Lidhjet (Kosovo)
| Lidhjet 🇽🇰 | ||
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| Location: Kosovo | ||
| Definition: Connections or ties used for social exchange of favours | ||
| Keywords: Kosovo – Balkans – Europe – Euphemism – Ties – Personal connections – Access – Need – Network – Problem-solving – Favour | ||
| Clusters: Redistribution – Substantive ambivalence – Instrumentality of sociability – Economies of favours – Getting things done | ||
| Author: Vjollca Krasniqi | ||
| Affiliation: Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Prishtina, Kosovo | ||
By Vjollca Krasniqi, Associate Professor, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Prishtina, Kosovo
| Lidhjet are an informal practice premised on the use of personal, family, friends, and political ties and contacts to acquire access and resources. Lidhjet imply that to get something done, formal rules and procedures are to be bypassed, undermined, and invalidated. Lidhjet primarily concern public institutions, but they also stretch to the private sector. Circumventing formal rules to enable things get done for a selected few, the lidhjet brokers accrue social capital by shifting power away from institutions towards informal networks. |
In the Albanian language dictionary, lidhje, or lidhjet is the plural form, denotes a ‘relationship and mutual dependency between persons, things or events; family connection by blood or other family relationships; close relationships between two or more persons that work together or share similar ideas and aims; lidhjet also relate to strong and/or weak networks; and connection of interests’ (Albanian Language Dictionary online). Most connotations of the noun lidhjet in the colloquial speech refer to an informal exchange of favours and benefits with particular actors referred as ‘people one knows’ (të njofshëm) with a purpose to ensure specific outcomes by circumventing formal rules. Lidhjet are not specific to Kosovo. Lidhjet are widely present in other contexts of Southeast Europe, such štele in Bosnia and Herzegovina (Brković 2019), vruzki in Bulgaria (Chavdarova 2013 quoted in Otten 2019), vrski in North Macedonia (Otten 2019), and veze in Serbia (Stanojević and Stokanić 2019), and beyond.
As a particular form of sociality, in Kosovo lidhjet constitute an informal practice, underpin a social norm of reciprocity and embody a culture that centres on the use of ties and personal connections to get things done. Lidhjet presuppose specific actors – ‘të njofshëm’ – equipped with informal power to circumvent formal rules related to satisfying the most mundane life needs, such as making a medical appointment, as well as to securing employment opportunities, especially in the public sector. Even where lidhjet are temporal and aim at a particular need at present, it implies indebtedness and repayment in the future. Lidhjet are embedded in social norms, solidarity and reciprocity, as well as in the reliance on kinship and social networks to find solutions to everyday issues Kosovo citizens face. Similar to the neighbouring countries, Kosovo’s lidhjet are considered crucial to get things done (Krasniqi et al. 2020). According to the INFORM 2017 survey – part of the European Union Horizon 2020 research project entitled ‘Closing the Gap between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans’, with national representative samples conducted through face-to-face interviews with around 6,000 respondents: 900 in Albania; 1,200 in Bosnia and Herzegovina; 1,000 in North Macedonia; 900 in Kosovo; 800 in Montenegro; and 1,100 in Serbia – 70 per cent of Kosovars rely on important people with lidhjet when faced with issues in everyday life. Moreover, research has shown that lidhjet can assist with issues including healthcare, the judicial system, the police, education, and employment (INFORM Survey 2017, https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/funded-research-projects/inform/inform-research).
Lidhjet have grown out of a strong culture of reliance on family and kinship ties. In Kosovo, the family is the most trusted institution, relatives enjoy high levels of trust, thus making kinship relations conducive of lidhjet. The INFORM research reveals that it is the family that serves as the main mediator in finding lidhjet when seeking employment, access to education, navigating the judiciary, as well as access to health and social services. Informality embedded in lidhjet play a key role in maintaining the social fabric of Kosovar society and its ideals of family and kinship relations. The centrality of the family in lidhjet not only shows that Kosovo is bound together by intimate social and cultural ties but also highlights how family relations permeate and shape formal institutions.
Through solidarity and reliance on kinship and social networks, lidhjet stand in the way of the top-down reforms and may oppose the state, but they are also entangled with political structures and actors in a more complex way. Indeed, lidhjet function through a pervasive system of reciprocal exchanges that may be private and personal on the one hand, but also political, on the other. While the moral cause of reciprocity is the driving force behind lidhjet, mainly rooted in kinship relations, at some point lidhjet are bound to become entangled with political power. The INFORM research data has indicated that in addition to family and kinship, lidhjet are closely related to political actors.
Hence, lidhjet are a manifestation of the ‘micropolitics of cliques’ (Böröcz 2000:353) and an instrument for the consolidation of formal political power. The pursuit of lidhjet by Kosovars therefore, is not only a response to bureaucratic and often inefficient formal institutions, but also a system of favours and rewards premised on kin-based relations and political networks. Lidhjet have political implications and a profound impact on the distribution of rights in the society, undermining the credibility and viability of formal institutions. The prevalence of lidhjet suggests that in order to chart where real power resides one has to look not at official channels and formal rules, but towards informal networks and actors.
References
Albanian Language Dictionary. Available online: https://fjalorthi.com/lidhje
Brković, Č. 2019. Štela (Bosnia and Herzegovina). In The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality Online. Available online: https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Štela_(Bosnia_and_Herzegovina)
Böröcz, J. 2000. Informality Rules, East European Politics and Societies, 14:348-80
Chavdarova, T. 2013. Institutionalisation of Market Order and Re-institutionalisation of Vruzki (Connections) in Bulgaria’, in Giordano, C. and N. Hayoz (eds.), Informality in Eastern Europe. Structures, Political Cultures and Social Practices. Bern: Peter Lang: 9–196
Inform Survey. 2017. Inform: Closing the Gap between Formal and Informal Institutions in the Balkans. https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ssees/research/funded-research-projects/inform/home.html
Jusufi, S. 2019. Familja e partia para shtetit [Family and party before the state], Koha Ditore, 7 April 2019. Available at https://www.koha.net/arberi/155316/familja-e-partia-para-shtetit/
Krasniqi, V., Papa-Pandelejmoni, E., Hysa, A. and Kera, G. 2020. Informality and Everyday Life: How ‘Things Get Done’ in Contemporary Western Balkan Societies, in E. Gordy and A. Efendić (eds.), Meaningful Reform in the Western Balkans: Between Formal Institutions and Informal Practices. Bern. Peter Lang: 133–147
Otten, J. 2019.Vrski (Macedonia). In The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality Online. Available online: https://in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Vrski_(Macedonia)
Stanojević, D. and Stokanić, D. 2019. Veza (Serbia and the Balkans). In The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality Online. Available online:https://www.informality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Veza_(Serbia_and_the_Balkans)