ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses how informal networks have an impact on state weakness. It attempts to understand persistent state weakness by examining the legacies of stakeholders operating within informal networks, and by tracing their activity from the Soviet period to the present. One means of explaining persistent state weakness is to reconceptualize the state through the prism of informal networks. The chapter discusses the legacies of networking in the Soviet system. These legacies include informal exchanges of favours or blat, patrimonialism, and the second economy. The chapter then discusses how the legacies of informal networking have affected post-Soviet states. It also discusses how networks dominate the post-Soviet space today. The bond of trust, so important in the network system, was strengthened in post-Soviet society due to collapse of the communist system. Today, the multitudes of informal networks take on an increasingly complex and interwoven set of activities, traversing borders and creating a system that functions as an alternative to the state.