Comparative Analyses

Informality in Ukraine and beyond: one name, different flavours...with a cheer for the Global Encyclopaedia of Informality

By Abel Polese, Dublin City University, Ireland

In the essay, Abel Polese proposes a framework for classifying informal practices according to the context within which they are set: informal governance, shadow economy, informal payments and policy-making.

Informality and the social orders of access: the cases of dirt book and kompromat

By Giulio Benedetti, School of Slavonic and East European Studies, UCL

The essay engages with Douglas North's idea of open- and limited-access societies and through a comparison of internal dynamics in elite groups developed through the dirt book and kompromat practices, challenges North's proposition.

Why compare informal practices around the world?

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