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What is context in the analysis of formal–informal interaction is a ques- tion that calls for the gestalt principles of figure-ground and symmetry. If one focuses on formal institutions, informal institutions, networks and practices constitute the background, or context, within which the work- ings of formal institutions unfold against the interplay of historical, cul- tural, social and interpersonal factors. However, when the focus shifts to hidden, under-researched or unarticulated informal practices, that is, informality, formal frameworks (legal, bureaucratic, official) themselves can be perceived as contextual. Mastering the contexts and acquiring skills of context sensitivity can be achieved by comparative analysis of the complex interplay of the formal and informal in each of the compared cases and an assessment of the similarity/difference of all constituents in the formal–informal interaction.
What is context in the analysis of formal–informal interaction is a ques- tion that calls for the gestalt principles of figure-ground and symmetry. If one focuses on formal institutions, informal institutions, networks and practices constitute the background, or context, within which the work- ings of formal institutions unfold against the interplay of historical, cul- tural, social and interpersonal factors. However, when the focus shifts to hidden, under-researched or unarticulated informal practices, that is, informality, formal frameworks (legal, bureaucratic, official) themselves can be perceived as contextual. Mastering the contexts and acquiring skills of context sensitivity can be achieved by comparative analysis of the complex interplay of the formal and informal in each of the compared cases and an assessment of the similarity/difference of all constituents in the formal–informal interaction.


For example, a comparative study of blat in Russia and guanxi in China not only highlighted similarities and differences in the functional- ity of seemingly parallel practices, in their formal frameworks and their transformations, but also pointed to the complex interplay between for- mal and informal (Ledeneva 2008). A comparative study of informal institutions, networks and practices in Russia and China led to the con- clusion that even when focusing on the informal its formal counterpart is part and parcel of the comparative analysis. The symmetry principle means that the reverse is also true.
For example, a comparative study of [[blat]] in Russia and [[guanxi]] in China not only highlighted similarities and differences in the functional- ity of seemingly parallel practices, in their formal frameworks and their transformations, but also pointed to the complex interplay between for- mal and informal (Ledeneva 2008). A comparative study of informal institutions, networks and practices in Russia and China led to the con- clusion that even when focusing on the informal its formal counterpart is part and parcel of the comparative analysis. The symmetry principle means that the reverse is also true.


Switching between figure and background allows us to navigate the grey zones between sociability and instrumentality in relationships, between need and greed in corrupt exchanges, between us and them in applying double standards and between private and public in double motives.
Switching between figure and background allows us to navigate the grey zones between sociability and instrumentality in relationships, between need and greed in corrupt exchanges, between us and them in applying double standards and between private and public in double motives.
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==The method of knowing smiles==
==Bibliography==
If Foucault’s ''Order of Things'' started from laughter, this encyclopaedia has grown out of a
* Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S. and Robinson, J. A. 2001. ‘The Colonial Origins of Comparative Development: An Empirical Investigation’. The American Economic Review 91(5): 1369–401.
knowing smile – the smile of acknowledgement of an open secret about how things work.
*
Informal practices escape regular attention by being the most routine aspect of societies’
* Acemoglu, D., Johnson, S. and Robinson, J. A. 2002. ‘Reversal of Fortune: Geography and Institutions in the Making of the Modern World Income Distribution’. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 117(4): 1231–94.
social and cultural lives<ref name="led11">Ledeneva, A. 2011. ‘Open Secrets and Knowing Smiles’. East European Politics and Society
*
25(4): 720–36.</ref>. Similar to Hannah Arendt’s formula of the
* Ahn, T. K. and Ostrom, E. 2002. ‘Social Capital and The Second-Generation Theories of Collective Action: An Analytical Approach to the Forms of Social Capital’. Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association. Available online. www.researchgate.net/profile/T-Ahn/publication/ 239561534_ SO CIAL _ CAPITAL _ AND _ THE _ SECOND- GENERATION_ THEORIES_ OF_ COLLECTIVE_ACTION_AN_ANALYTICAL_APPROACH_TO_THE_FORMS_OF_ SOCIAL_ CAPITAL/links/00b495314b340c8bfa000000/SOCIAL-CAPITAL-AND-THE-SECOND-GEN
‘banality of evil’, it is the banality of informality that causes informal practices to be taken
*
for granted by insiders and to remain unnoticed by outsiders. These are everyday practices
* Baez-Camargo, C. and Ledeneva, A. 2017. ‘Where Does Informality Stop and Corruption Begin? Informal Governance and The Public/Private Crossover in Mexico, Russia and Tanzania’. Slavonic & East European Review 95(1): 49–75.
associated with patronage, nepotism, favouritism, clientelism as well as the use of social
*
connections to find employment and secure promotions, to influence official decisions, or to
* Barsukova, S. and Denisova-Schmidt, E. 2022. ‘Double Standards as Modus Operandi: Mixing Business and Politics in Russia’. Europe-Asia Studies 74(6): 990–1005.
bypass formal procedures. Yet these practices stay in close proximity to some of the key challenges of
*
the contemporary world – corruption, terrorism, illegal immigration, trafficking and cyber-
* Bleuler, E. 1914. The Ambivalence. Dedication for the inauguration of the new buildings of the University of Zurich 18 April 1914 (the medical faculty). Zurich: Schulthess & Co.: 95–106.
crime. In other words, micro-practices and patterns of human interdependence often remain under the radar, while shaping large-scale phenomena<ref>Granovetter, M. 1982. ‘The Strength of the Weak Ties: A Network Theory Revisited’. In Social
*
Structure and Network Analysis, edited by P. Marsden and N. Lin, 105–30. London: Sage.</ref><ref>Tilly, C. 2005. Trust and Rule. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref>. Such practices channel personal interest but also facilitate the resilience capacity in the
* Bunce, V. 1999. Subversive Institutions: The Design and the Destruction of Socialism and the State.
world – its default ''modus operandi''.
*
 
* New York: Cambridge University Press.
It is often assumed that the hidden nature of informal practices makes them difficult
*
and even dangerous to research. Yet where there is a will, there is a way: in studying
* Burke, P. 2020. The Polymath. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.
sensitive subjects associated with informal institutions, networks and practices, researchers
*
encounter not only unwelcoming attitudes from respondents, but also methodological
* Butts, C. T. 2008. ‘Social Network Analysis with SNA’. Journal of Statistical Software 24: 1–51. Byrne, D. and Callaghan, G. 2014. Complexity and the Social Sciences: The State of the Art.
challenges associated with measurability and comparability, as well as pressures to move
* Abingdon: Routledge.
beyond disciplinary borders. And yet, research into informal practices is a growing field<ref>Polese, A. and Rodgers, P. (eds) (2011). ‘Surviving Post-Socialism: The Role of Informal Economic Practices’. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy 31 (11/12): 612–18.</ref><ref>Giordano, C. and Hayoz, N. (eds) 2013. Informality in Eastern Europe: Structures, Political Cultures and Social Practices (Interdisciplinary Studies on Central and Eastern Europe). Bern: Peter Lang AG, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften.</ref><ref>Kubik, J. and Lynch. A. (eds) 2013. Postcommunism from Within: Social Justice, Mobilization, and Hegemony. New York: New York University Press.</ref><ref>Zigon, J. (ed.) 2013. Multiple Moralities and Religions in Post-Soviet Russia. Oxford: Berghahn Books.</ref><ref name="mp">Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds) 2015. The Informal Post-Socialist Economy: Practices, Institutions and Networks. London: Palgrave Macmillan.</ref><ref>Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. 2017. Economies of Favours After Socialism: A Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.</ref>.
*
 
* Carothers, T. 2002. ‘The End of the Transition Paradigm’. Journal of Democracy 13(1): 5–21. Castellani, B. 2014. ‘Complexity and the Failure of Quantitative Social Science’. Focus 14.
Every entry in this collection has its own methodology and disciplinary grounding.
* Christiansen, T. and Piattoni, S. (eds) 2003. Informal Governance in the European Union.
The conceptual entries – introductions and conclusions to the clusters – offer methodological
*
insights and generalisation, but the Global Informality Project overall addresses the following
* Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.
methodological puzzles: how to trace practices that are elusive, how to overcome the
*
limitations of disciplinary perspectives and border-bound area studies. As Gerald Mars notes
* Christiansen, T. and Neuhold, C. (eds) 2012. International Handbook on Informal Governance.
in his [[Methods_of_researching_part-time_crime_and_illicit_economic_activity|conclusion to Chapter 6]], practising fiddlers tend to act covertly, thereby creating an
*
area of research most of which is not open to direct enquiry. Before any research on part-time
* Northampton: Edward Elgar Publishing.
crime can proceed, it is vital to suspend (without necessarily abandoning) one’s own moral
*
standpoint: impartial understandings can be achieved only if, like anthropologists, one lays
* Cianetti, L., Dawson, J. and Hanley, S. (eds) 2020. Rethinking ‘Democratic Backsliding’ in Central and Eastern Europe. Abingdon: Routledge.
one’s own values aside. Only then can the field be assessed from the standpoint of the actors
* Coyne, R. 2020. Reframing the Masters of Suspicion: Marx, Nietzsche, and Freud. London: Bloomsbury.
involved.
* 
 
* Douarin, E. and Havrylyshyn, O. (eds) 2021. The Palgrave Handbook of Comparative Economics. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
My own ethnographic work started with the puzzle of distinguishing friendship from
*
''[[blat]]'' (use of friendship). I tried to draw a line between the relationship and the use of the
* Duncan, P. J. and Schimpfössl, E. 2019. Socialism, Capitalism and Alternatives: Area Studies and Global Theories. London: UCL Press.
relationship, but stumbled instead upon grey zones, varying significantly depending on
*
whether the relationship was best defined by regime of affection, regime of status, or regime
* Edmondson, A. C. 2012. Teaming: How Organisations Learn, Innovate and Compete in the Knowledge Economy. San Francisco: John Wiley & Sons.
of equivalence, on what kind of favours were involved, at whose expense and in which
*
context<ref name="led98">Ledeneva, A. 1998. Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange, Chapter 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref>. With time, it became possible to identify, articulate,
* Geertz, C. 1990. ‘History and Anthropology’. New Literary History 21(2): 321–35.
measure and compare blat practices in Russia<ref>Ledeneva, A. 2008. ‘Blat and [[Guanxi]]: Comparative Analysis of Informal Practices in Russia and China’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 50(1): 118–41.</ref>, and to explore sensitive
*
subjects and open secrets by the method of knowing smiles in other societies<ref name="led11" />.
* Gel’man, V. 2017. ‘Political Foundations of Bad Governance in Post-Soviet Eurasia: Towards a Research Agenda’. East European Politics 33(4): 496–516.
 
*
Knowing smiles are partly about smiling, partly about knowing. Knowing open
* Gerlach, P., Teodorescu, K. and Hertwig, R. 2019. ‘The Truth about Lies: A Meta-Analysis on Dishonest Behavior’. Psychological Bulletin 145( 1): 1.
secrets is partly about knowing, partly also about not knowing and not questioning. It is a
*
sign of awareness of transgression but also of recognition that it does not need to be spelt out.
* Gerxhani, K. 2004. ‘The Informal Sector in Developed and Less Developed Countries: A Literature Survey’. Public Choice 120(3): 267–300.
Masked hostility—expressed through ribbing—towards the researcher ‘daring’ to articulate
*  
this is indicative of these tensions. The semi-taboos against knowing, the complicity to leave
* Gill, G. 2023. Routledge Handbook of Russian Politics and Society. 2nd ed. 410–23.
things unarticulated, the ambiguities hidden behind open secrets are all pointers to sensitive
*  
subjects that invite innovative research.
* Giordano, C. and Hayoz, N. (eds) 2013. Informality in Eastern Europe: Structures, Political Cultures and Social Practices. New York: Peter Lang.
 
*  
The Global Informality Project open call included an invitation to participate in such
* Goffman, E. 2002 [1959]. The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. New York: Garden City. Granovetter, M. S. 1973. ‘The Strength of Weak Ties’. American Journal of Sociology 78(6): 1360–80. Hale, H. E. 2014. Patronal Politics: Eurasian Regime Dynamics in Comparative Perspective.
an innovative endeavour and to contribute a short authored entry to the first ''Global''
*
''Encyclopaedia of Informality'' (1,500 words including bibliography). Each entry focuses on a
* New York: Cambridge University Press.
single practice (under its colloquial name) and includes at least some of the following:
*
 
* Hale, H. E. 2019. ‘The Continuing Evolution of Russia’s Political System’. Developments in Russian Politics 9: 261–76.
* Name, definition, etymology and its translation into other languages
*
* How widely is it used?
* Harari, Y. N. 2018. 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. Random House.
* In which countries/regions/sectors is it found?
*
* Identify analogous practices, named differently in different countries (if possible).
* Hart, K. 1973. ‘Informal Income Opportunities and Urban Employment in Ghana’. The Journal of Modern African Studies 11(1): 61–89.
* How does it relate to other informal practices (discuss similarities and differences if possible)?
*
* What are the implications of the chosen practice for politics/economy/society?
* Hart, K. 2009. ‘On the Informal Economy: The Political History of an Ethnographic Concept’. CEB Working Paper 09/042.
* Which method was or can be used for researching this practice?
*
* Give examples of this practice.
* Helmke, G. and Levitsky, S. 2004. ‘Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda’. Perspectives on Politics 2(4): 725–40.
* How can the practice be measured?
*
* How does it develop and migrate?
* Helmke, G. and Levitsky, S. (eds) 2006. Informal Institutions and Democracy: Lessons from Latin America. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.
* Which channels are currently available to policy makers to integrate expertise on informality?
*
* Cross-reference and recommend reading.
* Henig, D. and Makovicky, N. 2017. Economies of Favour after Socialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 
*
The open secret about informality is the gap between colonial, ideological or global official
* Hodgson, G. M. 2021. ‘Culture and Institutions: A Review of Joel Mokyr’s A Culture of Growth’.
discourses (top-down) and the ways in which things are done or viewed in practice (bottom-
*
up). Exploring that gap between the declared principles (say, the principles of accountability,
* Journal of Institutional Economics: 1–10.
equality, fairness, zero tolerance) and the pragmatic shifts the emphasis to the ways this gap
*
is bridged in specific domains (see ''[[Potemkin_village_(Russia)|Potemkin villages]]''). Highlighting grey zones and
* Horak, S., Afiouni, F., Bian, Y., Ledeneva, A., Muratbekova-Touron, M. and Fey, C. F. 2020. ‘Informal Networks: Dark Sides, Bright Sides, and Unexplored Dimensions’. Management and Organization Review 16(3): 511–42.
blurred boundaries between top-down and bottom-up perspectives points to the key
*
challenges for both researchers and policy-makers. Commonplaces and micro-practices can
* Jay, M. 1973. The Dialectical Imagination: A History of Frankfurt School and the Institute for Social Research 1923–1950. Berkeley: University of California Press.
sometimes reveal profound features of societies that elude us when tackled directly.
*
 
* Keller, A. 2022. Les grands enjeux de notre temps: des défis systémiques [The Great Issues of Our Times]. IPSA, 10 November, www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtOQGDWF9vY.
The method of knowing smiles can be illustrated by Sigmund Freud’s celebrated
*
example of art forgery. To discover whether a painting is a forgery, the most effective way is
* Kennedy, M. D. 2014. Globalising Knowledge: Intellectuals, Universities, and Publics in Transformation. Redwood: Stanford University Press.
to focus on minor details, such as how the painter depicts fingernails or the slope of a thumb.
*
Most forgers can fake the major aspects of what is portrayed—it is the tiny details that give
* Kubik, J. and Linch, A. (eds) 2013. Postcommunism from Within: Social Justice, Mobilization, and Hegemony. Vol. 8. New York: NYU Press.
them away. Freud argued that the same is true of ‘trivial’ aspects of day-to-day life, such as
*
slips of the tongue. The apparently trivial elements are key to understanding core dispositions
* Lauth, H. J. 2000. ‘Informal Institutions and Democracy’. Democratization 7(4): 21–50.
of the personality, and I am making the same argument about the ‘disclosure’ of open secrets
*
that the knowing smile represents – in Freud’s words, ‘secrets that we all know and the
* Ledeneva, A. 2008. ‘Blat and Guanxi: Informal Practices in Russia and China’. Comparative Studies in Society and History 50(1): 118–44.
knowledge of which we always try to conceal from one another’<ref>Freud, S. 1892–3. ‘A Case of Successful Treatment by Hypnotism: With Some Remarks on the Origin of Hysterical Symptoms Through “Counter-Will”’. In The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Words of Sigmund Freud (Volume 1), edited by J. Strachey, 123. London: Hogarth Press.</ref>.
*
 
* Ledeneva, A. 2010. ‘Créer des ponts entre les disciplines. Institutions, réseaux, pratiques’ [Bridging Disciplines: Institutions, Networks and Practices]. In Les Paradoxes de l’Économie Informelle. A Qui Profitent les Règles?, edited by L. Fontaine and F. Weber. Paris: Editions Karthala.
In developing this point, our authors draw upon a variety of ‘masters of
*
suspicion’—Freud, Karl Marx, Friedrich Nietzsche, Erving Goffman, Georg Simmel, Marcel
* Ledeneva, A. 2013. Russia’s Practical Norms and Informal Governance: The Origins of Endemic Corruption. Social Research: An International Quarterly 80(4): 1135–62.
Mauss, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu—and seek to bring their insights together in
*
revealing daily routines that can be branded as societies’ open secrets, commonly smiled at
* Ledeneva, A., Bailey, A., Barron, S., Curro, C. and Teague, E. (eds) 2018. The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality: Towards Understanding of Social and Cultural Complexity, Volumes 1–2. London: UCL Press.
knowingly when brought up in a conversation. So far, neither knowing smiles nor open
*
secrets have been analysed in a comparative way, so this encyclopaedia provides a unique
* Magyar, B. and Madlovics, B. 2020. The Anatomy of Post-Communist Regimes: A Conceptual Framework. Budapest: Central European University Press.
opportunity to 'compare the incomparable', or at least see them in various contexts.
*
 
* Marinaro, I. C. 2022. Inhabiting Liminal Spaces: Informalities in Governance, Housing, and Economic Activity in Contemporary Italy. Abingdon: Routledge.
==Main (ambivalent) findings==
*
===Informality is fringy but central===
* Marková, I. 2002. ‘Thinking and Antinomies’. In Dialogicality and Thinking, the Dynamics of Mind.
The evidence assembled in the project shows that
*
informality matters in the workings of modern societies. We emphasise the key importance
* Chapter 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(if not predominance) of informality in the world, its variety and complexity, as well as the
*
possibility to identify key patterns used in informal interactions. We have created the first
* Marková, I. 2003. Dialogicality and Social Representations: The Dynamics of Mind. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
world map of informality, where the entries are shown in their local habitat and identified in
*
their language of origin. In the encyclopaedia, however, they are clustered with similar
* Marquette, H. and Peiffer, C. 2015. Corruption and Collective Action. London: DLP Research Paper. Martínez, S. A. V. and Chiodelli, F. 2021. ‘Informal Housing of the Rich: Clustering, Isolating, and
practices from all over the world, and thus are explained in both local and global contexts.
* Concealing in Bogotá, Colombia’. Habitat International: 112.
 
*
===Informality is universal but can be invisible===
* Minbaeva, D. B., Ledeneva, A., Muratbekova-Touron, M. and Horak, S. 2023. ‘Explaining the Persistence of Informal Institutions: The Role of Informal Networks’. Academy of Management Review 48(3): 556–74.
Poverty and development
*
correlate with the scale of informality, and certainly make informal practices more visible.
* Misztal, B. 2002. Informality: Social Theory and Contemporary Practice. Abingdon: Routledge. Morris, J. 2019. ‘The Informal Economy and Post-Socialism: Imbricated Perspectives on Labor, the State, and Social Embeddedness’. Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization 27(1): 9–30.
The more developed societies are, the less visible (and hidden behind the facades of formal
*
institutions) are their informal norms. It is not that informality does not exist in developed
* Morris, J. and Polese, A. (eds) 2013. The Informal Post-socialist Economy: Embedded Practices and Livelihoods. Abingdon: Routledge.
societies, rather that the norms developing in these societies have pushed it out of sight. Such
*
invisibility stems partially from legal norms – informal practices tend to go either under or
* North, D. C. 1990. Institutions, Institutional Change and Economic Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
above the radar of the law – and partially from practical norms – the banality of informality
*
that enables people to engage in behaviour that they do not necessarily find acceptable.
* Ostrom, E. (1998). ‘A Behavioral Approach to the Rational Choice Theory  of  Collective  Action: Presidential Address, American Political Science Association, 1997’. American Political Science Review 92(1): 1–22.
 
*
===Informality works but it is elusive===
* Polese, A. 2023 ‘What is Informality? The Art of Bypassing the State in Eurasian Spaces – and Beyond’. Eurasian Geography and Economics 64(3): 322–64.
It is common for people living under the
*
pressure of systemic corruption to point out the effectiveness of peer pressure, solidarities and
* Polese, A., Russo, A. and Strazzari, F. (eds) 2019. Governance Beyond the Law: The Immoral, the Illegal, the Criminal. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
informal shortcuts, both to legitimise the informal ways of getting things done and to
*
euphemise the terms. For the outsiders, their behaviour is an exercise in double standards:
* Polese, A., Urinboyev, R., Svensson, M., Adams, L. and Kerikmäe, T. 2022a. ‘Political vs. Everyday Forms of Governance in Uzbekistan: The Illegal, Immoral, and Illegitimate’. In Informality, Labour Mobility and Precariousness edited by A. Polese, 223–47. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
they criticise corruption, but also engage in corrupt practices routinely. This is the
*
ambivalence that Giorgio Blundo and Jean-Paul Olivier de Sardan have termed ‘an incessant
* Polese, A., Moisé, G. M., Tokyzhanova, T., Aguzzi, T., Kerikmäe, T., Sagynbaeva, A., Sauka, A. and Seliverstova, O. 2022b. ‘Informality versus Shadow Economy: Reflecting on the First Results of a Manager’s Survey in Kyrgyzstan’. Central Asian Survey: 1–22.
alternation between condemnation and tolerance’ while researching the ‘semantic fields of
*
corruption’<ref>Blundo, G. and Olivier de Sardan, J. (eds) 2006. Everyday Corruption and the State: Citizens and
* Pow, C. P. 2017. ‘Elite Informality, Spaces of Exception and the Super-Rich in Singapore’. In Cities and the Super-Rich, edited by R. Forrest, S. Y. Koh and B. Wissink, 223–47. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Public Officials in Africa. London: Zed Books, pgs. 11, 110.</ref>.
*
 
* Putniņš, T. J. and Sauka, A. 2015. ‘Measuring the Shadow Economy using Company Managers’.
===Informal practices are ambivalent but not necessarily hybrid===
*
Forms of
* Journal of Comparative Economics 43(2): 471–90.
ambivalence include: substantive (when transactions are seen as substantially different by
*
participants and observers); normative (i.e.. when others do it – it is wrong, when I do it – it
* Ricoeur, P. 2008 [1970]. Freud and Philosophy: An Essay on Interpretation. Translated by Denis Savage. New Haven: Yale University Press.
is right); functional (informal shortcuts are both a problem (subversive) and a solution
*
(supportive of actors and systems); and motivational (whereby public or private motives are
* Ruml, B. 1930. ‘Recent Trends in Social Science’. In The New Social Science, edited by L. R. White, 99–111. Chicago: University of Chicago.
camouflaged as the opposite). For example, if a gift is seen as a bribe, it does not necessarily
*
become a hybrid entity (a ‘brift,’ if we use Abel Polese’s term), but it remains ambivalent: a
* Scott, J. C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
gift for one and a bribe for another, enabled by the tension it produces. The ambivalent nature
*
of informal practices makes the borders between relationships and the use of relationships,
* Shekshnia, S. and Matveeva, A. 2019a. ‘The Network Leadership (A): Global Informality Project’. Fontainebleau: INSEAD.
between need and greed, between us and them, between public and private easy to cross. In
*
this collection, the ambivalent nature of informal practices becomes articulated in each entry,
* Shekshnia, S. and Matveeva, A. 2019b. ‘The Network Leadership (B): Global Encyclopaedia of Informality’. Fontainebleau: INSEAD.
but also emerges from the clusters of entries that highlight the tensions outlined above.
*
 
* Stuart, E., Samman, E. and Hunt, A. 2018. Informal Is the [[New Normal]]: Improving the Lives of Workers at Risk of being Left Behind. Vol. 530. London: Overseas Development Institute.
===Constraints are disabling but also enabling===
*
The variety and complexity of
* Sunstein, C. R. and Reisch, L. A. 2017. The Economics of Nudge. London: Routledge.
informal practices around the world illustrate not only the creativeness (or non-conformism)
*
of human beings, but also the enabling power of constraints. In other words, just as informal
* Thaler, R. H. and Sunstein, C. R. 2008. Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness. New Haven: Yale University Press.
practices can be viewed as both a problem and a solution, constraints can be seen as both a
*
restriction and a resource. The multiple examples of cross-border activities and non-
* WEF. 2022. ‘Strategic Interactive Maps of Informality’, https://intelligence.weforum.org/topics/ a1G68000000Kzl5EAC
conformist behaviour included in this encyclopaedia substantiate this point. The perspectives
on informality that focus on the subversive impact it has on formal institutions and political
or economic regimes often lead to predictions of the dissipation of informality and the rise of
effective formal institutions<ref>Rothstein, B. and Teorell, J. 2008. ‘What Is Quality of Government? A Theory of Impartial
Government Institutions’. Governance 21(2): 165–90.</ref><ref>Kaufmann, D., Kraay, A. and Mastruzzi, M. 2011. ‘The Worldwide Governance Indicators: Methodology and Analytical Issues’. Hague Journal on the Rule of Law 3(2): 220–46.</ref>.
 
===Informality is context-bound, but the contexts are not necessarily country- or culture-specific===
The literature on informality is grounded in geographical, socio-cultural
and political-economic areas<ref>Lomnitz, L. A. 1988. ‘Informal Exchange Networks in Formal Systems: A Theoretical Model’.
American Anthropologist 90(1): 42–55.</ref><ref>Mandel, R. and Humphrey, C. (eds) 2002. Markets and Moralities: Ethnographies of Postsocialism. Oxford: Berg.</ref><ref>Pardo, I. 2004. Between Morality and the Law: Corruption, Anthropology and Comparative Society. Aldershot: Ashgate.</ref><ref>Olivier de Sardan, J. P. 2015. ‘Africanist Traditionalist Culturalism: Analysis of a Scientific Ideology and a Plea for an Empirically Grounded Concept of Culture Encompassing Practical Norms’. In Real Governance and Practical Norms in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Game of the Rules, edited by T. De Herdt and J. P. Olivier de Sardan, 63–94. London: Routledge.</ref>, with its most
recent peak in post-socialist societies<ref name="led98" /><ref>Ledeneva, A. 2006. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices that Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref><ref>Ledeneva, A. 2013. Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.</ref><ref>Perry, G. E., Maloney, W. F., Arias, O. S., Fajnzylber, P., Mason, A. D. and Saavedra-Chanduvi, J. 2007. Informality: Exit and Exclusion. Washington, DC: The World Bank.</ref><ref>Packard, T., Koettl, J. and Montenegro, C. E. 2012. In From the Shadow: Integrating Europe’s Informal Labor. Washington, DC: The World Bank.</ref><ref name="mp" /><ref>Williams, C. C., Round, J. and Rodgers, P. 2013. The Role of Informal Economies in the Post-Soviet World: The End of Transition? Abingdon: Routledge.</ref><ref>Gatti, R., Angel-Urdinola, D. F., Silva, J. and Bodor, A. 2014. Striving for Better Jobs: The Challenge of Informality in the Middle East and North Africa. Washington, DC: The World Bank.</ref><ref>Polese, A., Morris, J., Kovács, B. and Harboe, I. 2014. ‘ “Welfare States” in Central and Eastern Europe: Where Informality Fits In’. Journal of Contemporary European Studies 22(2): 184–98.</ref><ref>Polese, A., Morris, J. and Kovács, B. 2016. ‘ “States” of Informality in Post-Socialist Europe (and Beyond)’. Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 24(3): 181–90.</ref><ref name="kf" /><ref>Polese, A. 2015. ‘Informality Crusades: Why Informal Practices Are Stigmatized, Fought and Allowed in Different Contexts According to an Apparently Unintelligible Logic’. Caucasus Social Science Review 2(1): 1–26.</ref>. As the [[Are_some_countries_more_informal_than_others|concluding remarks to the
second volume]] show, the question of whether some countries are more informal than others
is not as simple as it seems. A cross-discipline analysis and a ‘network’ perspective are
essential to answer it. We took the case of Russia to illustrate this point. On the one hand,
Russia has a reputation for informality, complexity and unpredictability and, after all, has
been the area of origin for the Global Informality Project. Russia offers a comprehensive range of
practices that can be examined both in historical perspective and in contemporary contexts,
which can only be represented by the multi-disciplinary network of researchers. It would not
be possible to achieve a similar coverage for each country in equal measure in one
publication, but a detailed coverage of one country points to where open secrets might be
found in others. On the other hand, our take on whether some countries are more informal
than others is that one should downplay geographical borders when dealing with informal
patterns (the bottom-up structure of the volume seeks to convey this point). Understanding
informal practices, tensions and paradoxes might be more important for grasping local
contexts than national stereotypes.
 
===The dichotomies present both a problem and a solution for categorisation===
‘Neither–nor’ or ‘both–and’ patterns of ambivalence dwell on dichotomies
but also aim at circumventing them. For example, normative ambivalence, associated with
the double standards embedded in identities, solidarities and the fundamental divide into ‘us’
and ‘them,’ makes it possible to turn constraints into opportunities. In his [[What_is_old_and_what_is_new_in_the_dialectics_of_us_and_them|concluding remarks
to the first volume]], Zygmunt Bauman identifies the implications of the organising forces of
modernity and argues that the divisive nature of dichotomies must give way to a
cosmopolitan mindset in order to confront tendencies toward radicalisation and
fragmentation, driven by divisive identity politics and religious beliefs. It is the potential of
ambivalence that can be integrated into such policy thinking.
 
===Visualising the invisible has proved very difficult===
How does one visualise
something that is supposed to go unseen, unnoticed and undetectable? Most practices in this
Encyclopaedia are hidden from the public eye, shared as an open secret and left unarticulated
or unacknowledged in official discourse. And yet this volume contains pictures. Even if a
photograph can hardly portray a practice or convey the ‘practical sense’ or ‘feel for the game’
associated with informal practices, it nevertheless depicts a particular context and negotiates
the boundary between what can be made visible and what will remain as imagined, inferred
or implied. As with the punch-line in a joke, some things are articulated while others are left
to the imagination; it is perhaps no accident that a few images come from satirical sources.
The kaleidoscope of images assembled in the volume depicts at least some of the daily
circumstances in which such practices occur and illustrates the often mundane nature of their
context. One could attribute some value to the regularity and frequency of images throughout
the volume, had their number not been limited and had it been easier to secure permission to
reproduce copyright material. As things stand, we had to select images according to criteria
that do not allow the reader to speculate on any correlation between the visibility of informal
practices and their visualisation.
 
===Stigmatisation of informality is counterproductive in policy - integrating complexity into policy will work===
Let us outline assumptions about informality in Table 3 (on the left) and counterintuitive ways (on the right) in which informality can be taken into account in policy-making.
 
{| class="wikitable"
|+Table 3: Assumptions and counterintuitive implications for policy
!Assumptions
!Counterintuitive implications for policy
|-
|Poverty and survival strategies
|Entrepreneurship and innovation
|-
|Underdevelopment of institutions
|Informality dwells in grey zones and helps reproduce ambivalent patterns, but underdevelopment of institutions is only part of the story. The strength of social networks for building trust (back-up), survival kits (redistribution), safety-nets (solidarity, cohesion) and connectivity should be factored in
|-
|Socialism and post-socialism
|Informality is present in all societies under certain constraints and in particular contexts
|-
|Oppressive states and 'weapons of the weak'
|Gaming the system and 'weapons of the wealthy' are common in mature democracies
|-
|Formal is good, informality is bad
|Formal is an enabler of the informal, including the conniving state. Informal is an enabler for the formal and should be used for channeling policies
|-
|There is good informality and there is bad informality (informal governance, informal networks, informal institutions can all be good and bad)
|Informality can help produce measurable indicators for assessing models of governance
|-
|Social capital can be positive and negative
|Social capital is ambivalent
|-
|Informality is about freedom
|Informality is an enabler but it also imposes limitations; informality is the basis of resistance capacity
|-
|Policies tend to rely on laws, written rules and norms
|Policies can also rely on oral commands, tacit agreements and in-group relationships
|-
|Informality is about conformity
|Informality is also about non-conformity
|}
 
Overall, we claim novelty of this collection of practices that has never been seen together, yet also includes an impressive cross-discipline and cross-area bibliography on informality around the globe - a brilliant find in itself.
 
==Notes==
<references />
===Further reading===
Bauman, Z. 1990. ‘Modernity and Ambivalence’. Theory, Culture and Society 7(2): 143–69.<br>
Borges, J. L. 1941/1975. ‘The Analytical Language of John Wilkins’ (1941) Other Inquisitions,
1937–1952. Austin: University of Texas Press.<br>
Christiansen, T. and Piattoni, S. (eds) 2003. Informal Governance in the European Union.
Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.<br>
Meyer, G. 2006. Formal Institutions and Informal Politics in Central and Eastern Europe: Hungary,
Poland, Russia and Ukraine (ECPR series). Leverkusen: Verlag Barbara Budrich.<br>
Rifkin, J. 2000. Age of Access: The New Culture of Hypercapitalism, Where All of Life is a Paid-for
Experience. New York: Penguin Putnam.
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