In my work as a social anthropologist, people often tell me unusual stories. For instance, in Poland recently, a scholar and former speaker of the parliament described to me an interaction in police headquarters a few years ago. As one of several esteemed members of a task force advising the national police on how to transform itself into an institution compatible with democracy, he met with the chief of police and the other advisers. During a break in the meeting, he thought he smelled more than the usual cigarette smoke. When he ribbed his fellow advisers, they acknowledged that they, indeed, had been smoking marijuana during the break.
While my friend told this lighthearted story to amuse me, sensing I would appreciate its absurdity, it is actually telling. It is the kind of tale that one hears in a society with a long experience of upending official rules—a society that persisted, despite occupying armies, imposed regimes, and the attendant scarcities, repressions, and hardships. High-ranking Polish government advisers ignoring prohibitions against smoking marijuana may be inconsequential, but in fact this tale illustrates a willingness, even delight, in flouting rules. Rules were made to be broken, goes the old saying, but rules are also what we live by. Yet rules, I have discovered, are being flouted on a wide scale. Nowadays, even in the democratic-model-for-the-world United States, people are systematically upending rules and authority, not in search of either personal enjoyment or basic necessities, but to wield high-level power and influence.
I have come to this bold conclusion after spending the better part of three decades observing people as they employ teamwork, flexibility, and ingenuity to work around the rules, and studying the conditions that encourage them to do so. I did this first in Eastern Europe under communism and as countries in the region moved away from it. Then I charted the activities of archetypal players who flouted rules and authority to wield influence, this time on a global stage, and investigated the conditions that encourage them to do so in the wider world and especially in the United States.
I have written this book to explain the new breed of transnational players who, far from something as trivial as smoking marijuana, toy with official rules and not only get away with it, but often make decisions about policies that affect us all—in areas ranging from the economy and foreign affairs to government and society—while fashioning new rules of the game to benefit themselves.
In a twisted sort of way, examining eastern Europe up close—through its transformations away from communism over the last quarter century—has been excellent preparation for making sense of what is happening in the United States today. In communist Poland, the necessity of getting around the system bred absurdities, ranging from the employee who “lifts” a desk from a state-owned factory to sell for cash and then complains when a fellow worker “steals” it from him, to the employee at Communist Party headquarters who doubles as an underground publisher, printing his leaflets at headquarters. While the totalitarian nature of the state necessitated such strategies, America today seems increasingly to offer up absurdities of its own.
I have written this book to offer readers a lens through which to view what I identify in this book as a new system of power and influence, and to explain the players and networks that drive it in a rapidly transforming American and global environment. As an anthropologist, I’m trained to go behind the scenes, beyond what people say they are doing, and beyond government and bureaucratic organizational charts. But all of us must do so now because that is the only way to see that how the world is organized has changed, amid such developments as the breakdown of bureaucratic and professional authority and new information technologies. The new players and networks of power and influence do not restrict themselves to activities in any one arena. Rather, through their activities, they connect state with private, bureaucracy with market, political with economic, macro with micro, and global with national, all the while making public decisions—decisions backed by the power of the state. As influencers perform overlapping roles and networks of policy deciders snake through official and private organizations, creating a loop that is closed to democratic processes, we have to focus on them—their roles, activities, and sponsors—and how they maneuver these levels if we want to get to the bottom of power and influence.
That is why, as I realized over the course of this project, the frameworks and terms that we’ve long used to understand power and influence are no longer sufficient to explain what is happening. While it became clear early on that terms like “lobbyist” or “interest group” don’t suffice, naming this new breed of players and networks proved to be a challenge. Here I am grateful to two scholars in particular. “Flexian” grew out of a conversation with Lloyd “Jeff” Dumas, “flex net” from a conversation with Susan Wright. I am indebted to both. As well, terms like “conflict of interest” and “corruption” also proved inadequate to explore how agenda-wielding players actively structure, indeed create, their roles and involvements to serve their own agendas—at the expense of the government agencies, shareholders, or publics on whose behalf they supposedly work. These players not only flout authority, they institutionalize their subversion of it. Thus, I have also written this book so that people can see the trade-offs they inadvertently make as they tolerate, even approve of, this state of affairs and suffer from loss of democratic input, control, and accountability.
In my quest to explore how societies work—in contrast to how they are supposed to work—I have found common ground with people from many walks of life and professions, scholars from a variety of disciplines (not only anthropologists), journalists, government researchers, and investigators. Several sociologists were especially astute observers of the movers and shakers who positioned themselves at the nexus of state and private power amid the ruins of communism (sometimes in conjunction with global operators who descended on the region like carpetbaggers). These players, of course, were operating in an environment where new rules were being invented—and sometimes even inventing them themselves. In Poland I am grateful to the scholars who offered insights and opportunities for discussion, in particular Antoni Kamiński, Joanna Kurczewska, and Jacek Kurczewski. Alina Hussein of NIK, Poland’s equivalent of the U.S. Government Accountability Office, helped provide important trend-line data, in particular about appropriation of the state budget to private, unaccountable organizations through the 1990s and into this decade. Grzegorz Makowski and Barbara Pomorska pulled together supplemental materials on these trends, as well as on the Rywingate scandal that publicly illuminated under-the-table, yet pervasive means of influence. I thank them all.
I am also grateful to the many experts and informants (far too many to name) who assisted me in recognizing drivers of transformation beyond Poland as I traveled to other parts of central Europe, Russia, and Ukraine after the fall of the Berlin Wall and into this century. I tracked a new generation of operators who seemed to have internalized the worst of the Wild East (even when they had never set foot there), such as financial wizards playing on the latest innovations. For providing opportunities to further explore and discuss these players and phenomena, I am indebted to British sociologist Paul Stubbs. Based in Croatia, he invited me to workshops he organized there in 2006 and 2007 that brought together dynamic local and international scholars and practitioners to explore changing systems of governing, power, and influence. These trips were learning opportunities of the best sort, and enabled me to give lectures and get feedback from those steeped in law, economics, and other fields.
The networks of interlocking players I charted at the nexus of state and private in eastern Europe, as well as those operating in and around global grey zones, are what led me to explore the networks and modus operandi of certain players in the United States. When, in the early part of this decade, prominent neoconservatives were regularly in the news, I began to look into the social networks and overlapping connections in government, ideological initiatives, foundations, think tanks, business, and family ties of a small set of neoconservatives who have been working together for as long as thirty years to put their ideology into action. I was struck by the similarity of the modus operandi of this “Neocon core”—a dozen or so interconnected players with Richard Perle as their linchpin—with many influential groups that had shaped government, politics, business, and society in transitional eastern Europe. In both contexts, players straddled official and private organizations, were remarkably successful in achieving their group goals even at the expense of the institutions they supposedly served, and skillfully skirted liabilities resulting from their activities.
I studied the activities of the Neocon core first by delving into the wealth of material published on them and then by interviewing people associated with them (including “defectors” from the group); frequenting meetings, lectures, and gatherings in which they participate; and, eventually, interviewing some of the key players themselves. In this exploration, I thank Steve Clemons for his excellent blog (thewashingtonnote.com) and steadfast support, as well as members of the “Garden Club.” I am especially indebted to Jim Lobe, a journalist who has long tracked and written about neoconservatives, read multiple drafts of my chapter on the subject, and loaned me a boxful of books and resources. Eli Lake may not agree with the conclusions I have come to, but I greatly appreciate his perspectives and willingness to engage in conversation. Although studying the Neocon core helped me to identify influencers and their workings in their American habitat, the book draws on examples from across the political spectrum.
Observing the achievements of players and networks led me, in turn, to explore the contexts in which they operate. Seeing firsthand the machinations at the nexus of state and private in eastern Europe, as state-owned resources were being privatized, led me to wonder what “privatization” in the United States is about, especially given America’s history of contracting out government services, and, increasingly, functions. Reams of GAO reports, inspectors general findings, and other government documents, as well as scholarly treatises, provided the background needed to grasp the import and extent of the changes under way. Countless hours were spent talking with experts, investigators, and participants in contracting out (in sectors ranging from military and homeland security to energy and education) and other aspects of U.S. governing, including the drain of brains, information, and authority away from government. For guidance on these issues, I am especially indebted to Richard Loeb and Richard Miller, as well as to Scott Amey of the Project On Government Oversight.
My subject is replete with theoretical issues. I am very fortunate to have had the generous help of Ted Lowi and Bob Jervis, both of whom read parts of the manuscript multiple times and provided detailed and supportive critiques. I am eternally grateful to both of them. I also thank Simon Reich, who illuminated crucial perspectives on American government and reviewed my work, and James Galbraith, who highlighted important economics perspectives.
I am grateful to Teresa Hartnett for stimulating my conceptualization of the project early on, and Stacy Lathrop, who did the same in the latter stages. Both reviewed and edited drafts and provided incisive suggestions. Other readers, including John Clarke, Des Dinan, Jeff Dumas, Carol Greenhouse, Jeanne Guillemin, Jessica Heineman-Pieper, Antoni Kamiński, Don Kash, Ted Kinnaman, Leonid Kosals, Wendy Larner, Charles Lewis, Michael Lind, Barry Lynn, William Odom, Steven Rosefielde, Dorothy Rosenberg, Louise Shelley, Irena Sumi, Susan Tolchin, Ty West, and Anne Williamson provided valuable feedback on the manuscript. Adam Pomorski, as usual, offered keen guidance throughout the project.
I am also indebted to a number of scholars for offering fora that enabled me to get feedback on papers I delivered, including: James Galbraith, for an American Economics Association panel on “The Abuse of Power” (2005) and a Communitarian Summit session on “Working Toward a Criminology of Economics” (2004); Carol Greenhouse and participants in 2005 workshops at Princeton University on “Ethnographies at the Limits of Neoliberalism”; participants in my panels at the 2006 Civil G-8 Conference in Moscow; Hugh Gusterson and Catherine Besteman (organizers) and Jeanne Guillemin (commentator) at a 2006 MIT workshop; Susan Wright and Cris Shore for the 2006 panel on “Policy Worlds” at the European Association for Social Anthropology meeting in Bristol, UK; Winifred Tate and participants in the 2007 workshop at Brown University on “Ethnographies of Foreign Policy”; Don Kalb and others at the Central European University in Budapest who organized my 2007 talks there; Jon Abbink, Sandra Evers, and Tijo Salverda for the Anthropology of Elites conference at Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, in 2007; Monique Nuijten of Wageningen University, the Netherlands, in 2008; and the organizers of sessions where I delivered papers on topics relating to this book at annual meetings of the American Anthropological Association, the American Political Science Association, and the American Economics Association.
For research assistance, I am grateful to Kanishka Balasuriya, Maya Ellis Brown, Joseph Sany, and especially to Emily Gallagher, Ben Katcher, Jeff Meyer, Faith Smith, Mandy Smithberger, and Sarah Willyard. I thank Karen Coats, Nan Dunne, and Caroline Taylor for editorial comments.
I am especially indebted to independent editor Sarah Flynn, who worked with me tirelessly to shape the book. Her unflagging commitment to the project, her enthusiasm for finding the best way to express my ideas, and her effectiveness as both sounding board and wordsmith have seen me through every draft of the manuscript, from its beginnings as a proposal. I am also grateful to Sarah for introducing me to my agent, Michael Carlisle. Michael “got” the book right away, and I am grateful to him not only for his confidence in me but also for his insights into the nature of the topic. Insights were also provided by Bill Frucht, who acquired the book for Basic Books, and Tim Sullivan, who saw it through to publication and provided keen suggestions that helped focus parts of the manuscript. I thank Irina Kuzes, a graphic artist, for her original creations, steadfast commitment to the project, and willingness to make changes as it developed.
The New America Foundation has generously provided me a research home and numerous resources that aided this project. For that and for research assistance and collegiality with a dynamic group of policy writers, analysts, and scholars, I am deeply indebted. My permanent base, the School of Public Policy at George Mason University, and my dean, Kingsley Haynes, have been extraordinarily supportive and generous, and for that I am grateful. I also thank the Ford Foundation, which funded some of my research related to the project.
Finally, I thank friends who both put me up (when on the road) and put up with the project, in particular Antonina Dachów, Ted Kinnaman, Aśka Mikoszewka, Terry Redding, and the Occasional University of Lewes. As always, I am especially and profoundly indebted to Adam and Basia Pomorscy for their generous and abiding help.
Many people provided input about the phenomenon that today’s shadow elite represents, the conditions that give rise to the new players and networks, and the implications of both for democracy, government, and society. But while this project might not have come to fruition without the generous assistance of so many, I alone am responsible for the final product.
JANINE R. WEDEL
Washington, D.C.