Authors

Gian Marco Moise³; Madina Gazieva³; Eugenia Pesci²; Piotr Majda¹; Malika Toqmadi¹;  ¹ UCL SSEES, UK;  ² Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki, Finland;  ³ Dublin City University, Ireland

Discussion

Conceptualising informality requires a perspective which goes beyond normative, or dichotomous labels of “corrupt” or “transparent” or simply “good” or “bad”. Its nebulous nature, as recognised by scholars, renders it hard to define and naturally, hard to address. Regardless, some of its aspects have been subject of consensus; that, among others, informality exists in the presence of formal rules and that its selective use can be a source of both survival or abuse.

Recognising the above, this roundtable discusses the multifaceted issue of informal governance in the former socialist Republics. Madina Gazieva will present her investigations on the relationship between informal governance and the inequality of access to irrigation water among household and private farmers in Uzbekistan. This will be followed by Eugenia Pesci look at  how the interplay of formal rules and informal practices shape the implementation of labour market policies, with a focus on the delivery of services for the unemployed in Russia and Central Asia. Piotr Majda will demonstrate endeavours to decipher and identify the workings of sistema in Russia, a network-based system of informal governance on the example of Sverdlovsk oblast. Finally, Malika Toqmadi will discuss the change of corruption norms influenced by study-abroad programmes, by looking at the Bolashak international scholarship programme funded since 1993 by the government of Kazakhstan.