Torsello, Davide - Pappová, Melinda: Social Networks in Movement. Time, interaction and interethnic spaces in Central Eastern Europe - Nostra Tempora 8. (Somorja-Dunaszerdahely, 2003)
Aknowledgement
20 Claire Wallace Social capital in the form of networks were well established under the former communist system as a way of obtaining resources in the form of reciprocal favours or “blat" (Ledeneva 1998). Indeed in an economy where many forms of exchange were not monetarised, blat becomes even more important. Ledeneva argues that the politics of blat have been breaking down in the course of transition.Yet, social networks have been likewise important for the privatisation of property and the consolidation of elites in the newly emerging social structures. In the circumstances where formal institutions are not reliable or not appropriate for the new market relations (as is the case in many CIS countries), social networks can operate as an alternative market institution regulating exchange and information. In a range of recent studies, this kind of social capital has been shown to be important in the privatization of resources in Eastern and Central European countries and in the way in which capitalism has developed utilising existing or new social networks (Szelenyi and Szelenyi 1995; Kolankiewicz 1996; Dinello 1998). This is what Sik has more precisely called "network capital” (Sik 1994). Other circumstances where networks clearly operate as informal institutions to assist communication flows and provide practical assistance to network members is in the context of migration where information flows even across large distances provide information for migrants and potential migrants, as illustrated in the analysis of the letters of the Polish peasants in the USA by Thomas and Znaniecki (1958) in the early years of the last century. Without these sources of information, migration is unlikely to take place at all, no matter how poor or populous the population of one country is in relation to another. This helps to explain why certain countries and certain communities provide migrants, whilst others in the same situation do not. For example, why Poles are likely to migrate and Czechs are not (I0M 1998) or why Ukrainians are likely to migrate whilst Belarusians are not. In the contemporary period, the Polish communities in Western Europe continue to provide an active network diaspora,
