5. Corruption for Survival through Family

Informal institutions are prevalent in many countries, exhibit similarities across cultures while also reflecting some distinct local characteristics. They often determine access to key resources such as government services, consumer goods, employment, contracts, and/or bureaucratic approval (Lomnitz, 1997). In addition to well-known examples like guanxi in China, blat in Russia, or compadrazgo in various Latin American countries, similar macro-level systems have emerged in many other cultures. They play a significant role in societies with low levels of trust in government and business, where the intersection between formal pressures and informal behaviors gives rise to them. Although shaped by historical and cultural factors, informal institutions are typically responses to the rigidity or inadequacy of the political or economic subsystems (Ledeneva, 2008). Often referred to as “everyday forms of resistance,” “weapons of the weak,” “beating the system,” or “a safety net,” these strategies channel ordinary people’s frustration with existing constraints (Ledeneva, 2018a). This pressure also fosters narratives that aim to justify the often-illegal nature of these transactions by claiming, “The system made me do it” (Karklins, 2005). As Eric Wolf and his co-author (Wolf & Silverman, 2001, p. 167) stated, “Sometimes such informal groupings cling to the formal structure like barnacles to a rusty ship,” and added, “We discover that the formal table of organization is elegant indeed but fails to work unless informal mechanisms are found for its direct contravention.”

Since these informal institutions spread through social networks, they are fundamentally social things; they also fulfill an instrumental role in gaining influence or accessing limited resources (Ledeneva, 2018a). Consequently, they serve dual functions, intertwining the societal or emotional-affective aspects of life with rational-instrumental elements driven by interests (Karhunen et al., 2018). The boundaries between sociability and instrumentality are often blurred. It can be viewed as a spectrum where some informal institutions and their associated relationships lie closer to the societal end of the scale, while others serve more instrumental purposes.

Although such networks are not inherently corrupt or exclusively family-based, they often create a trustworthy infrastructure for corruption and are frequently rooted in extended kinship ties. In most societies, informal institutions and family networks are deeply interwoven, with families functioning as key intermediaries that transmit, embody, and reproduce societal norms and values (Karhunen et al., 2018). Individuals internalize these norms through the family environment, which operates as the primary arena of socialization and moral formation. Thus, family arrangements and informal institutions mutually reinforce each other, like in the case of kinship-based blat in the South Caucasus discussed below (Aliyev, 2013). When introducing corruption into this equation, we arrive at the convergence of three distinct social arrangements. In this scenario, following the rules of an informal institution, individuals utilize family networks to acquire resources through corrupt means. This type of corruption is at least partially coordinated by an external societal normative system that operates through family networks. In essence, the family serves as a conduit for the functioning of a macro-level collective understanding. In other words, both family and corruption serve only as instruments for an informal institution to fulfill its macro-level role in society by meeting people’s needs when the official system no longer functions.

The defective formal systems mentioned above may have multiple forms and reasons. They could result from failings in the state distribution system, which creates dysfunctional economic institutions, producing shortages and allocation problems (Ledeneva, 2008; Makovicky & Henig, 2018). This was especially common in socialist command economies but remained an issue in many countries after the collapse of the communist system. Blat in Russia, guanxi in China, and Kombinacja in Poland fall into this category. As mentioned earlier in the book, there was a widespread notion among ordinary people that communist dictatorships in CEE were unjust and harsh social systems, and therefore, strong macro-level informal norms permitted corruption for the whole population: “Those who do not steal from the state steal from their families” (Misangyi et al., 2008).

Additionally, other informal institutions such as compadrazgo—a system of reciprocity observed throughout Latin America—function as social strategies to navigate the bureaucratic obstacles within the government system. Below, I explore some informal institutions to illustrate their connections to family and corruption, noting that such examples are abundant. These institutions manifest in various scales and forms across virtually every society. For a more thorough review of these phenomena, I recommend consulting the three volumes of the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality, edited by Ledeneva (2018a, 2024).

In post-Soviet regions, the term “blat” colloquially refers to the practice of accomplishing tasks through personal connections, often involving the use of relationships, influence, and the exchange of favors (Ledeneva, 2018b). Originating from criminal slang in Russia in the pre-revolutionary (1917) period, the word initially described minor illicit activities such as petty theft (Karhunen et al., 2018). However, during the socialist era, it acquired a new significance, becoming a vital strategy for navigating the persistent shortages of that time (Lovell, 2005). For many people, that was the only way to get access to goods and services. For instance, a family member employed at a store or warehouse might reserve sought-after or rare items (such as meat, electronics, or imported products) for relatives, guaranteeing they could obtain these items before they were available to the general public. When the state was the official owner of all property, everything belonged to everyone, but since scarcity ruled the day, it could also be said that nothing belonged to everyone. Either way, this blurred the boundaries between the public and private, which are routinely crossed by people (Ledeneva, 2018b). Blat also functioned as mutual protection for Communist Party insiders (Ayios, 2004). Although not exclusively family-based, blat relations in kinship-centered networks were especially strong, exclusive, and elitist (Aliyev, 2013). Military service was mandatory, lengthy (up to 3 years), and often harsh in most Soviet-aligned Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries during the Cold War era. Thus, a relative in the military or government could help a family member avoid dangerous assignments, secure a post in a prestigious or close-to-home unit, or even evade conscription altogether.

Despite the collapse of communism, the dysfunctions within formal institutions persisted, and the “economies of favor” remain deeply embedded in the social fabric, practices, and moral values of populations throughout the post-socialist region (Makovicky & Henig, 2018). Informal exchanges and personal networks continue to play a vital role in providing access to food, consumer goods, credit, property, and opportunities for employment, education, and healthcare across the region (Bridger & Pine, 1998; Morris & Polese, 2013; Rivkin-Fish, 2005; Sik & Wellman, 1999). During the Soviet time, apartments were allocated by the state, so having a family member on a housing committee or in municipal office meant better chances of receiving a desirable living space. Yet housing problems survived the socialist system. For instance, in post-socialist Russia the inaccessibility of the housing market and the decline in available accommodations for students and workers have led to kinship-based blat networks becoming the primary means of facilitating the migration of young professionals from rural areas to urban centers for employment (Walker, 2010).

In many post-socialist societies, government services such as healthcare remained of extremely low quality or even inaccessible to many people, keeping family networks crucial for supplementing such public functions. Qualitative research in the post-Soviet Ukrainian health services sector in 2009 revealed widespread family-based blat activities (Williams & Onoshchenko, 2015). Here are some quotations from participants in the study:

If you personally know the chief physician, you will get absolutely different treatment. I always go to the doctors pulling strings. Once I recommended a good doctor to my sister but without introducing her to him. She visited this doctor without being patronised first and did not receive proper quality and care from him as I did.

A hospital doctor asserted:

When our relatives need health treatment or a consultation, we always help them with our connections; we refer them to good doctors we know, help them to avoid queuing. In return, we can always ask for help as well. For example, we often ask my father’s cousin, who is retired, to do small odd jobs. I once tried to give her 20 hryvnias for the favour, but she refused. But we always help their family and their children and grandchildren and they help us and our parents. We never pay for this help.

And a woman aged 26–35 years old stated:

Money is important today but connections are still in use. I lived in Kyiv and came back to my native city especially to give birth because my parents are doctors and have big connections here. In spite of a small official payment of 200 hryvnias [rather than the usual 2000 hryvnias due to her connections] to the hospital cash office and 20 hryvnias cash-in-hand to the nurse, I obtained very good treatment. And these people are not our close friends, just colleagues.

Guanxi has a longer history than blat. It emerged as a crucial mechanism for families and businesses to navigate the unpredictability and arbitrariness of emperors and their officials in ancient China. Guanxi refers to kinship relationships governed by a specific set of ethical codes intertwined with sentiments and obligations (Bian, 2006). After the 1949 communist revolution, guanxi networks significantly expanded as a form of “capitalism without contracts”to at least partially counter the adverse effects of the rigid socialist command economy and government system (Karhunen et al., 2018).

In China, people face severe social constraints created by the socialist bureaucracy. For example, the hukou, China’s household registration system, is a government policy that binds individuals to a specific place of residence and classifies them as either rural or urban residents. Hukou significantly restricts people’s mobility—especially rural-to-urban migration—and access to public services (Lu, 2010). When a nuclear family in a rural area needs hospital treatment for their child in a better urban facility, they often utilize the guanxi network of their extended family, such as in-laws or uncles who are local officials, to call in favors from contacts in the hospital administration to secure a spot.

While the term blat originates from criminal jargon and has a rather negative connotation, guanxi is deeply rooted in the Confucian ethical guidelines and political system, initially centered around the family or the clan, which emphasizes respect and harmony (Ledeneva, 2008). While the strongest sense of obligation and affection stemmed from kinship, individuals outside of one’s family could also become pseudo-kin through the practice of guanxi gift exchange (Bian, 2006). This possibility of being welcomed as “one of us” is reflected in the etymology of the term guanxi in Chinese, where guan means gate and xi signifies the special connections formed among those who pass through the gate (Gao et al., 2012). In this context, the rules governing the family were extended to society at large (He, 2011). Russian blat operates as a closed and more insular system, shaped by deep-seated distrust toward individuals, groups, and political institutions outside one’s close-knit personal network, a legacy of enduring sociohistorical conditions (Ayios, 2004, p. 14; Karhunen et al., 2018).

While kinship and friendship ties are central to both blat and guanxi networks, the latter allows for trust to be established through shared interests and regular interactions, and thus guanxi is more open to expansion via trusted intermediaries (Karhunen et al., 2018). This means that guanxi is a vast web of interconnected networks facilitated by brokers, compared to relatively small-scale, more insulated blat networks. Furthermore, the informal norms that govern blat are often more ambiguous and variable and less clearly defined than those within guanxi networks (Ledeneva, 2008). Again, guanxi and blat networks are not inherently corrupt, serving as platforms for informally exchanging private resources that do not belong to a formal organization, yet they also provide a highly effective trust-based infrastructure for transactions that utilize one’s formal position (Schramm & Taube, 2005).