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Shadow Elite: How the World's New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market
It can feel like we’re swimming in a sea of corruption. It’s unclear who exactly is in charge and what role they play. The same influential people seem to reappear time after time in different professional guises, pressing their own agendas in one venue after another. According to award-winning public policy scholar and anthropologist Janine Wedel, these are the powerful “shadow elite,” the main players in a vexing new system of power and influence.
In this groundbreaking book, Wedel charts how this shadow elite, loyal only to their own, challenge both governments’ rules of accountability and business codes of competition to accomplish their own goals. From the Harvard economists who helped privatize post-Soviet Russia and the neoconservatives who have helped privatize American foreign policy (culminating with the debacle that is Iraq) to the many private players who daily make public decisions without public input, these manipulators both grace the front pages and operate behind the scenes. Wherever they maneuver, they flout once-sacrosanct boundaries between state and private.
Profoundly original, Shadow Elite gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive players and comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our ability for self-government and our freedom are at stake.
In this groundbreaking book, Wedel charts how this shadow elite, loyal only to their own, challenge both governments’ rules of accountability and business codes of competition to accomplish their own goals. From the Harvard economists who helped privatize post-Soviet Russia and the neoconservatives who have helped privatize American foreign policy (culminating with the debacle that is Iraq) to the many private players who daily make public decisions without public input, these manipulators both grace the front pages and operate behind the scenes. Wherever they maneuver, they flout once-sacrosanct boundaries between state and private.
Profoundly original, Shadow Elite gives us the tools we need to recognize these powerful yet elusive players and comprehend the new system. Nothing less than our ability for self-government and our freedom are at stake.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
23 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
May 4, 2010
I found this book to be unfortunately written in a style that was boring me to tears. I think she has an interesting story to tell, but she is not a good story teller. Central themes were repeated over and over again (I got it the 3rd time!). I also would have preferred less obvious bias. The facts speak strongly themselves without editorializing.
Would have been better as a magazine article series.
Would have been better as a magazine article series.
January 21, 2019
Capitalism is marked by abstract domination rather than the personal domination Wendel portrays. She enforces a conspiratorial worldview which is improductive in best case and dangerous most likely. She believes in some for of impartial or non-ideological government that has little historical factuality except for the bureaucratic fantasies of Weber. Even as an anthropological piece its not very good, being heavy on secondary sources and journalism rather than the authors actual fieldwork.
December 16, 2014
Janine Wedel's 2nd-most-recent book builds on, benefits from, and broadens her previous work: as time passes, the phenomena she's been observing since early-'80s pre-Solidarity Poland has grown into new, boundary-eroding shapes heretofore neither necessary, nor possible. NGOs [Non-Governmental Organizations, a commonplace acronym in influential circles which receives little traffic in mainstream media] seem to inhabit some shadow world of neither-here-nor-there — proliferating so much these days, it's an open-and-needing-monitoring question as to where nation-states, multinational corporations, and the NGO's themselves start and leave off.
Wedel's elucidation of the "flexian" — a world-stage actor who plays several roles simultaneously, in a manner born out of what might be considered, initially, career insuance or risk-management — broaches new questions about whose agency is serving which master, and further, how easy it would be to discern, at any one point in time, the selfsame goals and priorities without an ongoing scorecard and healthy amount of educated guessing.
This book is pleasant and engaging as a piece of writing, but more-than-worrisome in its implications: the more Professor Wedel endeavors to detail the contours of this new world which has been forming without transparency and public oversight for decades, the more it seems to slip from all our grasps, already formed, and forming still, while we sleep, unconsulted in the matter.
Wedel's elucidation of the "flexian" — a world-stage actor who plays several roles simultaneously, in a manner born out of what might be considered, initially, career insuance or risk-management — broaches new questions about whose agency is serving which master, and further, how easy it would be to discern, at any one point in time, the selfsame goals and priorities without an ongoing scorecard and healthy amount of educated guessing.
This book is pleasant and engaging as a piece of writing, but more-than-worrisome in its implications: the more Professor Wedel endeavors to detail the contours of this new world which has been forming without transparency and public oversight for decades, the more it seems to slip from all our grasps, already formed, and forming still, while we sleep, unconsulted in the matter.
October 10, 2016
This was a frustrating book. At moments, it's engaging, sometimes infuriating, when Wedel outlines some of the shadier aspects of governments that you assume exist, but are still outraged when it's laid out in well-documented black and white. She relates personal experiences that perfectly illustrate some of her arguments. The highlights are sporadic as the rest of the book is weighed down by very dry info dumps that aren't always explained clearly. I appreciated the obvious amount of research and work that went into the subjects she covers, but I wish all the points had a clearer narrative. This felt like it was in need of a really good edit to tip it into the category of an enjoyable read.
January 17, 2017
Theory & History
Although this book does neither does History nor Theory well, it offers a very powerful perspective which describes the origins and motivations of the power structures which have motivated and facilitated extremely significant world historical events in the past 25 years.
Although this book does neither does History nor Theory well, it offers a very powerful perspective which describes the origins and motivations of the power structures which have motivated and facilitated extremely significant world historical events in the past 25 years.
August 10, 2011
If you don't watch Fox News, you already know everything in this book. If you do watch Fox News, you'll never care about this book. All and all, this work is nothing more than a muddled recap of events almost everyone who pays attention already knows. There is little point in reading this book.
June 26, 2011
Interesting subject, but such a boring book
January 1, 2016
Fascinating topic presented in a dull and self-promoting style. Frequently lacking specifics, obsessed with trying to promote new buzzwords.
January 7, 2022
She does a very detailed structured and flowing explanation of the merry go round players in high power positions. This was a discovery/unexpected topic of focus the author found while following other research roads. Very well sourced. As a self declared conspiracy porn connoisseur I found this NOT to be that genre, despite the title. Great book.
April 14, 2024
Interesting work on the movers and shakers behind the scenes from the Nixon administration to the present.
January 3, 2026
Foreshadows present-day world-wide corruption. Seems quaint now.
January 4, 2010
The author did a good job of explaining this new breed of "players" who 'toy with official rules and not only get away with it, but often make decisions about policies that affect us all---in areas ranging from the economy and foreign affairs to government and society---while fashioning new rules of the game to benefit themselves.'
This is about people in power who have their "own" agenda, and get involved in many organizations and then blur the lines of who they are representing when they act, and bring up the question of, are they even representing anyone or anything at all, or just THEMSELVES?
Quotes:
The new system of power and influence and the players who thrive in it have transformed our world. The consequences are well illustrated by the global economic meltdown that became incontrovertible in the fall of 2008. At the root of the crisis and the heart of the new system is a decline in loyalty to institutions. This decline is reflected in the proliferation of players who swoop in and out of the organizations with which they are affiliated---who operate in them, but are not of them---and create "coincidences of interest" that serve their own goals at the expense of their organizations and the public. The greed that Wall Street high fliers symlpolize is merely an egregious expression of such lack of loyalty and disdain for the public good---outcomes fo the four transformational developments at work. ... In such a moral universe, ehtics becomes a matter of individual choice, with the only real control being social pressure exerted by the network. Ethics are
disconnected from a larger public or community and detached from the authority that states and international organizations, boards of directors, and even shareholders once provided. With the players removed from the input and visibility of these institutions, not to mention that of voters, the consequences to the public are multiple and serious.
Moreover, few have the power and influence to bring the new players of power and influence to light. The authority of journalisn is waning. Investigative reporting is dying a swift death, as the institution of journalism itself undergoes massive gutting, newspapers fold right and left, and dwindling resources are available for investigative reporting of the kind that enabled the Washington Post to break the Watergate story. To make matters worse, flexians and their networks are skilled at warding off efforts to illumunate thier methods or activities. They respond immediately and aggressively to criticism by putting out their own stories, attacking the messenger, and enlisting all possible allies in the antimessenger campaign to highlight their integrity and good works.
The flexians' success is greatly enhanced by the fact that no one is minding the store as a whole---even as we can't answer the most basic of questions: Who does the player represent, who are his associates and sponsors, and with whom is he affiliated? Where do his loyalties lie and to whom is he ultimately answerable? when these questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer for so many of today's influencers, it follows that the prevailing means of keeping them in check are outmoded.
The rise of the shadow elite warrants revisiting age-old thinking on corruption. In the New Testament, the author of the Gospel of Matthew wrote, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other". (Matthew 6:24) This is corruption at its most basic---a violation of public trust. Flexians and flex nets pursue the ends of their own idealogical masters, which often contradict the other masters they supposedly serve. The challenge for policymakers and readers, not that the problem has been laid out and the animal named, is to work toward recovering that public trust.
This is about people in power who have their "own" agenda, and get involved in many organizations and then blur the lines of who they are representing when they act, and bring up the question of, are they even representing anyone or anything at all, or just THEMSELVES?
Quotes:
The new system of power and influence and the players who thrive in it have transformed our world. The consequences are well illustrated by the global economic meltdown that became incontrovertible in the fall of 2008. At the root of the crisis and the heart of the new system is a decline in loyalty to institutions. This decline is reflected in the proliferation of players who swoop in and out of the organizations with which they are affiliated---who operate in them, but are not of them---and create "coincidences of interest" that serve their own goals at the expense of their organizations and the public. The greed that Wall Street high fliers symlpolize is merely an egregious expression of such lack of loyalty and disdain for the public good---outcomes fo the four transformational developments at work. ... In such a moral universe, ehtics becomes a matter of individual choice, with the only real control being social pressure exerted by the network. Ethics are
disconnected from a larger public or community and detached from the authority that states and international organizations, boards of directors, and even shareholders once provided. With the players removed from the input and visibility of these institutions, not to mention that of voters, the consequences to the public are multiple and serious.
Moreover, few have the power and influence to bring the new players of power and influence to light. The authority of journalisn is waning. Investigative reporting is dying a swift death, as the institution of journalism itself undergoes massive gutting, newspapers fold right and left, and dwindling resources are available for investigative reporting of the kind that enabled the Washington Post to break the Watergate story. To make matters worse, flexians and their networks are skilled at warding off efforts to illumunate thier methods or activities. They respond immediately and aggressively to criticism by putting out their own stories, attacking the messenger, and enlisting all possible allies in the antimessenger campaign to highlight their integrity and good works.
The flexians' success is greatly enhanced by the fact that no one is minding the store as a whole---even as we can't answer the most basic of questions: Who does the player represent, who are his associates and sponsors, and with whom is he affiliated? Where do his loyalties lie and to whom is he ultimately answerable? when these questions are difficult, if not impossible, to answer for so many of today's influencers, it follows that the prevailing means of keeping them in check are outmoded.
The rise of the shadow elite warrants revisiting age-old thinking on corruption. In the New Testament, the author of the Gospel of Matthew wrote, "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other". (Matthew 6:24) This is corruption at its most basic---a violation of public trust. Flexians and flex nets pursue the ends of their own idealogical masters, which often contradict the other masters they supposedly serve. The challenge for policymakers and readers, not that the problem has been laid out and the animal named, is to work toward recovering that public trust.
September 24, 2013
This study is commendable for shining light on a critical development: the concentration of power on small networks and cliques of people operating in and between government, business, law, security agencies, the military and the media. Using their connections, sharing information and pooling resources within the networks they can greatly influence policy planning and implementation and reap personal rewards while remaining outside of public scrutiny and without any meaningful accountability. Anyone wondering how key operators in government and corporate world during the Clinton, Bush and Obama administrations have been able to get away with a series of offenses, violations and conflicts of interests with impunity should read this book.
After sketching some of the structural transformations that have made public policy increasingly vulnerable to the influence of private interests in recent decades, Wedel concentrates on a few meticulously documented case studies – including the USAID funded program to design Russia's transition to market economy and concurrent privatisations in the 1990s, as well as the neocon core's push for the Iraq war in early 2000s – to illustrate the operation of such networks. Unfortunately, the case studies amount to little more than detailed descriptions of the different boards, committees, task forces and think tanks which members of the networks occupy, as well as narrations of individual abuses of power and influence that have since been exposed by the press. The investigative narrative style of these accounts combines elements of investigative journalism with academic research but makes them a rather exhausting and unsurprising read.
More disappointingly, as an academic study Shadow Elite fails to connect its findings, and especially the larger phenomenon under study, to previous research in the fields of political and social sciences. Wedel does not discuss the implications of her argument for theories of power and networks, for instance. Instead of entering a debate with social theory she prefers to name her objects of study on her own terms, presenting such concepts as 'flexians' and 'flexnets' and analysing them through four core characteristics that seemingly emerge out of nowhere. This is hardly convincing as academic theorising.
After sketching some of the structural transformations that have made public policy increasingly vulnerable to the influence of private interests in recent decades, Wedel concentrates on a few meticulously documented case studies – including the USAID funded program to design Russia's transition to market economy and concurrent privatisations in the 1990s, as well as the neocon core's push for the Iraq war in early 2000s – to illustrate the operation of such networks. Unfortunately, the case studies amount to little more than detailed descriptions of the different boards, committees, task forces and think tanks which members of the networks occupy, as well as narrations of individual abuses of power and influence that have since been exposed by the press. The investigative narrative style of these accounts combines elements of investigative journalism with academic research but makes them a rather exhausting and unsurprising read.
More disappointingly, as an academic study Shadow Elite fails to connect its findings, and especially the larger phenomenon under study, to previous research in the fields of political and social sciences. Wedel does not discuss the implications of her argument for theories of power and networks, for instance. Instead of entering a debate with social theory she prefers to name her objects of study on her own terms, presenting such concepts as 'flexians' and 'flexnets' and analysing them through four core characteristics that seemingly emerge out of nowhere. This is hardly convincing as academic theorising.
February 19, 2016
I think Wedel does a good job at describing who the flexians are and what flex nets are in her book. She provided some example to back up her claims and did repeat to tell the reader "Hey, we talked about this in Ch.4, so I am reminding you for the 4th time". I feel she should of added more depth to her book because 205 pages isn't enough for the subject at hand. I enjoyed what I learned from this author. I previously learned about transnational institutions, Liberal institutionalism, Casino Capitalism, Hegemony, realpolitik, social constructionism, and many more International Political Economy theories at my college, so it is nice to extend that knowledge.
December 29, 2015
Well researched, scary and a bit depressing.
A good book that shows the power of self ingratiating elites that circumvent democracy. The book leaves you wondering if these elites are only out for themselves what future do we have. Be very skeptical of any TV pundit even if they sound very rational and what advocacy they are pushing.
A good book that shows the power of self ingratiating elites that circumvent democracy. The book leaves you wondering if these elites are only out for themselves what future do we have. Be very skeptical of any TV pundit even if they sound very rational and what advocacy they are pushing.
June 9, 2014
An examination of the unseen forces and powers behind government and business and how they effect the political and economic actions influcing our lives without having official standing or accountability. A must read.
Want to read
September 6, 2010This is the first book from the new HuffPost Book Club.
June 18, 2015
Interesting book...Neo-cons and Flex-nets
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews