Doctoral Dissertation Research: Informal Economic Practices in Post-Socialist Albania

研究生，Smoki Musaraj，在休·莱佛士博士的指导下，将对后社会主义阿尔巴尼亚非正式经济实践的多重经验和评估进行民族志研究。近年来，一场正在兴起的全球反腐败运动将腐败定义为违反非个人交易的普遍市场伦理。根据这一定义，阿尔巴尼亚已被确定为世界上最腐败的国家之一。发展机构指出，贿赂和他们所谓的“礼遇文化”是阿尔巴尼亚缓慢进入资本主义市场的原因。然而，在阿尔巴尼亚过去的社会主义时期，非正式的做法被认为是规避国家权力和在短缺经济中生存的适当策略。为了理解这段历史如何以及为什么继续影响阿尔巴尼亚经济，本研究将通过对阿尔巴尼亚非正式交易的两个实例进行案例研究，对腐败进行民族志研究：1992-1997年参与金字塔计划和正在进行的礼物、贿赂和恩惠的世界。研究人员将在阿尔巴尼亚首都地拉那和沃拉市进行为期12个月的实地研究，以调查两个主要问题。首先，阿尔巴尼亚的案例是否提供了证据，证明腐败不是一种通用语言，而是受不断变化的社会背景和政治经济的影响？其次，考虑到阿尔巴尼亚后社会主义转型的政治经济不具权力，当地居民是否将礼物和商品交换联合起来作为收回经济和政治代理的方式？为了回答这些问题，并具体理解这种做法产生的行为模式，研究人员将采用多种民族志方法，包括收集口头叙述、参与者观察、档案研究、与金字塔计划参与者、当地反腐败媒体计划和非政府组织的开放式访谈。本研究建立在礼品和商品交换所发挥的社会整合作用以及非正式经济重要性的既定社会科学理论的基础上，以探索新兴的全球反腐败运动对当地的影响。它将帮助决策者更好地理解腐败的原因和后果。最后，这个奖项也对社会科学家的教育做出了重大贡献。

Graduate student, Smoki Musaraj, supervised by Dr. Hugh Raffles, will undertake ethnographic research on the multiple experiences and assessments of informal economic practices in postsocialist Albania. In recent years, an emerging global anti-corruption campaign has defined corruption as a breach of a universal market ethic of impersonal transactions. By this definition, Albania has been determined to be one of the world's most corrupt countries. Development agencies point to bribery and what they call "cultures of gift and favors" as causes for Albania's slow entry into capitalist markets. However, in Albania's socialist past, informal practices were considered appropriate strategies for circumventing state power and surviving economies of shortage. To understand how and why this history continues to affect the Albanian economy, this research will take do ethnographic research on corruption through case studies of two instances of informal transactions in Albania: participation in the pyramid schemes of 1992-1997 and the ongoing world of gifts, bribes, and favors.The researcher will undertake 12 months of field research in Albania's capital, Tirana, and the city of Vlora to invetigate two overarching questions. First, does the Albanian case provide evidence that corruption is not a universal language, but, rather, is subject to changing social contexts and political economies? Second, given the disempowering political economy of the Albanian post-socialist transition, are local residents deploying gift-and commodity-exchange jointly as ways of reclaiming economic and political agency? To answer these questions, and understand concretely the modes of action that such practices generate, the researcher will employ multiple ethnographic methods including the collection of oral narratives, participant observation, archival research, and open-ended interviews with pyramid scheme participants, a local anti-corruption media program, and an NGO.This research builds upon established social science theories of the social integration role played by gift-and-commodity-exchange and of the importance of the informal economy, to explore the local impact of the emerging global anti-corruption campaign. It will help policy makers better understand the causes and consequences of corruption. Finally, this award also contributes significantly to the education of a social scientist.