tunities, and its creators are seen as people focusing on community rather than on property, thus being more of the socialist than capitalist breed. For the author, the key needs of the multitude include: creating the enigmatic “community” based on biopoliti-cal categories as well as the transformation of work and communication forms. In gen-eral, Negri repeats the slogans of alter-glo-balists solemnly: “A diff erent world is pos-sible”, trying to name or particularise their aspirations, praising the internal diversity of the movement at the same time. What is happening on the other side of the barri-cade, in the Empire? Negri uses the summit in Davos as the lens. Th e unity of the capi-talist model of globalization is evident there in its entirety. Th is unity is not perfect, how-ever, as could be seen from numerous speeches against Bush-governed America (when the US tried to take over the com-plete global control on the monarchy level). Th is capitalist model of globalization refers also to culture, it operates via lifestyles and wants to be one. It stems from the transfer of the gravity centre of capital from physical work to an imaginative individual. Of course, the economic power is also exer-cised by the Empire. Such power is exerexer-cised today through the banking system and in-tellect control. Th is is the only way to con-trol production by major companies that use mental work and the network. Negri claims, however, that the present historic moment is determined by changes, the transfer from the “internationalisation” to “globalisation”; therefore it is a plastic mo-ment, which is open to human activity, as
another theoretician (Immanuel Waller-stein) would say.
Summing up, despite several interesting fragments, the latest book by Negri shows that the author is out of form. The high level of conceptual complexity, which is not compensated for with the quality of pro-posed concepts and the transfer of focus from the social-political philosophy to (ex-otic, in my opinion) political thinking, make the book fall short of the expectations that might be held for the philosopher of his fame.
Andrzej Zalewski
Maciej Gurtowski (rev.): Janine Wedel, Shadow Elite. How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Govern-ment, and the Free Market, Basic Books, New York 2009, pp. 304.
Th e collapse of communism and Revolu-tions of 1989 are probably the major prob-lems for western social sciences. Rapid and mainly unexpected transformations have changed the balance of power in the world. Th e very origins of these processes could be identified in the early 1980s in Poland. While the communistic block was spread over the vast part of Eurasia, from Laba River in Europe to the Mekong in China, there was a country that managed to create a rift in this block – the legal democratic opposition. Janine Wedel was an eyewitness to the beginnings of Solidarity movement and to the attempts of crashing it by intro-ducing the martial law in 1981 followed by
the transition of communistic regimes into democratic states. As a social anthropolo-gist, not the political scientist, she observed how Poles were operating around the rules under communism and during its transi-tion. They were skilled conspirators and experienced rule-abiders because of almost two centuries of living under occupation. And because of some historical factors Poles saved their national identity while being skeptical to their state. People living in the police state were forced to deceive the state institutions and such a situation required from citizens a kind of fl exible identity. As Wedel stated: “In communist Poland, the necessity of getting around the system bred absurdities, ranging from the employee who “lift s” a desk from state-owned factory to sell for cash and then complains when a fel-low worker “steals” it from him, to the em-ployee of the Communist Party headquar-ters who doubles as an underground pub-lisher, printing his leafl ets at the headquar-ters. While the totalitarian nature of the state necessitated such strategies, America today seems increasingly to off er such ab-surdities of its own” (p. X). Th e core idea of the “Shadow elite” is the observation that some important phenomena, apparently typical for communistic and transitional states, are starting to occur also in model democracy such as the United States. What are these phenomena? First of all, let’s start from draft ing the specifi c fi eld of research which is the base of Wedel’s fi ndings.
We can divide the subject of social sci-ences into four categories using two meth-odological criteria: transparency and
com-plexity. Th en we achieve the matrix with four types. First, there are transparent and simple phenomena, teenagers dating habits, for example. Second, we’ve got phenomena that are simple and latent, like the contents of confessions in Catholic congregation. Th ird, we achieve complex and transparent, in methodological sense, phenomena, for example: macro trends in education. Th e last category contains the fi eld of explora-tion which is most challengeable for re-searchers because of its secrecy and com-plexity. It includes, for example, revolutions, price-fi xing conspiracies, covert actions of secret services, financial scams, terrorist networks activity, etc. Such phenomena are difficult for scientific inquiry because of a few specifi c obstacles. Radosław Sojak and Daniel Wicenty analyzed such restrictions1 for their conceptualization of the fi eld study they called “behind the scenes dimensions of society”2. Among these specifi c obstacles two of them are, according to “Shadow Elite”, especially worth emphasizing. Firstly, it is uneasy to collect and verify the data about hidden and complex phenomena. Secondly, some clandestine social activity is under-standable only in its unique, usually also not available context.
Most of Polish scientifi c analyses of the transition of former communistic regimes neglect one important, in our opinion,
vari-1 R. Sojak, D. Wicenty, Zagubiona
rzeczywi-stość. O społecznym konstruowaniu niewiedzy
[A Lost Reality. On Social Costructing of Igno-rance], Warszawa 2005, pp. 173–219.
able3 – the legacy of the police state4. For example, the role of communist secret serv-ices and nomenklatura in designing and managing the transition, or the problem of the so called “early winners” of the transi-tion are still, in respect to its importance, unexplored5. Janine Wedel is the one of the few who analyzed this neglected dimension of postcommunist transitions6. In her previ-ous book7, she wrote about the observed in transition democracies processes of blur-ring the border between the public and the private, and about the abuses of western re-form advisors. What is most important here is the fact that aft er almost a decade, Wedel discovered similar phenomena in so called mature democracies. It is an eff ect of the well-known mechanism of a hermeneutic circle.
Wedel’s book is about insidious threats to modern market democracies. Who are the members of the shadow elite and how
3 Ibidem, pp. 199, 223.
4 M. Łoś, A. Zybertowicz, Privatizing the
Po-lice-State: Th e Case of Poland, London–New York
2000.
5 A. Zybertowicz, Hidden Actors, Overlooked
Dimensions and Blind Intellectuals: Nine Parado-xes that Account for Institutionally Entrenched Ignorance [in:] Building Democracy and Civil So-ciety, S. Eliaeson (ed.), London–New York 2006,
pp. 226–37.
6 See also: D. Stark, Recombinant Property in
East European Capitalism, “Th e American Journal of Sociology” 1996, Vol. 101, No. 4, pp. 993–1027; J. S. Hellman, Winners Take All: Th e Politics of Partial Reform in Postcommunist Transitions,
“World Politics” 1998, Vol. 50, pp. 203–34. 7 J. Wedel, Collision and Collusion. Th e
Stran-ge Case of Western Aid to Eastern Europe, New
York 2001.
do they “undermine democracy, govern-ment and free market”? Wedel calls “the new breed of infl uencers ‘fl exians’. When such operators work together in longstand-ing groups, thus multiplylongstand-ing their infl uence, they are fl ex nets. Flexians and fl ex nets op-erate at one extreme of a continuum in crafting their coincidences of interests” (p. 5). Th ey “operate at the nexus of offi cial and private power, cannot only co-opt pub-lic popub-licy agendas, craft ing popub-licy with their own purposes in mind. Th ey test the time-honoured principles of both the canons of accountability of the modern state and the codes of competition of free market” (p. 7). Flexians intentionally locate themselves in situations of coincidences of interests be-cause it brings them more infl uence. It’s not just a simple profi t as in classic confl ict of interest. Usually, they try not to simply en-rich themselves but rather to take control over some part of public policy in intention to protect some idea or they simply promote themselves. According to fl exians, terms like “corruption” and “lobbing” are not applica-ble. Anti-corruption regulations cause new sophisticated methods of bypassing them. Comparing to fl exians, double agents, as Wedel stated, are simple creatures. Flexians usually combine, at the same time, posi-tions: academic, advisory, journalistic, com-mercial and public. So it is hard to track their loyalties and to simply answer: “who do they serve?” because their various con-flicting agendas allow them to avoid ac-countability. Coincidences of interests com-paring to confl icts of interests are uneasy to detect.
According to Wedel, this new interna-tional class of infl uencers emerge as a cause of four transformational developments which occurred over the last quarter of century: government outsourcing and deregulation, the end of the Cold War, the growth of infor-mation technologies, and “the embrace of truthiness”. Th e fi rst three of them are literally understandable but the last one needs a com-ment. Truthiness is a concept of Stephen Col-bert, and the easiest way to explain its mean-ing is by comparison to Baudrillard’s term “simulacra”: “Simulation, unlike pretense, and like “truthiness”, produces real intuitive feelings, emotions or symptoms in someone, and, therefore, blurs the diff erence between the ‘real’ and ‘imaginary’” (p. 219). Truth needs a proof and “truthinees” thrives on im-pressions. “Truthiness” allow fl exians to hide their complex confl icting agendas behind the mask of the currently performing role. So it is hard for the media or the public opinion to recognize the fl exian and their fl ex net. Wedel emphasizes that the media no longer control public authorities. Instead, the media en-hance politicians to entertain the audience. Public servants could easier conceal their pri-vate interests.
How do flexians and flex nets work? Wedel enumerates their most important features (pp. 15–19). First is “personalizing bureaucracy”, which means that fl exians use informal relationships to aff ect formal insti-tutions. Flexians are loyal to people not to organizations or institutions. Second, “pri-vatizing information while branding con-viction” with “shared conviction and action” – fl ex nets are capturing the information
available only to insiders and their mem-bers get a similar worldview. Th ird, “jiggling roles and representations”, which is simply representing simultaneously diff erent and sometimes competitive interests. Fourth, “relaxing rules at interstices of offi cial and private institutions”, which is literally clear but it needs to be emphasized that this re-laxing is achieved by constantly “almost breaking” a given rule a little more.
Concepts of fl exians and fl ex nets are used by Wedel for explaining some appar-ently irrational decisions of the US Govern-ment. Wedel argues that fl exians captured important links in decision making proc-esses. For example, saving bankrupting banks with public money has been, until recently, unthinkable. But, as she proves, in-fl uence of in-fl exians has blurred the border between the public and the private and be-tween bureaucracy and the market.
Wedel’s concepts are illustrated by four case studies. Th e fi rst is about post-Com-munist transition in Poland. The author shows how some fl exian-like individuals connected with authorities of the former system together achieved enormous success during and aft er transformation. Wedel de-scribes the example of institutionalization of a fl ex net. She argues that Ordynacka As-sociation (students asAs-sociation in the begin-ning) was an attempt to organize a formal flex net with intention of creating back-ground for informal infl uence. According to Wedel, the eff ect of that enterprise was the Rywingate – considered a major Polish po-litical aff air that in consequence totally re-shaped political balance in Poland.
Another case is an analysis of the proc-ess of the US government outsourcing and deregulation. Wedel argues that instead of budget’s savings and limitation of bureauc-racy, outsourcing brings to former govern-ments’ contractors exclusive knowledge and other useful resources.
Th e third case study is about Russian industry privatization. Wedel describes how western privatization advisors, mainly economists and managers from Harvard, mixed their liberal and free-market ideas with local, post-communist management culture, which resulted in ruination of Rus-sian industry. But a more interesting discov-ery is that western advisors brought back to America the Russian way of doing business with no respect to the rules and private property.
Th e fourth case is of American Neocon-servatives. According to Wedel, they create a flex net whose aim was to protect the world from repetition of holocaust. Th e au-thor argues that “Neocons” captured a vast part of governmental administration to the level which allowed them to force the inva-sion on Iraq. Consider the example of their impact: Lawrence B. Wilkerson, the Chief of the Staff said about Neocons to the Secre-tary of State, Colin Powell, from 2002 to 2005: “We were up against a ruthless ma-chine that had its people in every corner of the bureaucracy, with a vision and strategy for carrying out the vision” (p. 177). It is also interesting that, according to Wedel’s fi nd-ings, Neocons’ fl ex net, like Ordynacka, is also responsible for a huge political aff air – the well-known Iran-Contras.
Is it possible that in an established state, a small group of individuals is able to infl u-ence the major institutions of the state for a long time? How do they do that? Janine Wedel is not the fi rst who analyzes such phenomena. She directly quotes theories of Polish sociologists: Antoni Kamiński, Joan-na Kurczewska and Adam Podgórecki. Th e fi rst two of them are authors of the concept of “institutional nomads”8, actors similar to fl exions, and Podgórecki9 conceptualized the phenomenon of capturing some func-tions of institution by hidden net of indi-viduals.
In her book Wedel explored complex and clandestine phenomena and as a social anthropologist she has got an excellent background for uncovering the hidden meanings of social activity. Moreover, she has not only spent years on analyzing infor-mal institutions and social networks in Central and Eastern Europe but she has 8 A. Kamiński, J. Kurczewska, Main Actors
of Transformation: Th e Nomadic Elites [in:] Th e General Outlines of Transformation, E. Allardt,
W. Wesołowski (eds.), Warszawa 1994, pp. 132– –153.
9 A. Podgórecki, Social Control of the Th ird
Order, “International Journal of Contemporary
Sociology” 1986, Vol. 23, No. 3–4. For most ad-vanced sociological conceptualization of social arrangement which capture state institutions see: A. Zybertowicz, Przemoc Układu: O peerelowskich
korzeniach sieci biznesowej Zygmunta Solorza
[Violence of the Arrangement: On the PRL (Po-lish People's Republic) Roots of Zygmunt Solorz's Business Network] [in:] Transformacja podszyta
przemocą: O nieformalnych mechanizmach prze-mian [Transformation Streaked with Violence:
On Informal Mechanisms of Transformations] R. Sojak, A. Zybertowicz (eds.), Toruń 2008, pp. 187–266.
also been a participant in Moscow meet-ings of privatization advisors. Wedel used the data collected by participant observa-tions and by interviews with insiders. We can surely agree that Wedel has overcome the obstacles mentioned in the beginning, the access to hidden data and its unavaila-ble context. She has just used well docu-mented examples.
In “Shadow Elite”, there is no systematic theoretical background. Wedel uses diff er-ent ideas from classic and modern scholars in an easy manner. Th e reasoning is some-times not clear mainly because of the so-phisticated narration and non-intuitive ter-minology. Th e theses are oft en too strong for the argumentation. But there is still a wealth of evidence. Wedel manages rather to impress the reader than to prove her the-ses. Some ideas of Wedel are surely brilliant. She states important questions and off ers original answers. What makes Wedel’s book so valuable is that it also contains useful heuristics for other researchers.
Maciej Gurtowski
Joanna Piechowiak-Lamparska: Th e Re-port on the 4th International Scientific
Conference Contemporary Asia. Politics – Security – Economy – Culture
Th e 13th and 14th of May 2010 were the days
when the Fourth International Scientific Conference Contemporary Asia. Politics – Security – Economy – Culture took place. Th e conference was organized by the Asian Pacifi c Society, Faculty of Political Sciences
and International Studies at Nicolaus Co-pernicus University and Adam Marszałek Publishing House under the honorary pa-tronage of the Minister of Foreign Aff airs Mr. Radosław Sikorski, the Marshal of Cu-iavian-Pomeranian Voivodship Mr. Piotr Całbecki and the President of the City of Toruń Mr. Michał Zaleski with the support of His Magnifi cence the President of Nico-laus Copernicus Uniwersity Professor, Ph.D. Andrzej Radzimiński.
Th e conference was a subsequent stage of series of conventions taking place in Toruń from 2007. Dr. Joanna Marszałek-Kawa, the initiator of the meeting, once again organized one of the most important scientifi c events in Poland concerning the subject of Asia1. A lot of organizational as-pects of the conference deserve attention. One of them is the publication of the meet-ing results in the form of monograph2, di-versifi ed in respect of subject. What is im-portant, especially for scholars taking part in this conference, materials are collected in reviewed volumes. Both the subject matter and the earned prestige of the conference allowed many scholars from Poland and from abroad to meet. Th e invitation to this conference was accepted, among others, by Professor Miao Huashou and Associate
1 I International Scientifi c Conference Asia
– Politics, Economy, Political System from 2007; II
International Scientifi c Conference Th e Role and Place of Asia in the Contemporary World from
2008; III International Scientifi c Conference Th e Faces of Asian statehood. Aspects of Civilization, Culture, Politics, Law, and Economy from 2009.
