessitates a closer examination of the reliability of these indicators. We find that there are many limitations to corruption indicators due to the methodologies used in aggregating or averaging, the reliability of the resources on which they are based, and the varying definitions of corruption utilized. In particular, we find the large standard errors of the aggregate corruption indices problematic. This lack of precision of the scores leads one to question the feasibility of compiling meaningful rankings across countries or trends across time.”104 As Knack (2006) but also other authors (Manow, 2004) explicitly point out105 the capacity of different indexes to measure corruption is much more modest than expected. Most of them are relevant to “scanning” the administrative sector, but are less successful in the “state captures” on the levels of “high politics”. Even though significant progress has been made in the last 6–7 years in the field, a primer on corruption indicators based on heterogeneous methodology usually accelerates the confusion of the messages they often provide. The constructivism and functionalism of

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Discussion Draft Revised March 2005 By Theresa Thompson and Anwar Shah (T. Thompson is with the University of Maryland, and A. Shah is Lead Public Sector Specialist in the World Bank Institute. 105 Stephen Knack, Measuring Corruption in Eastern and Central Asia: A Critique of the CrossCountry Indicators, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper 3968, July 2006.

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such conceptualisations often unveil double standards.106 The gains in statistical “precision” from aggregating sources of corruption data are minimal, because of interdependence among data sources. Appeals to fill the “significant gaps between our conceptual definitions of corruption and the operational definition embodied in the existing measures”107 prompt on the necessity new inventive research in the field. 3.4.1

Main Ambiguities

The main methodological ambiguities as related to the measurement of corruption have been summarized by Knack (2006): • Existing corruption indicators differ importantly in the semantic and contextual aspects of corruption they purport to measure, in clarity and explicitness of definitions, as well as in the methods and transparency of their assessments. No single indicator or data source is to be considered “best for all” purposes. • Aggregating corruption indicators from numerous sources do not always result in a more appropriate measure than using a single indicator or data source. Conceptual precision is thus usually lost through aggregation. • Gains in statistical precision from aggregating sources of corruption data likely are far more modest than often claimed, as the assumption of independent error in measurement among data sources is most often violated. • Changes over time in corruption ratings should be interpreted with extreme caution. Perceptions indicators from one year to the next often are intended to correct ratings regarded in hindsight as incorrect. • Enterprise surveys such (as BEEPS) measure for example only corrupt transactions between public officials and business firms, and in that sense provide a limited picture than broadly defined corruption measures.108 106

We prefer not to comment on the immense activity in creating different Codes as preventive restrictions of corruptive behaviour here. It is another issue of research interest. Of special concern in his respect are not only attempts to improve the functioning legal bases and norms related to the fight against corruption in most new democracies, but their modification in direction of a shrinking public sector, total control over privacy, freedom of choices etc. This is another proof of economics but also power patronage deviating countries in transition from some initial mainstream of democracy and modernization they seem to have joined after 1990. 107 Ibid. P 2. 108 The advantage of firm surveys such as BEEPS is in providing narrow, specific indicators such as bribes paid in tax collection or in business licensing, and in providing objective measures on share of firm revenues or contract values paid as bribes to public officials. The BEEPS also allows firm-level analyses, e.g. on which types of firms pay more in bribes.

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• Perceptions that corruption is an obstacle to doing business are potentially affected by optimism, or by prevailing economic conditions. Sources – including firm surveys – disagree markedly on which countries have improved and which have not. Changes in expert assessments often reflect corrections rather than a belief that corruption has actually “improved” or “worsened”. Rankings provided by different sources show some convergence for the last 6–7 years but are considered still inconsistent. Detailed corruption questions in BEEPS and WEF (two most preferred Indexes by WB) are usually used to shed light on what aspects of corruption are emphasized by the broad, perceptions-based indicators. The latter measure primarily administrative corruption, rather than “state capture,” and measure corruption in public procurement particularly poorly. Significant advance has been made in assessment of “good governance” (see WB “Governance matters” and WBI Governance and anticorruption)109 in the last 2–3 years. There is a broad consensus however on the need to develop “actionable” indicators, assessed for most developing countries, of public sector policies and institutions potentially important in combating corruption. It is arguable though that monitoring progress based on these indicators could provide greater incentive for reform.110 This relates to less advanced societies, relying on traditional forms of patronage and some rest patrimonialism overwhelming their civic cultures. Moreover is this relevant to “quasi-democratic” environments, as specific field of corruption, and captured domains of globally competing power patronages. 3.4.2

Corruption Indicators Properties

The abundance of “definitions” of corruption has added to a vague consensus on how it performs in different spheres of society, less to what is actually to be defined as corruptive behaviour. Transparency International’s definition: “the misuse of entrusted power for private gain”,111 is considered most representative among others. Accepting this conceptual definition, “corruption” can be disaggregated along the following major dimensions: • by level of political system (central government, provincial, municipal), roughly corresponding to the terms “petty” and “grand” corruption; 109

See: Governance Matters V: Governance Indicators for 1996–2005 by D. Kaufmann, A. Kraay, and M. Mastruzzi; September 15, 2006 in: www.govindicators,org. 110 See: P.Georgiev (2007), S.Knack (2006), Manow (2004), Appendix, Literature. 111 See: http://www.transparency.org/faqs/faq-corruption.html. Also see the definitional discussion in Sandholtz and Koetzle (2000), and sources cited therein.

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• by purpose of the improper actions: to influence the content of laws and rules (“state capture”) or to influence their implementation (“administrative corruption”, but also specific quasi-political techniques); • by the actors involved in the corrupt transaction: various combinations of firms, households, and public officials; • by characteristics of a particular set or networks of actors, for example bribes required for large v. small companies, or for rich v. poor households; • by administrative agency or service: tax and customs, business licenses, inspections, utility connections, courts, or public education and health facilities. • by incidence or magnitude of bribes, or by the uncertainty they create for businesses and households. Regardless of preferred conceptual definition, the choice of measurement techniques from a limited set of feasible alternatives inevitably “produces” implicit definitions that may differ substantially from one’s ideal or research objectives. Any pair of assessment methodologies will thus measure a different “mix” of various dimensions of corruption. For example, what weight should be given to central, state and local governments, when assessing “corruption for federal countries such as the United States or India? These sorts of questions are not explicitly answered in the methodology of existing country-level indicators. There are obvious discrepancies in this respect that bias both the theoretical and methodological approaches. 3.4.3

Choose Your “Index”?

We shall brief below major indexes that might be of use for the researcher, baring in mind some “minimal criticism” needed to catch with most sophisticated procedures to measure corruption (D. Kaufmann, 4 Myths on Corruption. Can it be measured, 2007). The Business Environment and Enterprise Performance Survey (BEEPS) is a nationally representative survey of business firms assessing corruption and other problems faced by businesses in the Easter Europe and Central Asia region.112 The World Economic Forum’s (WEF) “Executive Opinion Survey” is another cross-country

112

The BEEPS is sponsored by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and the World Bank, and has covered almost every country in the region, in each of three survey waves: 1999, 2002 and 2005. The World Bank in many countries in other regions has conducted similar enterprise surveys, but so far they have been done only on a country-by-country basis, rather than region-wide every three years as with BEEPS.

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survey of firm managers providing information on those issues. In the 2005 survey, a total of 10,993 responses were received, ranging from 22 for Mauritius to 473 for Russia.113 Results from a BEEPS 3 are also available at the portals of WBI and offer user-friendly (interactive) access to aggregated data. Another organization, as the IMD, uses a nearly identical methodology, but operates through somewhat different survey questions, in its World Competitiveness Yearbook (IMD, 2005). The IMD executive survey is conducted in fewer countries than the WEF survey, though and includes fewer questions on corruption. The IMD survey discloses also less information than the WEF on the size and composition of its sample of executives in each country. Both executive opinion surveys differ from the BEEPS (and the World Bank’s other firm surveys) in several respects. First, the sample in each country is selected with a preference for executives with international experience, who tend to be from larger and exporting firms. Second, the questions are designed to elicit “the expert opinions of business leaders” on corruption and other issues, and focus (less than BEEPS) on firm’s experiences. The WEF, for example, asks about diversion of public funds – an issue on which few firms would have direct knowledge, or might be willing to comment (bad investment climate, authoritarian governments etc.). Third, the WEF and IMD surveys are designed solely to produce country-level measures of the business climate.114 Other factors (political, cultural, environmental risks etc.) however also influence corruption. The BEEPS (and other World Bank firm surveys) is designed for firm-level analyses. Household surveys addressing corruption issues are on the other side not so well developed as firm surveys. Beginning in 2003, Transparency International annually has sponsored the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), conducted with assistance from Gallup International’s survey network. The number of the covered countries has expanded from 44 in 2003, to 64 in 2004, and 69 in 2005. The questions changed almost entirely from 2003 to 2004, but much of the 2004 content remained in the 2005 survey. The World Values Surveys (WVS), International Crime Victimization Surveys (ICVS), “Voice of the People” surveys by Gallup International, and several regional “Barometer” surveys, have also included questions on households’ experi113

Cross-country rankings on several corruption questions (see Appendix B5) from this survey are published for 117 countries in WEF’s annual Global Competitiveness Report (LopezClaros, Porter and Schwab, 2005). Ratings are computed as the simple average of all executives’ responses. 114 Information and data for the World Bank’s investment climate assessment surveys are available at http://iresearch.worldbank.org/ics/jsp/index.jsp.

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ences with or attitudes toward corruption. Most of these suffer from greater comparability problems than does the BEEPS.115 3.4.4

Anticorruption Survey Market(s)

Anticorruption surveys are an expanding market themselves. A growing number of organizations provide such assessments. Their methods differ in several important ways. First – as related to the degree to which assessments are “centralized.” This centralized type is exemplified by Nations in Transit (NIT) and/or by the International Country Risk Guide (ICRG). Corruption ratings from these sources are informed by network of correspondents with country-specific expertise. The final ratings are determined centrally by a very small number of people, however. Second – in the decentralized type, views are solicited from experts only for countries in which they have direct experience. Two examples are the UNECA’s Africa Governance Indicators (Economic Commission for Africa, 2005) and the World Governance Assessments (Hyden, Court and Mease, 2004). The Africa Governance Indicators (AGI), covering corruption and other governance issues, are based on surveys of elites in 28 countries, conducted in 2002–2003. Its “expert panels” varied in size from about 70 to 120 across countries. From 83 total questions in the survey, responses to 7 were used in constructing a “Corruption Control” index for each country.116 World Governance Assessments have been conducted in late 2000 and early 2001 in 22 developing countries from various regions, including Bulgaria, Kyrgyzstan and Russia from the ECA region. In each country, 35 “well-informed persons” were asked 30 questions, including 3 pertaining to corruption (in business licensing, in the judiciary, and favouritism in applying regulations). Data in 6 of the 22 countries were deemed to be of unacceptably low quality, so the publicly available data set covers only 16 countries.117 Managers of business firms may be viewed as merely a special category of “well-informed persons.” Moreover, respondents in firm surveys can be asked more specific and objective questions, because they comprise a more 115

For example, the surveys administered by Gallup International cover only urban households in many countries. Unlike the BEEPS, results from the WVS and regional “Barometer” surveys are made public only with long lags, limiting their value in diagnosing problems and designing policy responses. Expert assessments of corruption have been widely used for comparisons across countries and over time though their panels seem not less problematic. 116 See http://www.uneca.org/agr/. 117 See http://www.odi.org.uk/WGA_Governance/Index.html.

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homogeneous group. A survey of elites that includes public officials, academics, journalists, etc. must frame questions that could be answered meaningfully by all of them, however, which necessitates broader questions. The World Bank’s Country Policy and Institutional Assessment (CPIA) is a hybrid of centralized and decentralized expert-based ratings. The ratings originate with the country teams and regional offices. They are reviewed secondarily for cross-regional comparability by central units, however. Most ratings proposed by the regions are not changed in this review, and the final ratings are correlated at about .98 with those proposed by the regions. Another way in which expert assessments differ is in the extent of documentation they provide regarding definitions and methods. For example, NIT provides more details than ICRG on its assessment criteria and methodology (including sources of information). It offers extensive country narratives containing qualitative assessments of corruption problems to accompany the quantitative ratings. The CPIA is considered transparent in some respects but opaque in others. Its detailed assessment criteria are posted on a public web site, and offer reasonably detailed narratives justifying the ratings. 3.4.5

Corruption Beyond Time and Space

A final distinction among corruption indicators is that some are more suitable than others for measuring changes over time (Manow, 2006). Broader, multi-dimensional indicators are potentially problematic in this respect, as there is no way to ensure that the implicit weights given to the various dimensions do not vary over time. Some indicators have no fixed and explicit criteria provided for each ratings level, thus there is no way of ensuring that a rating of (say) 4 means the same thing from one year to the next. The ICRG might be an illustrative example. Its ratings guide (PRS Group, 2003) states that ratings are intended to be comparable both across countries and over time. It provides no indication of what conditions are described by a rating of 2, 3, 4, etc. Nations in Transit provides only a generally worded set of criteria for each of its 1–7 ratings levels, written to apply not only to corruption, but also to NIT’s six other indicators.118

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For example, the lowest rating of 7 implies an “absence of practices that adhere to basic human rights standards, democratic norms, and the rule of law” on the NIT corruption index and on its other six indexes: National Democratic Governance, Electoral Process, Civil Society, Independent Media, Local Democratic Governance, and Judicial Framework and Independence.

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Changes in methods, as well as in content, can reduce over-time comparability of indicators. WEF has tried to increase the response rate of its Executive Opinion Survey, to enhance accuracy by making the sample more representative as the mean number of responses per country increased from 84 in 2004 to 94 in 2005. Progress on this front can affect trends however. Executives with the strongest opinions might be considered as most likely to respond, or strong opinions might tend to be unfavourable. This could be the common case in number of transitory environment of SE Europe. An increase in the response rate from one year to the next would then reduce the negative bias, but the year-on-year change would be biased toward showing improvement. 3.4.6

Composite Corruption Indexes

These are single corruption indexes constructed from multiple, distinct sources of corruption indicators. In many cases no matter how corruption indicators are aggregated, the resulting index still reflects corrupt interactions only between firms and public officials. Another approach to improve them is to reduce measurement error. Given the difficulties in measuring corruption, any one source may be highly inaccurate, however. A third approach is to cover a larger number of countries. No source covers all countries. This might have inspired the creation of Transparency International’s widely cited “Corruption Perceptions Index”, and subsequently WBI’s “Control of Corruption” index (Kaufmann, Kraay and Mastruzzi, 2005). Although the statistical methods vary, both of these indexes standardize corruption indicators from numerous sources to place them on a comparable scale, and compute an average (un weighted for TI, weighted for WBI) of them to obtain one value for each country.119 The WBI index, which appeared several years after the TI index, was intended to improve and expand it in several ways. The WBI index provides a value for any country with data available from even one source, while the official TI index requires three sources. It incorporates data from more sources, including ICRG and others, which TI rejects on various grounds (Lambsdorff, 2005a). Using many of the same data sources, WBI constructed five other broad “governance” indexes. Howev-

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Missing values on any indicator for a given country are ignored, so are in effect imputed as the average of all indicator values for which data are available for the country. By this procedure, an index value can be computed for any country with data available from even one of the many sources used.

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er WBI weights available sources differently, in contrast to the equal weighting in TI of available sources for each. The index on TI’s web site lists only countries for which three or more data sources are available. The index of Johan Lambsdorff’s lists index values for all countries with available data on one or more sources. Lambsdorff is the creator of the TI index. 120 Finally, WBI attempts to improve on the treatment of statistical uncertainty in TI. While TI lists number of sources, and the range and standard deviation among sources, WBI computes a “standard error” as an indicator of uncertainty accompanying each point estimate. The expansive definition of corruption implied by aggregation is a virtue for TI’s and (later) the World Bank’s consciousness-raising agendas, and for cross-country empirical research demonstrating adverse economic consequences of corruption (Manow, 2006). Data users often neglect the limitations of those and other composite indexes. Similar problems arise as related to broad corruption measures from individual sources such as ICRG, NIT or CPIA.

120

See http://www.icgg.org/corruption.index.html

4

Corruptive Patterns of Patronage

The collapse of the totalitarian regimes on the Balkans (Romania, Bulgaria, ex Yugoslavia, Albania) challenged immensely the old system of state-party patronage and its patron-client relations. They had to re-define in the framework of a chaotically shaping market environment and new power dependences. We could brief here the following more significant shifts: from militant (quasi – institutional) – to quango types of patronage;121 from old party monopolist – to free market (political) organizations; from state controlled church (es) – to liberalization of religious life; from old party bureaucracy (nomenclature) – to its decentralization etc. These structural changes have also influenced the old type of cadre loyalties. The latter flew into the mainstream of some instrumental pragmatism: looser dependence on the state, less even to its frustrated institutions, “alternative” patronage of the emerging new corporative structures, or independent small and family businesses. This formal structural-phenomenological approach, tells little on the qualitative change of patron client relations, however. The understanding of the Balkan political agora (in wider Eurasian scope) is more promising in this respect. A useful starting point might be a look at the mushroomed parties and their “swarms” of clienteles in desperate search of new fields of trust. Having lost the protectionism of the old state, substantial segments of its “released” Clientage, engaged in “packaged” schemes of partisan enrichment. This has been achieved mainly through guasi-corporate (state independent patronage) but also schemes of state control shares in market transformed collective enterprises. Some of these patterns have been well tested under totalitarism (overwhelming monopoly, juridical voluntarism etc.). The new inventiveness of “bypass” extortion of the public wealth however surpassed this experience. It 121

Quango-patronages (quasi – NGO) are defined as: “unhealthy patronage not only in the honours system, but also in the appointments to quangos, non-elected bodies that are taking over more and more of the roles of local government.” Tony Wright presented his extensive research on the abuse of patronage in a written submission to the Nolan Committee (Written submission, 11 January 1995). “There are now 5,521 executive quangos (alone in UK) responsible for almost a third of all government spending centrally. Examples are the Health Education Authority which until recently had an annual budget in excess of £16 million, or the Forestry Commission, or the Arts Council. They are not properly accountable to the public, and some appear to have fallen far short of acceptable standards.” See: The Power of Patronage, http://www.globalchange.com

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has been fostered by a widely spread “double face” moral, springing from the resthierarchies of “class” society, but moreover propelled through new economic power and market advantages in an overriding global perspective.122 As credit millionaires financed by “private banks”, (on preferential terms), financial pyramids, smugglers of embargo goods, oligarch groups etc. seemed to have created some “critical mass” of laissez-faire capitalisms, the “invisible hand” of the market turned to be very much out of control. The transition in most countries of SE Europe is thus less to be defined by standards of normal economic (business) activity in terms of proper market society. It has utilized moreover new means to monopolist power (state capture, political control over significant sectors of the economies, strategies of “shared” market advantages, illegal privatisation of public assets, etc). Most of the new patronages were based on local protectionism, adapting strategies of cheap labour in a less determined (legally) market environment. They reduced public benefits to the limits of social engagement, guaranteeing high profits and growth. Some authors related this to a late discovery of an “Asian model” of production (once briefly commented by Marx). The latter is technologically less equipped, but compensates mainly through higher rates of exploitation of human capital, extortion and exports. Some cheaper consumerism might also be added to the strange “mix” of some “China” developmental model, less driven by managerial, moreover “buerocratic” forces. The usual dichotomies: poor rich, powerful deprived, privileged-underprivileged, “losers” or “gainers”, appear thus less relevant to the present Balkan reality. A rapid loss of meaning of patronages, as shaped in their quasi-democratic environments is an overwhelming trend. The state patronage is even less inspiring and binding as some “third class” promoted amounts to not more than 5–7% of the populations nearly two decades after the change. Even newly adopted members of EC as Bulgaria, or Romania obviously fail in this civic respect. The Balkans is still chained to the status of high economic dependencies (growing depths and deficits), low standard of living and existential uncertainty. This generated new asymmetries in wider glocal and global perspective. 4.1

The Balkan Political Agora: In Search of New Fields of Trust

In so far as post-communism marks some end of modernity (Bauman) patronages in the transitory Balkan environment rapidly lose on functionalism. As some “appoint122

Mommsen, Margareta; Nußberger, Angelika: Das System Putin. Gelenkte Demokratie und politische Justiz in Russland. München: C.H. Beck Verlag 2007.

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ed caste” of entrepreneurs seem even more frustrated by the pressure of oligarch groups and their political umbrellas, most of the mushroomed political parties from the initial yeas of democratic transition fail to guarantee significant and desired social change. It becomes clear that the old political systems cannot contribute for sustainable types of patronage, moreover socially binding patron client relations. The discourse “more” or “less” state seems more then scholastic. Let us point some arguments in this respect: 1. Appointments are no more relevant to some centrally steered societal change. They are moreover reduced to transitory posts in a weakened and most perplexed (buerocratic) state machine. 2. The latter guarantees not so much privileges and merits, but rather allocates positions, that may be used for one’s own merit and this in relative short terms. 3. Actors, both in the framework of a traditional rural (peasantry) and urban (industrial) type of patronages, tend to self-appointment highly dependent on the resources of state and less public wealth. 4. They barely produce, moreover “gamble” on regional (less trans border) markets, risking hundreds of thousands employees in ventures of less predictable futures. 5. Most of the ruling party and administrative elites are networked in “part-time” (multiple) patronage: (members of boards, consulting, qua-corporate expertise, etc.; this makes them most vulnerable to conflicts of interests and other forms of corruption. 6. Decline of trust in the institutions fosters the erosion of the State (symbolized by patrimonial patronage). The latter is less capable to meet the challenges of the markets in glocal, less even global terms. 7. This leads to uncertain (fluid) loyalties – both on the economic and political level. New types of clientele emerge: networks of dedicated “insiders”, quasi-administrative settings, oligarch circles capturing both state institutional and power structures. The “general and specific exchange” conceived as some inevitable swap of sovereignty against basic civic rights and freedoms (façade democracies) binds people to day-life-strategies of sheer survival, less to independent activity. The latter is often pushed aside from the perceptions of some Balkan normality, as disputable as it may be. This endangers significant achievements of civilization: erosion of secularism, traditional cultural values, constitutional freedoms and civic rights, bound to stay on paper. It is a road to new turmoils.

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“Corrupt Me Please …” Inclusion Through Exclusion

Resignation and violence are the bitter fruits of this deeply disordered Balkan societal environment. Patronages of relative stability (old patrimonial state) nourish the nostalgia of the past. Its repercussions are often witnessed in behavioural practices marked by extreme voluntarism, abuse of power, oppression and even anti-system activity. The extremely exclusive character of qasi-democracies as fields of corruption on the Balkans is a challenge for the democratic world as they ruin societal tissues before they even grass route. The appeal “corrupt me please” might be symptomatic for some desperate search of lost life perspectives. It also prompts on lack of normal, acceptable patronage and patron client relations of which many Balkan countries are very much deprived of. Individual attempts to mobilize one’s own (or kinship and friends) creative forces become rare as some paranoiac awareness of “conspiracies”, or shadow groups and Table 1. Impact of forms of corruption for selected countries in SE Europe Results for: Selected countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, and Bosnia, Macedonia No impact

Minor impact

Significant impact

Very significant impact

Don’t know

Question 1

66.3%

15.7%

12.6%

5.5%

16.9

Question 2

69.5%

13.2%

10.6%

6.8%

21,7

Question 3

71.3%

13.3%

9.6%

5.9%

23.7

Question 4

66.2%

15%

11.3%

7.6%

23.3

Question 5

64.4%

17.9%

12.4%

5.3%

23.7

Question 6

50%

16.7%

18.2%

15.2%

16.1

Question 7

50.2%

17.7%

19.3%

12.7%

16.0

Question 8

59.4%

14.5%

16.6%

9.5%

18.2

Question 1–8: What impact have the following forms of corruption had on your business? Central Bank mishandling of funds (1), Sale of Parliamentary votes to private interests (2), Sale of Presidential decrees to private interests (3), Sale of decisions in the criminal court (4), Sale of decisions in the commercial courts (5), Bribes to public officials to avoid regulations (6) Patronage (7), Contributions to political parties by private interest (8). The measures presented in the spreadsheets are derived from the 1999 BEEPS and are subject to a margin of error. The results for any country or group of countries in no way reflect the official position of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Source: Courtesy of WBI Governance and Anticorruption (D. Kaufmann) see: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/beeps/spreadsheet.asp

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“political networks” decide what is still to happen, prevail. The “under the table” pre- and post contractual voluntarism in allocation of public wealth, goods, trading positions, or even life chances, deepen the gaps between ruled and rulers. As the first feel the effects of some “mobbing” on themselves, the latter reach the extreme of the “myopia of the transition”. The notorious question “What is to be done?” is open anew, two decades after the fall of the Berlin wall. It has lost its Leninist connotation however. A radical abolishment of the quasi-forms of democracy and oligarch-captured societies in SE Europe seems the only way out of the sack. This objective can hardly be achieved in the pattern of mentor dominated global patronages. It is to be re-defined by new democratic elites, dedicated to the idea of European integrity. The latter could be only national in shape, but European in Spirit. In so far as ideas are rationalized quicker, but are materialized usually in painful ways, we shall comment on this later to prevent the reader from any “flashy” discoveries.

4.3

State Captures

Partisanship is a traditional pattern of allocation of posts on central and local governmental level on the Balkans. So are most of the independent strictures of the juridical institutions, highly influenced by party connections and/or presidential involvements. These characteristics of institutional interrelations were fostered by couple of waves of most uncertain administrative reforms in SE Europe. While the administrative reforms of smaller (Western Balkan) countries have been done in more transparent and efficient way, the lag behind of Macedonia, Bosnia Herzegovina, and Monte Negro is notorious.123 Bulgaria, which seemed to perform more “convincing” than Romania, at the time of their accession, has suffered EC sanctions as result of administrative deficits. While Bucharest has applied a more radical approach to the 123

For ease of presentation we use the sub regional groupings as adopted by WB reports: The southern Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) includes Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan; The northern CIS includes Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine; Southeast Europe includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, FYR Macedonia, Romania, and Serbia and Montenegro; The EU-8 includes the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, the Slovak Republic, and Slovenia; The European Comparators include Germany, Greece, Ire land, Portugal, Spain, and Turkey. We don’t discuss how homogeneous these groups are with respect to survey responses on corruption. Of greater concern might be its networked structures, which as we believe leads to the necessity of development of glocal systems of anticorruption. The study of “corruption clusters” might me even more stimulating as some formalized geo-strategic framework in use.

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fight against corruption and state capture124, its southern neighbour adopted a rather “easy go” (self-confident) style. One reason for this might well be the higher density of corruptive involvements (and interweaving) of institutional and organized crime in wider glocal scopes. By all means the lack of capacity to upgrade and maintain sustainable patronages through legally controlled patron client relations is among the main factors fostering corruption in most segments of Balkan societies. The BEEPS data provides an acceptable way to measure state capture across the region and in wider open South European and Asian context.125 Still the issue is discussed on general (formal) level, as oligarch network influence (media, or lobbyism) are out of reach for most measuring instruments.126 The instruments measure moreover side effects than really performing corruptive patronages.127 Asked “to what extend the provision of unofficial private payments, gifts, or private benefits to public officials to gain advantages in the drafting of laws, decrees, regulations, and other binding government decisions has a direct impact on their businesses” is a rather naïve sociological procedure of collecting reliable empirical information in a most uncertain and unfriendly Balkan market environment. It doubtfully depends on vague notions of some business climate, moreover is often spoiled by unwritten laws of vendetta and the art of shutting one’s own mouth. The assessment of the impact of state capture gives even a realistic notion of the generally used corruptive patterns though; payments to Parliamentarians to influence their votes; payments of government officials to affect the content of government legislation; payments to judges to affect the outcome of commercial or even crime cases; payments to central bank officials to affect central bank policies and decisions; illegal contributions to political parties or electoral campaigns to affect the decisions of elected officials.128 Table 2 shows the change in perceptions of the impact of state capture from 2002 to 2005, measured as the average of the scores on the two dimensions (pay124

State capture is considered simply stated “as actions of individuals, groups, or firms in both the public and private sectors to influence the formulation of laws, regulations, decrees, and other government policies to their own advantage as a result of the illicit and non transparent provision of private benefits and public officials.” (See: Anti corruption in Transition 2. Corruption in Enterprise-State Interactions in Europe and Central Asia 199–2002, The World Bank, Washington DC, 2004 p. 10–11). 125 See: Hellman, Jones and Kaufmann “Seize the State, Seize the Day”, p. 25, http://www.worldbank.org/ wbi/governance/. 126 Ibid. p. 23–24. 127 The BEEPS data measures only capture from the perspective of firms enquired according selected samples and controlled criteria. 128 Ibid. p. 24–25.

12 10 41 9 28 18 18 14 29 12 13 18 40 15 43 13 22 35 20 8 44 5 24

7 7 48 5 26 24 11 7 24 7 10 16 49 7 30 10 20 32 12 5 37 4 21

Presidential decrees (% of firms)

Central Bank (% of firms) 8 14 39 25 28 30 12 8 32 8 19 59 8 9 40 6 26 47 37 4 37 8 25

Criminal Courts (% of firms) 22 5 44 0 28 29 9 8 18 5 14 26 21 11 33 12 14 24 29 6 21 5 18

Commercial Courts (% of firms) 2 6 40 5 19 29 9 8 20 5 14 30 26 14 34 18 17 27 25 6 26 9 18

Party finance (% of firms) 25 1 35 4 42 30 6 17 21 4 6 27 35 13 42 10 27 24 20 11 29 4 20

Source: Hellman, Jones and Kaufmann “Seize the State, Seize the Day”, http://www.worldbank.org/

Country Albania Armenia Azerbaijan Belarus Bulgaria Croatia Czech Rep. Estonia Georgia Hungary Kazakhstan Kyrgyzstan Latvia Lithuania Moldova Poland Romania Russia Slovakia Slovenia Ukraine Uzbekistan Overall

Parliamentary legislation (% of firms)

Capture Economy index (% of firms) 16 7 41 8 28 27 11 10 24 7 12 29 30 11 37 12 21 32 24 7 32 6 20

Capture Economy Classification Medium Medium High Medium High High Medium Medium High Medium Medium High High Medium High Medium High High High Medium High Medium

Table 2. Policy and regulatory environment by illegally ‘purchasing’ the laws, policies and regulations of the state (“State Capture” by corporates) State Capture Index and its Components (% of firms) affected by corporate purchase of:

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101

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ments to parliamentarians and to government officials). Firms in Southeast Europe – Bosnia and Herzegovina, Albania, FYR Macedonia, and Serbia and Montenegro, perceive the highest levels of state capture. Major improvements from 2002 and 2005 were reported in this respect in Bulgaria, Latvia, the Slovak Republic, Ukraine, Georgia, and Slovenia. The 2005 results were significantly worse than in 2002 in Albania, Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan. The results for Uzbekistan and Belarus have a somewhat different interpretation, given these countries’ slow progress in transition. As with other measures of corruption, the impact of state capture is perceived by firms to be somewhat lower in several European comparators – Germany, Ireland, and Spain – but relatively high in Portugal and Turkey and at about the average for transition countries in Greece. Of all the measures of corruption presented, this one shows the least difference between transition and comparator countries. The recent lobbying scandals in many OECD countries underscore the fact that state capture is a persistent problem even in the most advanced economies.

4.4

Balkan “Clusters” of Corruption?

The years 2002–2005 marked a worsening trend in the corruptive patterns of performance in SE Europe, but as we can witness even beyond its geographical scopes. Among the eight new EU members, firms in the Slovak Republic reported the largest improvement and firms in Poland the second largest, while the Czech Republic was the only country in the group where significantly more firms reported corruption to be a problem in 2005 than three years earlier. Changes in the other five new EU members between 2002 and 2005 were minor or insignificant. In southeast Europe the findings are mixed. The two countries that were just about to join the EU at the time of the survey, Bulgaria and Romania, both showed significant improvement, although levels have been assessed still high. In Romania about half of the firms involved in the survey indicated that corruption is a problem for the operation and growth of their business. Croatia’s results were also better in 2005 than in 2002. The survey showed a worsening situation in Serbia and Montenegro, and the slight improvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina still leaves it at a high level (with nearly 50 percent of firms saying corruption is a problem), similar to Romania and Serbia and Montenegro. Albania remains the worst performer among all transition countries. About two thirds of the firms reported corruption to be a problem. Find-

4.4 Balkan “Clusters” of Corruption?

103

ings are also mixed in the southern Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). Firms in Georgia, and to a lesser extent Moldova, reported corruption to be much less of a problem, albeit from very high levels three years earlier, while firms in Azerbaijan and the Kyrgyz Republic reported a worsening of the problem. The findings for Armenia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, which did not differ much between 2002 and 2005, indicate that firms in those countries do not view corruption as a problem to the same extent as elsewhere in the CIS. Among the northern CIS countries, all showed improvement except for Russia, which is now more or less on a par with Ukraine. The fourth summary measure of corruption tracked by BEEPS is the impact of state capture on individual firms. As noted already, state capture refers to corruption in the law-making process. It can be extremely pernicious to an economy and society, because it can fundamentally and permanently distort the “rules of the game” in favour of a few privileged insiders. Although the concept is easy to grasp, it is very difficult to measure. BEEPS makes an attempt by asking respondents to what extent the provision of unofficial payments, gifts, or other benefits to parliamentarians to affect their votes or to government officials to affect the content of government decrees had a direct impact on the respondent’s business. The question does not ask whether the firm made such payments, but whether such payments by others affected the firm directly. Most independent states on the Balkans after the war in Yugoslavia have in one way or another proved some own “critical mass” for democratic and market advance, but moreover obvious deficits of their governments and unconsolidated national elites to run in pace with the demands of deeper reforms in all sectors of their societies. One of the hottest issues is the fight against corruption. Ideas of modern state building on the level of EC regional strategies for economic revival seem very much hampered by interfering fields of globally networked corruption. Global power patronages have to a great extended discredited the idea of some grand-operandi solutions for the Balkans. The Balkan states seem interweaved in the gravity of networks of trans-bordered organized crime, but are even more vulnerable to own corruptive “domains of capture”. This bounds the old lands of Orpheus to a return back to some “Hell”, in search of their lost Euridicas, symbolized by easy gained, but gambled fields of trusts. The chances for dignified existence of most Balkan people look still open but they are more bound to the imperative of proper democracy, rule of law and real market economy. The era of mimicry of reforms, including efficient fight against corruption in its “inventive” forms, seems over.

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4 Corruptive Patterns of Patronage

Administrative Corruption

Administrative corruption129 is only formally differentiated from the political one. Partisanship and most persistent clientelism are the pillars of traditionally embedded political voluntarism and “quasi-administrative” self-awareness of ruling Balkan elites. Protectionism and “satellite” bound politics has shaped some plagiary type of reformism. As “absolute power corrupts most”, it sustains its clientele through schemes of mutual benefits and political dependencies. Citizens are usually turned into hostages of their governments. Ruling authorities tend to change the “rules of the game” in rather arrogant pattern. This is usually performed by partisan arrangements of loyal but less competent “executives”.130 The latter have “multi functions” as they support the malfunctioning administrative systems, but most persistently protect their own spheres of influence and sector interests. This constrains the weak Balkan taxpayer and breeds corruption practically in all sectors of their societies. A brief look at recent empirical finding of impact of different forms of corruption on the business in selected countries of SE Europe (in wider Eurasian scope), might well illustrate this common trend. Administrative systems in most Balkan countries are conceived as buerocratic instruments of extortion, in favour of a caste of self-proclaimed elites, who have captured both the State and its public sector. The very idea of progress in terms of institutional modernization is thus deeply eroded. Public administrative reforms (in many 129

Recent literature suggests that there are two main categories of corruption in transition countries: state capture and administrative corruption: 1. State capture: “if individuals, groups or enterprises seek to influence the formulation of laws, regulations, and policies, so as to secure special advantages”. 2. Administrative corruption: “if individuals or groups provide illicit gains to public officials in exchange for advantages created intentionally distorting the implementation of existing laws, rules, and regulations”. Administrative corruption takes such forms as the exchange of bribes for the unlawful granting of licenses, state bank loans, privatisation awards, court judgments, and infrastructure contracts; “grease payments” to secure permits, customs clearance, and government services to which the payer is entitled; and the misdirection of public funds by state officials for their own, families, or friends benefit. 130 In many transition countries, corruption is considered as “path dependent”; that is, it represents the continued mingling of state and enterprise interests and decision-making through non-transparent channels of personal influence, both of which were prevalent under the Communist system. That system also left a legacy of state dominance and feeble civic organization. The economic, administrative, and political changes associated with the transition of the past 18 years have created moreover additional incentives for corruption, including falling wages and morale of public servants and weak administrative taxation systems. See: Corruption: The Enemy of Progress, Partners in Transition conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria, in September 2001. (Organized by the Centre for Institutional Reform and the Informal Sector (IRIS), together with USAID and KPMG.

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4.5 Administrative Corruption

Table 3. Impact of elements of the business environment as obstacles in wider SE EuropeanAsian scope Results for: Selected countries: Bulgaria, Croatia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Slovenia, Ukraine, Albania, Turkey, Bosnia, Rep Serpska, Macedonia No obstacle

Minor obstacle

Moderate obstacle

Major obstacle

Don’t know

Question 1

13.2%

10.5%

25.7%

49.1%

1.5%

Question 2

34%

26.8%

23.8%

14.2%

1.1%

Question 3

5.7%

9.4%

27.5%

56.7%

0.7%

Question 4

5.9%

12.7%

26.2%

54%

1.2%

Question 5

15.4%

14.6%

20.6%

47.2%

2.3%

Question 6

22.9%

16.2%

20.6%

36%

4.3%

Question 7

26.7%

29.6%

20.5%

15.1%

8.1%

Question 8

20.9%

20.9%

21.2%

27.8%

9.2%

Question 9

25%

24.9%

19.7%

25.3%

5.2%

Question 10

28.7%

19.1%

16.8%

26.3%

9.2%

Question 11

22.7%

21.3%

22.6%

22.7%

10.7%

Question 12

7.4%

0%

3.7%

7.4%

81.5%

Question 1–12: How problematic are obstacles in the business environment in the following areas? Financing (1,) Infrastructure (2), Taxes (3), Policy Instability (4), Inflation (5), Exchange Rate (6), Functioning of judiciary (7) Corruption (8), Street Crime (9), Organized Crime (10), Anti-competitive behaviour by other enterprises or the government (11), Other (12). The measures presented in the following spreadsheets are derived from the 1999 BEEPS and are subject to a margin of error. The results for any country or group of countries in no way reflect the official position of the World Bank, its Executive Directors, or the countries they represent. Source: Courtesy of WBI Governance and Anticorruption (D. Kaufmann) see: http://info.worldbank.org/governance/beeps/spreadsheet.asp

cases driven by donors) have been also been bedevilled by the lack of a strategic visions and modern public management ideas. Basic administrative functions and values (especially regularity) are not fully realised.131 It is widely considered that Europe should take a stronger lead in this respect. Professionalisation enhanced control sys131

See: SIGMA/Support for Improvement in Governance and Management/A joint initiative of the OECD and the European Union, principally financed by the EU Public Administration in the Balkans: Overview, in: http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/45/2/34862245.pdf

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tems and strengthened policy capacities are prerequisites for candidate status. Additional EC pressure on new entries seems even more needed as administrative reforms in Romania and Bulgaria have been very much sacked by malfunctioning institutions, but also lack of political will to implement standards of good governance.

4.6

The Western Balkans Nexus132

This is comprised of five internationally recognised countries – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fYROM), and Serbia and Montenegro (SaM). BiH and SaM are federations in which the constituent republics have considerable autonomy. Kosovo, (until recently a component of Serbia), is currently developing an independent state system under international monitoring. The 5 countries are thus to be considered as 10 entities. Following the wars of Yugoslav succession, they are still in a post-conflict situation. Economic and institutional weaknesses dominate their contexts. The two spheres are closely linked: the economic stress reduces the budgetary space for building public institutions, and poverty increases social tensions. The institutional weakness makes economic reform and growth more difficult. It reduces the capacity to finance institutional reforms and public sector salary increases. The requirements for inter-ethnic and regional balance also reduce economic development below potential, even though justifiable. Today’s administrations in the region of the Western Balkans have their roots in the pre-communist and communist past. Respect for legality in a democratic, multiethnic context is most questionable. In some cases the sense of national identity has been used aggressively within states and across borders. European values are underpinned by the rule of law, however, and can only exist if a large majority of citizens regard it as legitimate and if respect for law is widely accepted. Neither of these conditions is satisfactorily assured in the region. The war and its aftermath reduced state capacities. This results into deep cleavages in the constitutional identities of most West Balkan nations and their weak states. 4.6.1

Constitutional Deficits

Constitutional arrangements are still in process of being developed, especially the “checks and balances” of powers between the constitutional institutions. The “rule of 132

(As defined for the CARDS Programme).

4.6 The Western Balkans Nexus

107

law” is endangered by corruption and criminality. “Petty” corruption is conceived as normality in interactions with the state, and is not seen as inimical to development. At a higher level, state capture (as illustrated) is a common trend. This deeply distorts policies and adds to the undermining of the rule of law. Criminality (e.g. trafficking, smuggling) may even involve state institutions (or their “bypass” intermediary agents). Political arrangements have not yet been stabilised. There are many less institutionalised political parties, often neither with social nor with historical legacy. Politics is based moreover on personality than on party, and stable, disciplined, parties endowed with modern policy capacities have not yet emerged everywhere. The relative under-institutionalisation turns most party platforms (moreover their coalition agreements) into less reliable basis for strategic planning. Many politicians do not see their role as policy-makers, but moreover as high-level deciders of individual cases, managers and/or distributors of patronage. Most of them lack trust in administration, and have a low level of understanding of their respective contributions in policy development and implementation. As most of the regional economies are in deep crisis they rely on donors and EC developmental programs. Systems of administrative control and fair allocation of funds are however most underdeveloped. This is an obstacle for significant advance in most sectors. This “vicious circle” generates tentions as related to the efficient implementation of European standards. Organized crime, oligarch networks, or corrupted officials involved in conflict of interests, make best use of this regionally “unleashed” institutional voluntarism.

4.6.2

Poor Governance

Economic development varies widely across the region. Croatia is the wealthiest country by far, with per capita GDP of almost $10,000; this is roughly twice that of either fYROM or Albania, and nearly five times that of BiH. Per capita GDP in SaM, once one of the wealthiest countries in the region, is still recovering from the effects of the 1999 war and the stagnation under Milosevic. It is only slightly ahead of BiH. These national figures mask large regional variations within individual countries however. Unemployment rates are dangerously high, and population dynamics uneven. Officially, this rate in BiH is 40 per cent. However, the unemployment amongst young people is substantially higher. This resulted in significant drifts of population out of the region in search of work and better life chances. Unemployment is highest in the eastern part of Republika Srpska, which is also the poorest and least developed

108

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area in the region. With the exception of the urban areas of BiH, development and employment opportunities, other than in the agricultural sector, are limited.133 The budgetary scope for reform is limited. High unemployment and low per capita GDP rates shrink the scope for increasing revenues in the short term. The same factors lead to high social security payments relative to the rest of budgetary expenditures. Overall, governments have little room for manoeuvre. Public sector salaries, although low, are generally the single, largest component of the budget and constrain the ability of governments to channel investment toward other sectors. Added to these difficulties, there are frequently fairly rigid conditionalities, imposed by the international financing institutions. The latter require regional governments to reduce public sector employment, liquidate uneconomic state-owned enterprises, and restrict the overall size of the budget. Such arguments should often preclude efforts to increase public sector efficiency and effectiveness. One way to override this is the developing of patronage involving both the state and the business on widely accepted and legally controlled contractual relations. This is a way out of the devastated situation marked by drastic abuse of basic rights (exploitation of women and child labour). It is another argument for further democracy promotion and systematic political pressure of EC on local governments, as related to the adoption of strategies of explicit social responsibility. 4.6.3

The “Legacy” of Distortion

Privatisation and structural reform are crucial, but rely heavily on administrative capacity and rigorous controls. Both fields have created more problems in the region than they have solved. The fiscal basis is either weak or hardly existent, and the state needs this basis to rule economic development. Product, labour and capital markets, are too rigid, however, moreover bound by red tape, with uncertain application. Widespread corruption weakens the ability of the market to ensure allocative efficiency and of the State to regulate the market effectively. This is driven usually by poorly drafted laws, their uneven application, a legal system that is, at best, unpre133

Unemployment is unevenly distributed in the region and has resulted in an urban drift from the countryside, as well as in large numbers of unemployed youth. Even Croatia, with a rate of “only” 21.7 per cent, suffers the same problems – lack of labour opportunities for the young people. The level of unregulated economic activity is quite significant. The real level of unemployment may in fact be lower if “grey” economies are taken into consideration. This is the case of Albania, where estimates of 17% and 30% of unemployment are found. The discrepancy between these two estimates gives only a vague idea of “grey-sector” patronage as source of corruption.

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109

dictable, or perverse enforcement. This situation acts as a disincentive to productive investment. It invites low-quality, short-term exploitive investment. Moreover it increases the costs of operating in the regional markets and as a result, foreign direct investment has been disappointing. “Regulatory reform” (as the term is used by OECD) and the improved “rule of law” are necessary for economic growth, as is the realisation that administration should be viewed as a form of social capital worthy of investment. Donors are everywhere in the region, but their collective contribution is often counter-productive. They represent varied interests, agendas and perspectives. Some of them propel the legal/administrative systems in different directions, generating fundamental structural inconsistencies.134 There are limited capacities to force project and substantive co-ordination. This enables donors to circumvent co-ordination systems by building up clientelistic relations with counterpart institutions. “Bypass” deals (on central and local level) in many cases disturb optimal choices and objectives. This gives Europe legitimacy to lead across the broad scope of European integration, as related to issues, including administrative reform. 4.6.4

Public Administration Deficits

Public administration is devoted to producing goods and services for citizens. Here, the focus is on horizontal management systems. The latter condition how public services are produced. Horizontal systems also operate as mechanisms to ensure that public administrations are accountable, predictable, reliable and transparent. Most centres of government and their policy capacities in the region are still under-developed, however. Less do they succeed to ensure that policy-making systems function effectively? A proper understanding of the very concept of “policy” is largely absent. Participants in the process understand it mostly as being synonymous with legal drafting. This is reflected in ignoring of prior policy analysis. It affects the “skillmix” found in policy operations. Balkan politicians very much tends to understand their jobs as producing mostly symbolic change often focused on individual advantage, rather than general policy solutions. The result of these deficiencies is that, policy and most observers as poor assess legal quality in the region. Their regulatory systems do not provide a supportive environment. The process of European integration places a particular load on policy-making, however. If countries enter a European integration negotiations 134

See the Stability Pact’s Investment Compact 2004 Progress Report. http://www.investmentcompact.org/pdf/MONITORING_2004.pdf.

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process without adequate policy capacities, they will produce symbolic law and create new burdens on the economy. The decentralisation that has proceeded too quickly and is not controlled effectively might be symptomatic for a “late-erosive” effect, which fosters backward regional protectionisms and “business capture”.135 4.6.5

Legal Framework Deficits

It is widely considered that legal frameworks in the region suffer from three major deficits. Firstly, they are not fully aligned with the demands of a democratic polity and a market economy, and depart from EU standards. Secondly, there is a tendency to internal inconsistency – for example, organic budget laws that are inconsistent with financial control laws. This inconsistency occurs partly because legal development has been supported by different donor projects, and on a project-by-project basis. Local deciders are often unable to distinguish and pick the advice that best fits them, however. Decisions may depend moreover on the influence of a given donor or on the monetary or political gains that decision-makers think they may extract. Thirdly, the reformed laws are often un-implementable or at least are not implemented. This deficit may emerge for a variety of reasons: because implementation was never intended; reforms were not assessed, from budgetary or organisational perspectives; reforms were too complex, or because they did not fit into the general system of administrative law. An underlying gap is the weakness of the systems of administrative justice, without which the laws have little force indeed.136 The citizenry has little understanding (and demands) of a better functioning public administration and modern state. This 135

Gyorgy Satarov, Indem Foundation, Russia, in a highly interesting paper presented at the Partners in Transition conference held in Sofia, Bulgaria (Sept. 2001) offers a brief analysis of data from the World Bank’s study /Aggregating Governance Indicators/. The data suggest a non-linear relationship between the progress of transition, on the one hand, and of state capture on the other. The two advance in linear fashion until a mid-point of instability, where, in the successful countries, state captures declines as the transition advances. In the unsuccessful cases, however, state capture continues to increase while the transition progress is reversed. The latter trajectory seems to involve another form of capture, so called “business capture,” in which officials gain control over private firms to extract rents. This occurred n the era of Eltzin’s liberalisation of the Russian economy but was put under a state patronage control in the first mandate of Putin´s “managed democracy” (as in the case of Gasprom, Sibneft etc). 136 An example case in this respect might be the Albanian administrative culture as combination of many influences, in particular the ancestral Kanun, 50 years of Enver Hodja’s autarchic regime, and more than a decade of painful transition. Given Albania’s history of foreign occupation, “the state” is generally seen as an occupying power.

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111

is slowly changing as a result of migrant workers experiencing more developed public services in other European countries. Social demands might drive policies of national governments in this direction but this occurs in a rather “protruded pattern”. The new entries (Bulgaria, Romania) are in process of restructuring their administrations at the institutional level. Basic systematisation of the administration and accountability, monitoring, control, and delegation frameworks are still inconsistent. 4.6.6

Civic Service Deficits

The Balkan countries in general suffer from an overall shortage of staff with appropriate skills and little budgetary space to increase salaries so as to attract and retain appropriate people. Staffs are not appropriately allocated and staffing is not merit driven. Staffing decisions are still part of patronage powers, and given the difficulty of dismissing staff, this causes a natural administrative inflation. Civil services are characterised by a high politicisation across all levels of the hierarchy: weak application of the merit principle, limited steering/management capacities (at the centre and in ministries). A shortage of staff capable of delivering policy-formulation and monitoring policy-implementation is obvious. The delivery is generally supply-driven and ad hoc. Training institutions, where they exist, are not fully operational. Salaries and working conditions in the administration are usually below those prevailing in the private sector. This makes it difficult for national governments in the region to recruit and keep quality staff. The incentive systems discourage professional behaviour. Despite the high unemployment in the region, the civil service remains an unattractive option for a professional career. Young people, who decide to enter the civil service, tend to capitalise (often improperly), on their newly acquired marketable skills and knowledge. Salary schemes are most opaque. Fixed salaries are low, whereas the variable part of the salary tends to be significant. This makes the determination of individual remuneration generally arbitrary. There are no legitimate performance evaluation schemes in place, however. Necessary capacities to manage performance – related pay schemes are most often lacking. Well-intentioned policies, by some donors, to provide salary “top-ups” for key posts related to their interests, have in a way distorted the labour market. This creates resentment within the public service and results in less sustainable, or improved capacity. 4.6.7

Public Procurement

The countries in the region have had mixed success to meet the requirements of the acquis communautaire, especially the criteria of transparency, non-discrimination,

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objectivity and accountability. Review processes are generally not reliable. Public procurement institutions, where they exist, are too new (or weak) to satisfactorily perform their core functions. The various stakeholders – public procurement office, ministry of finance, buying entities, etc. – do not have adequate human capital. Required procedures are not yet in place, or inefficiently coordinated. Audit capacities are also weak. Given the importance of public procurement in the economy, this represents a risk area for corruption and further distortion of the market. None of the countries in the region has a tradition of public internal financial control (PIFC). It has been subject in most cases to a very narrow (or formal) approach in the field of administration. No real analysis has been carried out of existing financial control and accountability arrangements, less have been reform strategies drawn up to encompass the principle of managerial accountability.137 Legislatures do not have requisite capacities or interest to undertake their audit related responsibilities. Anti-fraud and anti-corruption capacities remain hypothetical. Most Balkan countries and entities have signed and ratified the necessary international conventions for the fight against corruption, but implementation and enforcement remains weaker than hoped. Anti-fraud co-ordination services have not been created in any of the countries or entities.138 Capacities to lead administrative reform in this respect are also weak. In most cases, public administrative reform is not driven by a soundly based strategy, nor has a sustainable constituency for reform been generated. Its activities tend to be constructed around donor projects and organisations. As result, caused by the compartmentalisation of donors and recipients, the reforms are often “divorced” of their expenditure management system. Public administration reform must contribute to the overriding priorities of the countries, and in current circumstances to the priorities of the international community. For these purposes, the consolidation of governance institutions and the rule of 137

The piecemeal implementation of PIFC schemes (i.e. applying only one technique, such as internal audit, but not the whole context) has led, inter alia, to confusion between audit and control, an incomplete legal/institutional framework, and control institutions that have too few staff, most of whom do not have appropriate skills. External audit is starting but its potential is not being realised by national authorities External audit – independent from the executive – is a rather new concept in most countries and entities in the region. Not all have adopted the needed constitutional and legal bases to establish such a function. In those countries where external audit functions have been established, a wide range of institutional settings are being tested: from the classical office or court models to contracting out of state audit functions to foreign private audit firms. 138 An exception might be the recently (April 2008) established State Agency for National Security (DANS) in Bulgaria.

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law are vital. The first priority should go to the justice system; creating regulatory frameworks that will stimulate economic activity (including property rights); ensuring regularity in the performance of government and administrative decisions; embedding the understanding of rule of law widely in society through (for example) mass education programmes. The international community should upgrade glocal oversight mechanisms (moreover on controllers); it should also re focus minorities’ protection on individuals rather than on groups. This is decisive for the transformation of ethnic party patronages and their integration in the modern secular state. In terms of good administrative practice, (aside from ethnic issues), the decentralisation has proceeded too quickly and inconsistently. It has to a great extend been a way of sharing resources and power among political elites. Control systems and central capacities have not sufficiently evolved to match the new circumstances, however. It may paradoxically turn out, that a strong centre is a necessary pre-condition for successful decentralisation in the environment of SE Europe. It may concentrate energies to better fight corruption and give a new push to the administrative reform.

5

Competitive Global Patronages

The end of the twentieth century, with its collapse of the Soviet Union and political changes in Central and Eastern Europe, has seen unprecedented growth in international arts patronage, NGOs and culture networks that have attempted to support art in societies in transition. Whilst some researchers are inclined to see the corporate sponsorship of art as a business transaction – a temporary alliance that allows patronage of art in mutually beneficial and, hopefully, ethical way – the partnership between artists and NGOs is often perceived to be inherently ethical and ideology-free. However, as a selective process that is aware of marketability of current social issues, it is arguable that the NGO funding can also have a pre-determined agenda. Such global patronages had (and still have) certain impact on the complex societal change in most countries of SE Europe after 1991. In so far as they have been defined previously as “power propelled” patronages, concentrating huge capitals and other resources, they have generated own fields of influence and networked clientele. Such patronages added less quality to some traditional “general and specific exchange”, but in one way or another have impact on the political culture of the Balkan elites. The latter seem even more polarized in the framework of geo-strategic interests, competing in the region. We will overview here the Soros, the Gazprom and the Siemens patronages (among others) as exemplary for the instrumentalization of traditional “phi lies” and “phobies” typical for the Balkan in modern context. These global players are of specific interest in so far they have fostered quasi-corporative clientelism, schemes of “petty oligarch” enrichments (to differ from Russian tycoons), and influenced the European gravity of significant societal change in the region through new asymmetries.

5.1

The Soros Patronage

The Soros139 foundations and Fund for Open Society (FOS) with its headquarters in Budapest and New York created and established various programmes in most succes139

George Soros was born in Hungary, immigrated at the age of 26 to US and made his fortune as an international financier In 1956 Soros started life in America after graduating The (Continue p. 116)

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sor countries of the former Yugoslavia as well as in other SE European countries and the foundations’ global network. These programmes, run through the Soros Centres for Contemporary art 1991–2001, were created to further civil society and bridge these countries to the culture market of the West. The Soros Foundations aided the creation of the culture market in countries of transition by replacing the state sponsorship of the arts – a system that included educational institutions, museums, galleries and specialist publications. At the same time it engaged actively in rearticulating and translating different local histories for their consumption in the West. It is arguable as many researchers find out that this partnership was established on more than just philanthropic grounds, or that it created a historic shift in how art is viewed, created, curated and financed in the region. Moreover the Soros patronage engaged in filling some ideological vacuum and especially the fostering of a new Clientage of the highly frustrated (and fragmented intelligentsia in the East.140

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(Continued from p. 115) London School of Economics and his experience working for a London stockbroker. During his career, Soros has orchestrated some extremely risky, ethically questionable deals. For instance, in a $10 billion 1992 deal whose success was contingent upon the devaluation of the British Pound, he earned himself a $1 billion profit and the title, “the man who broke the Bank of England.” Over the years, he has amassed a personal fortune of some $7 billion. See: www. Discover The Network. org, 12/17/20.

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Soros and his foundations have had a hand in funding a host of organizations, rather arguably defined as “leftist” in terms of some democratic populism that prevails in the US. It may be useful to mention some of them here as base for additional research on this global type of patronage: Tides Foundation; the Tides Center; the National Organization for Women; Feminist Majority; the American Civil Liberties Union; People for the American Way; Alliance for Justice; NARAL Pro-Choice America; America Coming Together; the Center for American Progress; Campaign for America’s Future; Amnesty International; the Sentencing Project; the Center for Community Change; the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People Legal Defence and Educational Fund; Human Rights Watch; the Prison Moratorium Project; the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement; the National Lawyers Guild; the Center for Constitutional Rights; the Coalition for an International Criminal Court; The American Prospect; MoveOn.org; Planned Parenthood; the Nation Institute; the Brennan Center for Justice; the Ms. Foundation for Women; the National Security Archive Fund; the Pacifica Foundation; Physicians for Human Rights; the Proteus Fund; the Public Citizen Foundation; the Urban Institute; the American Friends Service Committee; Catholics for a Free Choice; Human Rights First; the Independent Media Institute; MADRE; the Mexican American Legal Defence and Education Fund; the Immigrant Legal Resource Center; the National Immigration Law Center; the National Immigration Forum; the National Council of La Raza; the American Immigration Law Foundation; the Lynne Stewart Defence Committee; and the Peace and Security Funders Group.

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The Soros patronage has its conceptual premises on Popper’s ideas of “open society”.141 Open society stands for freedom, democracy, and rule of law, human rights, social justice, and social responsibility as a universal idea. The role of the State is accentuated in a specific global context: if open society is to be translated into practice, an alliance of the world’s open societies needs to form to foster the development of open societies on a national level, moreover on the international level by establishing international laws, rules of conduct, and institutions to implement these norms. Yet these matters cannot be left entirely to the State (often an agent of oppression), as much as rules of conduct cannot be dictated from outside, since this is a violation of open society principles. To the extent possible, outside help should take the form of incentives, and punitive measures, though unproductive, are sometimes necessary. Impetus from inside should come from the people, and democratic governments will react to the wishes of their electorate.142 The Soros patronage focused on the transformation process in the East (and in SE European context) as related to minority rights and freedoms, the devastated educational sphere, the ruined system of state patronage in different fields of culture and maintenance of its heritage in the post-communist world challenged by the free market. We shall omit here the impressive statistics of billions spent for long-term strategies of art saving or donors and philanthropic activity, widely promoted by the independent media in the early years of transition. Open societies branch offices function in most capitals of the ex-communist countries. In many ways they have successfully backed a rather perplexed post-communist clientele of intellectuals to overwhelm the initial stress of the transition to market economy, moreover to recover from the severe cuts of state deficit resources for the maintaining of museums, galleries, publishing houses or educational and training organisations. As the transition found some mainstream out of the chaotic and less predictable situation in SE Europe, the patronage of Soros shrunk to less engaging investments. It has even been misused by some transitory Clientage that operated as brokerage on

141

In 1979 Soros founded the Open Society Fund, and since then has created a large network of foundations that give away hundreds of millions of dollars each year, much of it to individuals and organizations that share and promote his philosophy. He believes that in order to prevent right-wing fascism from overrunning the world, a strong leftist counterbalance is essential. In a November 2003 interview with the Washington Post’s (Laura Blumenfeld), he stated that defeating President Bush in 2004 “is the central focus of my life”. Ibid. 142 Saab, Samer Y, (2005) “Ideas” in Development from George Soros: Power and Influence through Philanthropy? See: Gilbert Khadiagala. Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Ideas in Development, Fall 2005.

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the level of this cultural philanthropic organisation and the higher level of the state beuroctracies in transition. Most of the officers of this wide penetrating type of patronage have been recruted on criteria in a way counter-standing to the monopoly of leftist parties and their financially weaker, but still symbolically strong motivated patron-client relations. As a result Soros system of fellowships and grants delivered less on merit and real cultural achievements. On many occasions they have moreover promoted global interests of donors in a post-communist environment. Unlike other non-UN funded agencies, such as the British Council, the Soros Foundation can be found in the most politically volatile areas of Central/Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union – including Bosnia and Serbia. Activities in these politically volatile areas are usually in support of independent media, and this is where it gets really interesting. As analysts find out in recent surveys: “In an age-old tradition of European political patronage, George Soros routinely taps his billions to fund journals, politicians and educators in Europe and elsewhere. More often than not, these have an exclusively left-wing bias. The goal of the Open Society Fund: to dismantle socialism”.143 Soros idea of “denazification”144 of US, which had echoed in 2007 and might have marked some crusaders war for puritan democracy145, had less impressed the Balkans. The strategy of infinite war against communism in wider global context seemed less realistic within the missing chain of vibrant civic cultures, irrelevant to their parochial-subjective mix. The highly diversified religious nexus of SE Europe overwhelmed by the clashes among Christians and Islam (but not in terms of religious wars) might be another reason for this. The Soros patronage has sharpen issues of ethnic and minority rights, the status of Roma, pomaks (less ethic Turks), Mace-

143

Ibid. While criticizing the Iraq War for the benefit of reporters at the January 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and Soros shared the view that Nazis were now running the United States government. “America needs to follow the policies it has introduced in Germany,” Soros went further and explained: “We have to go through a certain de-Nazification process.” Michael Vachon, Soros spokesman moved quickly to dispel critics of this idea. There is nothing unpatriotic about demanding accountability from the president,” he said of Soros’s appeal for de-Nazification. “Those responsible for taking America into this needless war should do us all a favour and retire from public office.” See: Ibid. 145 Soros accuses the Bush administration of following a “supremacist ideology” in whose rhetoric he claims to hear echoes from his childhood in occupied Hungary. “When I hear Bush say, ‘you’re either with us or against us, it reminds me of the Germans. It conjures up memories of Nazi slogans on the walls, Der Feind Hört mit (The enemy is listening). My experiences under Nazi and Soviet rule have sensitised me.” Ibid. 144

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donians, Kossovars and other marginalized groups or “shifting identities”.146 It has to a certain extended influenced policies of democratic governments in this respect in the initial phase of transition. The increased advocacy has alarmed some traditional foundation executives. Jonathan Fanton, president of the $4.2 billion John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago, argues that foundations should limit themselves to spotting issues, funding research and encouraging public debate. Donors are taking a variety of approaches to their new advocacy, in part to meet the federal tax code. Private foundations like Soros’s are barred from lobbying, so Soros has eschewed tax deductions in funding a separate Open Society Policy Center. Among issues for which the center is lobbying are ratification of an international treaty outlawing discrimination against women, an increase in funding for AIDS and creation of a new mechanism to award foreign aid. To head its Washington office, the Gates Foundation hired David Lane, the Commerce Department’s chief of staff under President Clinton. Sylvia Mathews, former deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget, is the foundation’s executive vice president. The fund is barred from direct lobbying (defined as approaching members of Congress to influence specific legislation) but has other ways to press its agenda. “When Bill (Gates) makes a case for increased spending on HIV or malaria, government leaders sit up and listen”, says foundation spokesman Trevor Neilson. The Gates Foundation, Mr. Soros and Edward W. Scott Jr., co-founder of BEA Systems Inc., have also contributed a total of $3 million to launch a Washington office for rock star Bono’s group called Debt, AIDS and Trade for Africa, or DATA, which will press for removal of protectionist trade barriers as well as increased foreign aid. Finally, big philanthropists are always seeking bigger roles in shaping policy; Bill Gates, George Soros, Ted Turner are trading tax deductions for results and influence.147 146

Soros has been widely criticised for funding groups such as MoveOn.org that seek to manipulate public opinion. The mainstream media report that 2006’s vast immigration rallies across the country began as a spontaneous uprising of 2 million angry Mexican-flag waving illegal immigrants demanding U.S. citizenship in Los Angeles, egged on only by a local Spanish-language radio announcer. Soros’ OSI had money-muscle there, too, through its $17 million Justice Fund. The public had no way of knowing until the release of OSI’s 2006 annual report. See: Investor’s Business Daily September 26, 2007 “The Soros Threat To Democracy”. 147 See: Saab, Samer Y, (2005)“Ideas” in Development from George Soros: Power and Influence through Philanthropy? See: Gilbert Khadiagala. Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, Ideas in Development, Fall 2005.

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The Gazprom Patronage

Russia’s state gas monopoly, Gazprom148 is a vast and most powerful energy giant, a company worth more than $240 billion. Ranked by the value of its stock, it s the fifth-largest corporation in the world, having leaped over Wal-Mart, Toyota and Citigroup. It is considered moreover the flagman of a new Russian capitalism that has emerged in the era of Putin. Gazprom employs 330,000 people at major divisions for exploration, pipelines and export sales, a banking arm, a media company and hundreds of subsidiaries. It generated profits of $4.6 billion on revenue of $28 billion in 2004, the last year for which audited results are available. Gazprom holds $14 billion worth of assets not related to oil and gas; and 38 percent of its employees still work outside the core business. It expanded in 2005 its media holdings with the acquisition of “Izvestia”, one of the most influential national newspapers (sold as result of pressures of the West). Gazprom managed to buy one of the largest-circulation newspapers, “Komsomolskaya Pravda”, and an associated publishing house for as much as $300 million, “Vedomosti”, a Russian business daily. To his supporters, Mr. Putin has simply tamed “Gazprom” and other big businesses that actively undermined state authority in the turbulent transition that followed the collapse of the Soviet command economy. State and private oil companies reached a deal with the Kremlin (presented as a voluntary agreement) to cap prices on gasoline. In the case of Gazprom, he turned an unwieldy gas monopoly into a gleaming example of the wealth to be had from energy exports, with export ambitions that include China and the United States. Putin has done so by appointing to top positions close associates and dictating moves in meetings with a small circle of advisers according to Olga V. Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist who has written extensively on the Kremlin’s hierarchy. Buoyed by rising energy prices, the Russian economy under Mr. Putin has boomed, and investors have responded positively, even as the United States and other governments express concern about the Kremlin’s consolidation of political and economic power. “Instead of properly regulating the economy, the state owns the economy”, said Aleksandr Y. Lebedev, a billionaire whose own investments, as he claims, are under pressure from the state. Large companies as Gazprom continue to absorb smaller 148

Gazprom emerged in the early 1990’s from the former Soviet Ministry of the Gas Industry – privatized in part, but still under state control – and inherited more than the ministry’s core operations. It also inherited its piece of the Soviet Union’s paternalistic economy, in towns and settlements stretching from the Arctic gas fields to those along the maze of pipelines leading South.

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ones, accumulating even greater wealth and power.149 Sergei M. Guriyev, a professor at the New Economic School in Moscow, said estimates based on World Bank studies indicated that the government share of industrial output and employment had grown to 40 percent, from about 30 percent in 2003: “The feeling is actually much worse, as even private owners know that their property rights are contingent on their relationships with the Kremlin.” Gazprom announced (April 2006) its international partners in developing a huge gas field in the Barents Sea, one that holds seven times the amount of gas that Europe uses each year. Gazprom’s suitors include “Chevron” and “ConocoPhillips” from the United States, “Statoil” and “Norsk Hydro” from Norway and “Total” from France. But even as “Gazprom” closes in on BP, now the world’s second-largest energy company after “Exxon Mobil”, critics say it is hardly a model for Russia’s future. “This is not why we had reforms in the 1990s”, said Yevgeny G. Yasin, a former minister of economy. “This is a little like the Soviet Union.” He adds: “This is a questionable solution because the government will dictate political and not economic decisions.” “Using its monopolistic, politically favored position to absorb other companies at discounted prices Gazprom has the pick of buying what it wants to buy because no one else is allowed to do it,” so William F. Browder,150 chief executive of “Hermitage”. Many investors, including foreigners, criticize Gazprom, but they buy in anyway. Although official figures are not available, more than a quarter of “Gazprom” ‘s shares are estimated to be owned by foreigners, including “Hermitage” and “E.ON Ruhrgas” of Germany. With a lifting of restrictions on foreign shares, called the “ring fence,” foreign ownership is now allowed to be as high as 49.9 percent. This investment strategy rests on the company’s huge reserves at a time of tight global supplies of oil and gas. With reserves of 116 billion barrels of oil or barrels-equivalent in natural gas, Gazprom has more than any publicly traded company. “Exxon Mobil”, by comparison, has reserves of 73.2 billion barrels. Gazprom’s total energy reserves trail only Saudi Arabia’s (263 billion barrels) and Iran’s (133 billion barrels). Likewise, the Standard & Poor’s report warned that there was “a risk powerful vested-interest 149

The state oil company Rosneft, for example, acquired the main subsidiary of Yukos in December 2004 after a prosecutorial assault against its former chairman Mijhail B. Khodorkovsky, now serving an eight-year sentence in a Siberian jail on charges of fraud and tax evasion that many say were politically motivated. 150 He is the largest foreign investor in the Russian stock market, but he has also criticized Gazprom, Rosneft and other large state-owned or controlled companies. “When you’re talking about strategic enterprises”, he said, “business is government”.

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groups will use government-owned companies to strengthen their political or economic positions,” but concluded that state ownership was “generally positive” and left unchanged its rating at BB, higher than other Russian energy companies. Marshal Goldman, Director of the Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at the Harvard University summed up recently at a wider forum not only his worries151. The Russian economy has almost become a monoculture of oil and gas production with a dramatically close relationship between the increase in oil production and the increase of GDP rarely found in economies. That the energy production in Russia has been in a way re-nationalized by shift of the “siloviki” (close allies of Putin) who have replaced the “oligarchs” of 1990 is most disputable. Goldman’s findings that some “oligopoly” has been created in Russia seem more relevant. As Russia is busier to open its energy market in China the card of some “energy dependence trap” is even more y used as political brokerage instrument. The dependences of Europe on Russian energy exports might be higher than previously thought, warned he at the Jamestown Foundation.152 Eastern European countries are even more dependent on this supply that their Western European neighbors. While France, Germany and Italy have 30%, 32% and 40% of their energy imports originating from Russia, respectively Poland, the Check Republic and Slovakia have 63%, 72% and 91% of their total imports from Russia. The Baltic States and Finland are completely dependent on Russia. The difference in the level of dependence on Russia between West Europe and East Europe is thus becoming a source of tension in the EU. Western members have been generally taking a more quiescent approach to dealing with Russia on this issue, while East Europe has been arguing for a more strident approach. The situation in SE Europe is even more vulnerable. As Albanian minister of economy, energy and trade G. Ruli suggested in a recent open statement all countries in SE Europe might face even more dramatic shortages of energy supply in the years to come. As the oil crisis expands globally it threatens extremely the Balkan states who have not only less energy but use it in a most inefficient way. Croatia for example uses 2–3 times more energy than Albania, but two times less as Germany. Each used Kw of energy in Germany produces 6 usd, whereby in Albania only 1.9. Kosovo and Monte Negro suffered drastic shortage of energy supply in the last couple of years. Bulgaria and Romania, competing for “hubs” of energy supplies for the region, including an 151

See: Putin, Petroleum, Power, and Patronage: The Dog Barks but the Caravan Moves On Washington, DC December 7, 2006, www.jamestown.org. 152 Ibid.

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expanding market of Russian atomic energy power stations and gas pipelines are less realistic. Russian trans-Balkan pipeline to skirt Turkey are in process of intensive negotiations, but seem still hampered by lack of investments, moreover dubious politics of “bidding” on terms. On March 15, 2007 in Athens, the heads of state of Russia, Greece and Bulgaria signed an agreement of cooperation in the construction and exploitation of an oil pipeline from Burgas, Bulgaria to Alexandroupolis in Greece. Connecting the Bulgarian port on the Black Sea with the Greek port on the Aegean, it will provide for a transport route for Russian oil to the Mediterranean that would bypass Turkey and the Bosphorus Straits, which Turkey controls.153 The Trans Balkan pipeline corresponds to the geopolitical interests of the Kremlin. The pro-government Rossiyskaya Gazeta states that with it Moscow “would gain an ‘enhanced’ access to the energy markets of Southern Europe, which may become a trans shipment point for deliveries further afield to Western Europe. In addition, Russia would be able to save a considerable amount of money, which it now pays to Ukraine for shipping gas through Ukrainian territory”. The two other partners would also realize considerable advantage. Greece and Bulgaria would secure their position as way stations for the shipment of the huge energy resources from Siberia, Central Asia and the Caspian basin to Europe, and should receive substantial transit fees. Critics had less to add than “Its too good to be true”. From an economic point of view the project is most disputable. Alexei Khaitun, a professor of economics at the Centre of Energy Policy of Europe and the Russian Academy of Sciences, elaborating on this idea in Nezavisimaya Gazeta suggested critically in respect of its rationality: “It will be necessary to load small coastal tankers in Novorossiysk and Tuapse, then unload them in Burgas, and all three ports are relatively shallow. It is economically more effective to ship the Caspian oil to Europe via Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean through the large pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan. That route is 1.5 times shorter than from Tyumen, and a lot more effective than the traditional pipelines across Russia and Ukraine.”154 153

A year earlier as result of another visit of President Putin to Athens (September of 2006) Bulgaria and Greece agreed to Russian conditions, that 51 percent of the capital of the operating company Trans Balkan Pipeline will belong to Moscow, which will be represented by “Gazprom”, “Rosneft” and “Transneft”. Athens and Sofia will own 24.5 percent each. Russians will also control the project’s infrastructure: the pumping stations, warehouses, loading platforms and docks. The agreement, signed by Mr. Putin and the Greek and Bulgarian prime ministers, Mr. Costas Karamanlis and Mr. Sergei Stanishev, calls for the pipeline to stretch for some 280 kilometres, to carry 35 million tons of oil annually, rising in the future to 50 million tons. The project is scheduled to be completed in 2010 and will cost about a billion euros. 154 Nezavisimaya Gazeta, March 13, 2007.

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The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline was constructed with American help so as to create an energy transport corridor bypassing Russia and thereby weaken Russia’s influence in the Caspian basin and in Central Asia. The pipeline started operating in 2007, but its profitability requires loading it with oil from other sources than Baku alone. To make a profit it must also be loaded with oil from Kazakhstan, perhaps also from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan altogether. The total proven oil reserves in the Caspian region (Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan) reach, according to estimates, 15 billion tons, while the export from these countries could reach 130–150 million tons by the year 2010. If Astana (the capital of Kazakhstan) were to be persuaded to switch its oil export route from the present-day Russian corridors to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline this would bring about huge political and economic changes in the vast territory of the Caucasus, Caspian Sea and Central Asia, and would significantly enhance the influence of the United States. Russia, and to a lesser extent China and Europe, are trying to prevent this. The EU is on the one hand supporting Russia’s interests in the region; on the other, it is trying to firm up its own sphere of influence. Thus, in late 2006 a vague agreement was signed in Astana between the EU and the states of the Caspian and Black Sea region concerning future cooperation in the energy sphere. The discussion centred on creating an integrated energy market tied to the interests of European consumers. These attempts are conducted within the framework of the so-called “European initiative for Central Asia”.155 The strategy of turning Russia into an “energy superpower”, proclaimed by President Putin in late 2005 presupposes using Russia’s exports of oil and gas resources to the world market as a way to enhance its geopolitical influence. It involves not only the control over the oil and gas pipelines from the interior of the Eurasian continent to Europe, but also the purchase by Russian corporations of shares in the oil and gas networks and the largest world, primarily European, energy companies. In early 2006 Russia stopped for a few days the supplies of gas via Ukraine, thereby shocking and infuriating the countries of the EU. A year later, a similar situation, albeit without an actual gas stoppage, occurred in relation to Belarus. In the fall of 2005 a plan was announced to construct a North European natural gas pipeline, which would enable gas to be shipped from Russia to Germany along the bottom of the Baltic sea, thus bypassing the present transit countries. To underline the importance 155

This was subject of the report of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier at the January 2007 meeting of the Permanent Council of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

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of this project for the German ruling elite, the former Prime Minister Gerhard Schröder headed the operating company. In the fall of 2006, the state-owned oil company “Transneft” began the construction of a 4700-kilometer pipeline from the oilfields around Tayshet west of lake Baikal to the Pacific Ocean port of Nakhodka. The plans call for the construction to be finished in 2012 and for the pipeline capacity to reach 80 million tons of crude, which would give Russia 6.5 percent of the East Asian and Pacific oil market. Europe is largely dependent on Russia for its energy resources. There is also an important political cause for the relative strengthening of Russia’s role. It is tied to the growth of contradictions among the leading global power centres. The US military interventions of Iraq and Afghanistan have provoked growing anxiety among the leading members of the EU that the United States might succeed in establishing a stranglehold over the extraction and transport of the oil and natural gas resources of the Middle East and Central Asia. Such physical control would become a mighty instrument in forcing USA interests on the European ruling elites. Attempts of the West European states to counter hegemonic plans of Washington, as well as the growing role of China and India, have permitted the Kremlin to utilize these geopolitical contradictions in its own interest, and to make some headway. It would be naïve to think that these recent successes have a secure basis though. Nearly two decades of Russia’s post-Soviet history have witnessed a continuing deterioration of its economic, industrial and technological infrastructure. Despite its increased gold reserves, Russia is still weaker economically and industrially as compared with its Soviet Empire status. Overall, the production of energy is not rising in Russia. The impoverished population cannot afford to pay market prices for energy – whether electric, coal, natural gas or oil. More and more of the nation’s energy resources are redirected for export abroad, while national industry shrinks. The regime’s plans to become an “energy superpower” are tied to shrinking consumption even further. On the other hand, USA has not abandoned its plans for hegemony in Eurasia. The current situation in this huge geographic space – stretching from the Baltic Sea to the Indian Ocean, from the Mediterranean straits to the Pacific Ocean, exhibits an endless series of less predictable rivalries and conflicts. These trends and tendencies exclude a sustainable, peaceful and good neighbourly coexistence of most countries in the region. The economic and political cooperation in SE Europe moreover in wider Eurasian context seems even more necessity for the present and the future. It can be achieved only by overcoming policies of careful balance of interests, based on mutual benefits and less on the division of the world among nation states. The stability of SE Europe

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and a rational utilization of its natural wealth and geo-strategic positions in favour of the majority of its toiling population night be guaranteed only in the framework of a mutually responsible policy of EC as balancing center of gravity for global interests of Europe and Asia altogether.

5.3

The Siemens Affair (A Balkan Resonance)

Tracking cases of massive corruption in global market environment seems a rather desperate job. Some “late transparency” usually throws light on corruptive involvements of international companies of “great calibre”. It barely penetrates into shadow schemes involving both donors and governments or so called “high rank” corruption. A brief narrative of such late discovery might illustrate this regularity. As Bernard Kouchner landed in Kosovo in the summer of 1999 he found no mobile telecommunication. German Siemens and French Alcatel submitted one offer each. A panel of local experts selected Siemens. The offer was the cheapest and considered “not colonial”. At a fixed lump sum the German investor promised to build a network for Kosovo. The French offer insisted that the network would remain French property and the country code of Monaco would be utilized. What happened? Kouchner, at that time Kosovos legislator, head of government and head of justice, (all in one person), replaced the UNMIK director of post and telecommunications, an Albanian, with a certain Pascal Copin. The latter in turn awarded the contract to Alcatel. It was the only feasible solution, as Copin claimed, because only Alcatel (in a collaboration with Monaco Telecom) could provide Kosovo, with a country code. Seven years later Kosovo boasts the worst and most expensive telephone system in the region, concludes the European Council. Yet every time a Kosovar lifts the receiver, money rattles into French and Monegasque bank accounts. Experts talk on million euros over the years, (more than Sweden’s annual aid to Kosovo). Well paid, for lending a country code (0377) and for some ancillary services, as the press ironically commented. But why, a naïve Swede (or any European) might ask, he who thought he was helping Kosovo and not France, why couldn’t UN arrange a country code for Kosovo? When the ITU, which issues country codes, is a UN organ? Kosovars were the first to ask this question. In 2002 they got the answer. They found a letter from UN man Copin to the ITU board. In the letter he asks ITU not to issue a country code for Kosovo. Bedri Rama, at the time head of PTK, wrote an open letter to the UN: “How am I going to explain to aid organizations that donate money for the basic needs of Kosovo that its assets at the same time disappear to

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Monaco?” “How can we explain this to pensioners, to the many unemployed, to teachers, to professors and to our doctors who live on the edge of existence?” The case might be exemplary for number of “captures” in Bulgaria, Romania, or Macedonia. The schemes differ in respect of players and subsidiaries involved. But as in Kosovo they all have one thing in common: “These Trutschlers and Johansens would not have been able to carry on the way they did unless the UN had created an adequate biotope. In Kosovo they were privileged in a way that not even monarchs of the Middle Ages could have dreamt about.” – so Maciej Zaremba, in his “late discovery” narrative which needed years to resonate in wider legal European context. The SE European “emerging markets” hide many stories as this.156 They interest less ordinary people, moreover the “independent” media and noisy politicians, who gladly feed on such scandals. Siemens might be more than a sheer scandal (at least from a Balkan perspective) as they become resistant on global captures of their emerging markets. As it became clear that in response to the Siemens bribery scandal the District Court in Munich has imposed a fine of 201 million euros on Germany’s largest electronics group, comments on this side reduced to the usual judgement: “They are all the same”. The fine was intended as a punishment for what the court has found to be dubious cash flows in the group’s former telecommunications division Com. According to the results of the investigations Siemens managers had set up slush funds allegedly used to pay bribes abroad. In its consolidated financial statements for fiscal 2006 Siemens had already earmarked 168 million euros for additional tax payments. According to Siemens, the payment now agreed upon, amount to a “final tax-law settling of the matter” by the tax authorities.157 In addition Siemens might also face a possible fine by the powerful Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) of the United States. While it has been suspected that Siemens had paid more than 420 million euros in bribes to win telecoms equipment contracts, the Sueddeutsche Zeitung reported (March 2008) that more than 900 million euros’ worth similar payments had also been found at the telecoms unit. It quotes sources within the company. If the paper is correct, this brings the total of bribes, mostly disguised as payments to business consultants to $1.4 billion. 156

OIOS reports can be read on www.un.org/Depts/oios/otheroiosreports.htm. The Ombudsperson reports can be found on www.ombudspersonkosovo.org: Further information can be found in the French government report “Les acteurs francais dans le ‘post conflict’” http://www.hcci.gouv.fr/travail/avis/post-conflit-crise.html 157 Bribery scandal: Siemens fined 201 million euros, News, 05. 10. 2007. See: whttp://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/print/96999.

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Siemens is conducting its own investigation and is looking at such payments at its turbines, power distribution, and transport, medical and industrial services units.158 Siemens Austria holds total business responsibility for Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Romania and Yugoslavia. It is the regional headquarters for mobile telephony and cordless phones for Southeast Europe and Switzerland, as well as the regional headquarters covering 25 countries for energy and network control technologies. All Siemens division now do business in CEE from supplying networks for mobile and fixed line networks and construction of power plants to technical medical equipment. For four success years, Siemens Austria was internally rated as the most successful national subsidiary of Siemens Group.159 Siemens has been represented in Bulgaria for 128 years. We may still have to hear on Balkan repercussions of this case. What counts even more is a dangerously declining traditional patronage that has very much been associated with proper patterns of modern technological development and advance, offered traditionally by Germany. The company extended recently its portfolio by integrating the subsidiaries of VA TECH in Bulgaria. In fiscal 2005, the sales of all consolidated Siemens companies in this country amounted EUR 148 million and new orders amounted to EUR 361 million. Early in 2005, Siemens Transportation Systems (TS) signed a contract with the Bulgarian State Railway Company to deliver and maintain of 25 DMU (Diesel Multiple Units) trains. Six months later, a contract for supplying and maintaining 25 EMU (Electrical Multiple Unit) trains was signed. These contracts have been assessed as positive signal for encouraging foreign direct investments in Bulgaria. Siemens is involved furthermore in the development of energy management system (SCADA System) for NEK EAD ((National Electricity Company), the Bulgarian operator of high-voltage networks. This order is financed by the EBRD (European Bank for Reconstruction and Development) and EIB (European Investment Bank). The project is modernizing Bulgaria’s power grid. Siemens Building Technologies (SBT) made established first steps of strategic partnership with the famous German investor “Kaufland” through its Regional Company “Kaufland Bulgarian” GmbH & Co KG. Graphic Centre Sofia (GCS) – The GCS is considered as one of 158

The Inquirer, Mon., May, 2008 see: Siemens’ bribe scandal deepens $1.4 billion worth of dodgy payments By Nick Farell: Monday, 13 August 2007. 159 See: Multinationals prefer Austria as hub for CEE business outreach. 1,000 International Firms Coordinate Their Central and Eastern European Operations From an Austrian Base (Background information) http://www.aba.gv.at/en/pages/download.asp?file=downloads/ CEE-headquarters.doc.

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the best achievers in Siemens Bulgaria. The team designed and implemented more than 410 projects within the past six years.160 By the end of 2005, Siemens Medical Solutions (Med) provided the two biggest Sofia hospitals – the one of the Military Medical Academy and the National Cardiology Hospital with modern and highly specialized medical equipment. In addition, Siemens is leading a campaign for improving patient-care conditions in oncology centers. As part of this project, it is providing medical equipment and training personnel. In the past fiscal year, “Siemens Communications” (Com) intensified its cooperation with the three biggest telecom operators “Mtel”, now part of “Mobilkom Austria Group”, “Globul” and “Bulgarian Telecommunications Company” (BTC). Siemens also signed a contract with BTC for EWSD extension with V5.2 interfaces. Com department signed a contract with “Vivatel” (the third GSM operator) for delivery of equipment for the call center of the new operator. “Communications and Transportation Systems” signed a contract with “National Railway Infrastructure Company” for modernization the safety and telecommunication installations of the railway track Blagoevgrad – Kulata (Southern Bulgaria). The Phare Cross Border Co-operation Program of the European Commission finances the project.161 One hears more and more on most promising joint ventures but less on advantageous deals, backed by government officials and corrupted buerocratic institutions. Discoveries occur rarely and if (ever) only in case of “short cuts” in the networked system for institutional enrichments through spin like operating clientele. On July 23, 2008 the European commission blocked 825 million Euro funds as related to the 10 projects for regional infrastructure development of Bulgaria. The Bulgarian Ministry of Finance ordered a parallel revision on spent Phare funds, most endangered by corruptive schemes of misuse. Couple of high rank officers in charge of their allocation have been fired for alleged conflict of interests.162 Overall, the situation in 160

See: Siemens Corporate Profile, 2008, http://www.siemens.bg/Daten/siecom/Bulgaria/WebTeam/Intranet/Homepage. 161 Country profile Siemens Bulgaria, 2006. 162 Thus, according to the Commission, Bulgaria had achieved some progress with the Constitutional amendments, the new Judicial System Act, and the setting of an Inspectorate at the Supreme Judicial Council. The last institution, however, has not demonstrated any progress in screening for corruption violations. Bulgaria is said to have reported nine investigations against magistrates in the first five months of 2008 compared to 17 in all of 2007. This is seen, as a poor result given there were 1821 professional judges, 1558 prosecutors, and 564 investigators in Bulgaria. Until May 2008, the Bulgarian courts have issued only 14 sentences for money laundering, and have confiscated a total of only BGN 500 000, EUR 500 000, and USD 35 000.

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Romania, according the latest monitoring report of the EC is a “mixed picture”. The fundamental elements of a functioning system as said are in place. But the foundation is still fragile and decisions on high-level corruption are still too politicised. Commitment to reform by Romania’s key institutions and bodies is still uneven, as the Commission assessment bitterly conclude. We may still have a lot to learn on. As we mentioned previously, the public is the last to hear the news at this side. Rumours survive better and even support governmental comfort. Ever since WWI Siemens has been considered as the backbone of some mutually beneficial (less colonially accentuated) high tech German patronage that has had a decisive impact on the modernisation of the Balkans. Generations of engineers in Bulgaria, Romania, ex-Yugoslavia, but also Greece and Turkey, have profited from this industrial tradition. It has also moulded in its way patron client relations inspired by a most reliable “German entrepreneur style”. The war in Yugoslavia might have put an end to this traditional German “culture of enterpreneurship” (so Spiegel). The involvement of the German giant into “bribe” scandals and misuse of substantial funds for advantageously contracted infrastructure projects, has more than sheer economic effects, as it echoes through the Balkans. Event though the German giant made milliards of profit in the last decade, its new Chief Peter Löscher plans to close nearly 17 000 jobs worldwide. Over 6000 thousands alone will be cut in Germany by 2010, as Spiegel reported (28. 7. 2008). If Germans do it, why not follow them? Balkan politicians have most often been perfect plagiaries. The strong IG Metal Trade unions had no idea of this “confidential” strategic saving plan, before they read the news. This might really mark an era of global patronage most vulnerable to corruption and crime with no frontiers. The need for strong, well equipped law enforcement agencies to combat organized crime is axiomatic, as Misha Glenny (2008) suggests in his latest investigative contribution to the field. “But appeals like this, which offer solutions based on greater engagement of the police or military alone, betray profound abdication of political responsibility. They are the product of unimaginative politicians, who lack either the vision or the interest to address the great structural inequalities in the global economy upon which crime and instability thrive.”163 Fair enough, indeed. Fortune-tellers have rarely offered more than admirable imagination, but have counted even more on fears, as the latter look even more supportive in a deeply “devoured” Balkan reality.

163

Glenny Misha, McMafia. Crime Without Frontiers, Bodley Head, London, 2008, p. 394.

Conclusion: Quasi-Democracies as Fields of Corruption

What we have defined earlier as “quasi-democracies”164 refers to specific patterns of voting behavior, election procedures, and institutional mal functioning that have shaped in the years of transition in most countries in SE Europe (but also beyond it). These transitory environments have generated own “critical mass” of corporate bound illegal control over state and public domains of power. The latter have deviated most Balkan societies from basic requisites of liberal democracy. They have shaped a culture of “oppressive arrogance” to differ from some “repressive tolerance” (Fetcher) relevant to modern societies. Resting on power-propelled voluntarisms of less rational (asocial) kind, this culture feeds on eclectically leased values of rest-totalitarism, irrelevant to the “embedded” norms of western democracy. Its “operators” perform in heterogeneous, volatile “fields of trust” and under different conditions. Though they behave in many ways like ordinary “quasi-particles” (in terms of modern physics) they have highly unusual properties. To brief here only but a few: – Qasi-democracies perform in the frameworks of parliamentary systems, this occurs however expressively; – They act through own networks of influence, which are not (necessarily) institutionally bound; – They inspire emerging NGOs, or even steer “grass roots” movements in their own public support; – They are hardly to be identified by conventional variables of representative democracy, as they feed on direct forms of influence. – They lack the “mass” of real politics, as generator of significant social change; – Still their “fields” control this societal change and propel it into desired directions (media and PR techniques);

164

The initial idea of “exhausted democracies” in the case of Albania, Macedonia, Bulgaria and Romania have been very much inspired by W. Merkel’s theory of “defected democracies” during our mutual work at IPW Heidelberg (2000/1). The phenomenological aspects of some rapid loss of meaning of democracy in the post-war context of SE Europe has been later extended in a special chapter of “The Bulgarian Political Culture”, V&R unipress, Göttingen, entitled “Adjusting Quasi-democracies in SE Europe” (pp. 150–163) of which the essence is presented here.

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– Quasi-democracies interact with the public sector in “twisted” patterns (beyond mere asymmetry). – In their sociological sense (Weber) they spring from cognitive structures, which are irrelevant to the democratic mind. We could grasp the phenomena by the following 2 major premises: a) Quasi-democracies (as quasi-particles) can be conceived as admixtures of negatively charged electrons (patterns of individual behavior) and positively charged holes (social domains); b) An equal mix yields a quasi-particle (specific behavior) that is electrically (politically) neutral – yet it still carries one-half spin, just like an ordinary electron (political behavior). The idea to rationalize quasi-democracies using analogues of modern physics might look too vague, so far as it does not involve empirically verified (yet) evidence of occasionally observed “side-effects” of a system in transformation. Some of these however, became clear under certain conditions. September 11, 2001 has inspired new global political purposes. Quasi-democracies have gained new momentum from the expanding fields of political bargaining. The demand of new political coalitions in global strategic plan, the changing balance of powers, the rising economic, environmental, security risks and uncertainties, encouraged some “double standard” of democratic assessment. Most “new democracies” in SE Europe (rather generously called) have been even more tolerated to sustain their “hybrid” structural change. This relates to their high military expenditures, the adopting of neo-liberal policies less relevant to the devastated economic situation in most Balkan countries, the promotion of elites of disputable democratic capacity, sustaining of authoritative structures, the abuse of civic rights and shrinking of the public sector. As a result, civic cultures at this side are even more frustrated and excluded from democratic involvement. They have been very much pushed back into political apathy and resignation. This is a mighty source of corruption, which operates through patronages and patron-client relations deeply eroding values of democracy and civilization. Quasi-democracies are less to be rationalized as generators of some new meaning of democracy (liberal, or of other types defined). Untouchable elites, oligarch groups and shadow networks, non-transparent institutions, organized crime, infiltrating the systems of “law and order”, corrupted courts of justice, etc., could illustrate, but explain less those devastating structural effects. Most of them are out of reach of standard democratic assessment schemes. Innovative approaches are in high demand, concerning religious, cultural, political, economic etc. complexities of SE

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Europe, and in a wider European context. The rapid loss of meaning of democratic change in many societal domains in SE Europe, moreover the obvious regress in it, results not so much from deficits of their less vibrant political cultures. These effects spring from the restriction of proper democratic participation of their citizenries in the process of transformation. The lack of capacity of such “hybrid” systems to contribute for proper democratic functioning is more than obvious. As explicitly stressed by established authors, a sufficient definition of democracy has to go beyond sheer democratic electoralism. Not only procedures but also the goals behind democratic elections have to be fulfilled. For democratic elections to be ‘meaningful’, not only does the selection process of the governing elite have to be democratically fair. There also has to be an institutional guarantee that the democratically elected representatives rule through democratic and constitutional principles in the period between elections. Considering Merkel’s theory of “embedded and defective democracies” – as related to SE Europe – we might get a clearer notion of “quasi-democratic” performances in a new glocal (or wider Eurasian social context) in shape. “An embedded, liberal democracy – so Merkel consists of five partial regimes: a democratic electoral regime (A), political rights of participation (B), civil rights (C), horizontal accountability (D), and the guarantee that the effective power to govern lies in the hands of democratically elected representatives (E). These five partial regimes show that our concept of democracy goes beyond the definitions put forth by Downs, Huntington, Przeworski, and even Robert Dahl’s concept of polyarchy. Still, the concept is ‘realistic’, in that it is based exclusively on the institutional architecture of a democracy and does not use outputs or outcomes as defining characteristics of a constitutional democracy. Our understanding of democracy therefore lies between the ones put forth by Joseph Schumpeter and Hermann Heller. A welfare state, fair distribution of economic goods, or even ‘social justice’ may be desired policy results of the democratic processes of decision-making, but they are not its defining elements.” (Merkel, 2001)

None of the four premises mentioned above have been fulfilled in the “new democracies” (at least not in SE Europe). Or more correctly – most of them only appear to be. As referred to the output of a most teasing “system transition” at this side, they draw another picture: A) Electoral regimes, regulated by disharmonious laws on political parties and diverse electoral systems are widely used as instrument of coercive power in “night-over” adjustments of electoral regulations in favor of ruling majorities; B) The “subsystem”(regime) of political rights and participation operates in a not less problematic way. Most of the constitutional rights stay written; they are unknown (both as contents and meaning) to the majority of the citizens.

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C) Civil rights are even bigger problem-generating source, as the scarcity of existence in the years of quasi-transition has established patronages of high economic, political and cultural dependencies. This has restricted basic individual and collective rights and freedoms. D) The variable of “horizontal accountability” is even less predictable in the situation of permanent “institutional wars”. Governments can only react by inventing parallel structures (agencies, intermediary state-pubic operators, etc.) while old hierarchies remain and produce instability. The flow of democratization, as we could witness, has created a wide spectrum of forms of democratic regimes blurred the boundaries between democracy and nondemocracy. The recent global wave of democratization has presented scholars with the challenge of dealing with a great diversity of post-authoritarian regimes.165 Comparative studies are not less challenged by deviations of the above-mentioned regimes of democracies practiced in advanced industrial societies. Many researchers cope with this by adding different adjectives to democracy. This contributes less for the increase of the analytical differentiation and maintains conceptual validity without conceptual stretching. Digressing from the classical western types of democracy is widely believed to have achieved this. However, this approach seems less applicable to most countries in transition. Another “strategy” relates on the use of “diminished adjectives. The type “restrictive democracy”, for instance, is given to regimes that prevent certain political parties from participating in elections and violates the right of every party to aspire for power. Next “witty trick” is the avoiding of simplistic dichotomies “democracy – non-democracy” and the recognition of some “mixed”, “hybrid” nature of many of the new and renewed regimes. Can this help to grasp real democratic achievements in societies in transition, which thrives on democracies, shaped in highly inconsistent ways? A relatively more acceptable way to cope with the era of multiplicity of democratic regimes is to focus on the dimension of the quality of democracy. Democratic regimes that meet the minimal and procedural definition differ, however, considerably in the degree of their quality. Endorsing this position, Etzioni-Halevy explains why;166 “Democratic procedures are not enough. Such procedures produce democra165

Collier, David/Levitsky, Steven, 1997: Democracy with Adjectives: Conceptual Innovation in Comparative Research, in: World Politics. (April), 49/2: 430–451.

166

Etzioni-Halevy, Eva (1999), Èlites, Inequality and the Quality of Democracy in Ultramodern Society, International Review of Sociology, Vol. 9, Nr. 2, 239–250.

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cy, but procedures alone cannot produce a high quality of democracy”. The quality of democracy may be reflected in the general consensus on democratic procedures, equality of civil and political rights, legitimacy of all votes, political tolerance, the exclusivity of parliamentary laws, reduction of class inequality, the ease of mobility to political elites, political representation of all population groups and effective struggle of deprived groups. In addition, democracies differ in degree of their stability and efficiency. Stable democracy prevails in times of rapid change and deep crisis. Instability can stem from unsettled internal conflicts. Efficient democracy makes it possible to regulate conflicts between population groups peacefully. What “quasi-democracies” can do is a decisive aspect of the discourse on sustaining reliable fields of trust, very much eroded by corruptive patterns of patronage. Involving political cultures in Eastern Europe as variable and factor of significant, but also desired societal change, might give a new push to the process of transformation. Offering an apt “check and balance” of democratic consolidation in Eastern European countries Merkel (2008) explicitly draws the line: “Of the 18 countries studied, seven of those in Eastern Europe have experienced an extraordinary rapid consolidation of their young democracies in terms of quality and stability. They no longer differ much from those of Western Europe. Four countries – Croatia, Latvia, Bulgaria and Romania – are well on the way to consolidation, though it is certain that their problems with corruption, organized crime, and the weakness of the judiciary cannot be overcome quickly. There are six countries whose democracies have been unable to consolidate. In three of them – Albania, Russia and Belarus – democratic consolidation is unlikely in the foreseeing future. Even a sympathetic interpretation credits the dilemma of simultaneity with having forecast a good deal less than 50 percent of the outcomes, an accuracy rate probably below that of random guesswork… Structures, cultures, commerce, tradition, history, and paths are rendered invisible as impure theoretical variables under the umbrella of an implicit assumption that all things are equal. Subsuming states such as the Check Republic, Albania and Russia, whose economic, cultural and historical backgrounds are highly dissimilar, under a single dilemma, was a misjudgment of the degree to which the potential for the democratization differs between them”. (Merkel, 2008: 23–24)

Improved complex assessments of democratic performance in systems in transition, is a must for reliable comparative research. This has to be fostered anew and made relevant to more adequate empirical assessment of some shaping new glocalities in SE Europe and beyond it. Political cultures have to be first emancipated in a given societal context and only then considered as integral variable of democratic progress. So far as they rest on different values and norms, but still support commonly accepted functioning of democratic institutions, they might be considered as interferential “fields of trust”. The latter do depend on some “emanation” of cultural tra-

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ditions, but mainly on the activities of different elites which are “both the carriers of such traditions, as well as the central partners in the ruling coalitions and who control the flow of resources in society and the construction of social reality” (Eisenstadt). The concrete features of these modes of control and the consequent structuring of collectivities, and of patterns of accountability of rulers, are shaped by the continuous interaction between the cultural orientations they represent, their own structure, and the concrete historical and political setting within which they act.167 Many quasi-patronages established in the years of transition in SE Europe, moreover their “crunched” patron client relations, have created some own synergy of significant, but less desired societal change at this side. It appears that it is even less acceptable in a new, wider democratic European context. The assessment models have to be free and open to evaluation done by the very carriers of this change. Such a “populist” approach might guarantee not so much “side effects” in the system transformation. It may even propel it into the right direction. This refers moreover to the public procurement on corruptive patterns of patronage and their devastating patronclient relations. The “adjustment” of such quasi-democratic structures has to rely not only on the notorious “rule of law”, but also on the promotion of a new culture of patron client relation – relevant to modern democratic existence. This may have started as some “generally” steered global process, as many observers assure. As dawns are usually brighter in the South, but can be misleading in their Balkan environment, we prefer not to build on prognoses. It is another story of most demanding global friendships, to be still told. As “absolute power corrupts most”, we very much hope that there will not only be the local village idiot left to narrate it to passing tourists on this side.

167

Eisenstadt, N., Cultural tradition and political dynamics: The origin and modes of ideological politics. Hobhause memorial Lecture, in: British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 32, Nr. 2, p. 177.

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Some International Sources on Corruption: The Internet Center for Corruption Research A Joint Initiative of Transparency International and the University of Passau, the Center publishes an annual ranking of countries by the extent of perceived corruption in public administration, the Corruption Perceptions Index. The Index for 2006 was released on 6 November. Global Corruption Report The 2006 report focuses on the health sector, where lack of integrity can be a matter of life and death. The Economics of Corruption A series of lectures given by Professor Johann Graf Lambsdorff at the University of Passau in October 2004. Opacity Index A ranking countries by their opacity, i.e. “the lack of clear, accurate, formal, easily-discernible and widely accepted practices”. Corruption, the legal system and enforcement, economic policies, accounting guidelines, and regulatory frameworks are all taken into account in judging opacity. This was originally a PriceWaterhouseCoopers project but is now a product of the Kurtzman Group.

Index

Administrative corruption 18, 88 f., 104 Allocation 73, 75, 86, 99, 107, 129 Altruism 27 Ambiguities 11, 64, 81, 87 Anticorruption 19, 81, 88, 91 Asch, R. G. 78 Bauman, Z. 12, 24, 48, 85, 96 Benefactor 28 ff., 38, 59 Bribes 89, 127 Caiden, G. E. 78 f. Civic culture 13, 15 ff., 73, 77, 88, 118, 132 Civil service 111 Client 11ff., 30 ff., 80ff., 95 ff., 115 ff., 129 ff. Clientage 69, 74, 95, 116 f. Clientele 22, 53, 68, 72, 74, 97, 104, 115, 118, 129 Clusters 12, 73, 85, 102 Competitiveness 15, 54, 75, 90 Composite Corruption indexes 93 Concept of Corruption 81 Conflict of interests 18, 107, 129 Corruption 16 ff., 52, 56 ff., 61, 67 ff., 77 ff., 97 ff., 126ff. Corruption Index(es) 93 Corruption theory 77 Corruptive patterns of patronage 14, 18, 80, 95, 135f. Cult 72 ff. Dixon, S. 32

Eisenstadt, N. S. 11ff., 19 ff., 52, 136 Enrichment 72 ff., 95, 115, 126 Entity 17, 35, 51, 65 f., 83, 106 Ethnic patronages 61ff., 65 f. Exchange 11ff., 34, 48 ff. Financial pyramids 15, 96 Flow of resources 13, 136 Fraud(s) 13, 18, 67, 73, 78, 82, 112 Friendship(s) 13 ff., 21ff., 136 Gazprom 115, 120 ff. General and specific exchange 13, 16 f., 19 f., 49, 56, 62, 64, 98, 115 Gift(s) 27, 32, 38, 56, 66 f., 80, 100, 103 Gjilas, M. 72 Global patronage 12, 14, 99, 115, 129 Glocal 75, 96 f., 100, 113, 133, 135 God as Benefactor/Patron 28 Gramsci, A. 77 Inducement 22 f., 28 ff., 33 Institutional fraud 13, 67, 73 Institutions 14 ff., 52, 76 ff. Interactions 13, 26, 93, 107 Interpersonal relations 12 f., 20, 22, 25 Kaufmann, D. 89, 93 Khan, M. 77 Konstan, D. 40, 42, 48, 51

Lambsdorff, G. J. 93f. Malina, B. J. 26 Measuring (corruption) 85, 93 Merkel, W. 13, 67, 133ff. Models 12, 17, 24, 27, 81, 85, 136 Modernity 12, 16ff., 48ff., 80ff. Modes 136 National patrons 55 Nepotism 15, 51ff., 79ff. Networks 12ff., 53ff., 80ff., 97ff., 115ff., 131ff. Nomenclature 15, 51f., 54, 70, 74 ff., 95 Organized crime 19, 83f., 100ff., 130ff., 132ff. Paradigms 11, 16, 53 Patrimonialism 11f., 21, 26, 52 f., 73, 88 Patron 11ff., 21ff., 51ff., 80ff., 95ff., 115ff. Patron, national 55 Patron-client 11ff., 25ff., 51ff., 95, 118 ff., 132 Payments 100ff., 127ff. Phenomenology 21 Political culture 115, 133, 135 Political patronages 16, 67, 74 Politics 12ff., 27ff., 51ff., 86, 104, 123, 131ff. Poor governance 18, 107 Power patronage 88, 103 Presents 56, 78

142 Public administration 109 f. Public procurement 8, 88, 111f., 136 Public sector 13 ff., 76, 84 ff., 104 ff., 132 Quangos 95 Quasi-corporativism 15, 75 Rawls, J. 79 Reciprocity 21ff., 48, 53

Index

Religious patronages 41, 54, 59, 65 Roman patronage 34 f. Roniger, L. 21, 25, 52 Sacrifice 22 f., 31, 33 f. Siemens 115, 126 ff. Soros 115 ff. St. Andrew 59 St. Ivan Rilski 5 5 f. St. Sava 56 f.

St. Sr. Cyril and Method 57 State capture 14, 67, 73, 86ff., 99ff. Transparency 75, 86ff., 90, 93, 111, 126 Trust, fields of 12, 19, 21, 80, 95 f., 103, 131, 135 Weber, M. 11, 16, 25, 43, 51, 58, 132