Abstract
This new volume edited by Jeremy Morris and Abel Polese is a substantial contribution to the understanding of informal practices in a postsocialist context. The book consists of a variety of case studies that analyze the broad spectrum of informal activities – from nepotism in small businesses in Bulgaria to bribes at checkpoints in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone or within the Kyrgyz police. The geography of cases covers most of the former socialist bloc, including Eastern and Southeastern Europe, Caucasia, Central Asia, the Balkans, the Baltic States, and even China. The editors of the volume make a great effort to put these cases together and turn them into a consistent narrative about informalities in the postsocialist region.
Although the title of the book contains the word ‘economies,’ it is apparent from the beginning that the volume suggests a broader and more inclusive interpretation of informal economic practices that are better described by the word ‘informalities,’ which is used extensively throughout the book. As Morris and Polese explain in their introduction, informality is seen here as ‘a “normal” response or set of tactics for individuals, classes and communities’ (p. 2) in a situation when ‘expectations (of the state, of a company, of a commission) are too far from citizens’ existing model of normative behaviour’ (p. 2). Thus, the important angle taken in the book is state–society relations where informality indicates successes and failures in this interaction. Considering the state as the precondition for the existence of informal activities, the editors suggest dividing all informal practices into two large groups depending on their relations to state regulation. Informality ‘in spite of the state’ refers to the traditional societal practices that do not coincide with the state’s normative order. Informality ‘beyond the state’ represents citizens’ coping tactics in the situation when the state’s involvement and regulation is not sufficient. Informality, however, is more than merely a weapon of the weak. As different authors of the volume show, informal practices are often implemented by the representatives of more advantaged social strata. Moreover, informality also has agentive potential. It is not only a way to adjust to the structure but also a possibility to change the structure in favor of individual or group actors who are dissatisfied with certain aspects of the state’s functioning.
The book consists of three parts and 12 chapters. Chapter 1 by Williams and Onoshchenko continues the theoretical discussion about informality started by the editors in the Introduction. The four-theory model for understanding informality in Ukraine developed by Williams and Round (2008) is complemented here with a fifth theoretical approach defined as the poststructuralist theory of informality. This theoretical suggestion that, as the authors argue, ‘can also be called a “diverse economy” approach because it recognizes the plurality of economic practices in post-socialist societies’ (p. 34), unites other chapters in the volume most of which implicitly take the same poststructuralist stance in the interpretation of informal practices. Including three other chapters about informalities in the South Caucasus and the Baltic States, the first part of the book is a well-placed extension of the introductory chapter. It sheds light on the origins and meaning of informalities in postsocialist countries and, regarding them as the indicator of the relations to the state, shows continuities and discontinuities in informal practices during and after socialism.
Although informal activities in the postsocialist region are often seen as the legacy of the previous system, the authors of the volume stress that the persistence of informal practices in these societies is more than the continuation of the socialist tradition of informality. As Knudsen shows in her chapter about Lithuania (Chapter 3), informality there is the consequence of the distrust of the independent Lithuanian state, which has failed to keep its obligations to protect and secure Lithuanian citizens after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, as Knudsen argues, ‘[r]ather than “restorations” of socialist patterns, practices of informal work should be seen as direct responses to the new neoliberal environment’ (p. 73). Annist (Chapter 4), on the contrary, reveals the tendency in Estonian society to reject informal relations and to entrust the previously societal functions to the state. This can be seen simultaneously as people’s way to overcome the stigmatized legacy of the socialist informalities and as their resistance to capitalist hegemony when the state (not the market) is expected to fulfill its supportive and protective function in the situation of broken sociality.
The conflictual coexistence of capitalist and noncapitalist rationalities as the feature of postsocialist informalities is another theme that makes the book novel. Chavdarova’s study of nepotism in small businesses in Bulgaria (Chapter 7) brings to the surface concerns of new Bulgarian entrepreneurs who try to find their way navigating between the market pressure of effectiveness and social expectations to hire friends and relatives, whose work does not always contribute to the maximization of utilities. Similar to the Lithuanian and Estonian cases, the chapter scrutinizes how vruzki – a traditional informal practice in Bulgaria to use personal relations in a formal environment (similar to blat in the former Soviet Union) – acquires a new meaning in neoliberal circumstances. Another fascinating example here is the analysis of a democratization sector in Bosnia (Chapter 6) where the vocabulary of informal practices is used by NGO representatives to succeed in spreading the ideas of anti-corruption projects and campaigns to local people. In particular, the chapter demonstrates that in order to communicate Western concepts of anti-corruption measures, local employees of international organizations explain them through the traditional practices of building informal relations of trust. Although international observers may consider the use of such relations in the formal sphere as the part of the corruptive schema, the local employees of anti-corruption initiatives see them as the means of struggle against the abuse of power in the public institutions.
Thus, the book is important reading not only for an academic audience with an interest in informalities, but also for local, national, and global policy makers. Policy suggestions are made in several parts of the book. Morris and Polese, for example, advocate the development of ‘new models of local and national governance that acknowledge the role of informality and take advantage of it to secure the better government’ (Introduction, p. 12). Stepurko et al. (Chapter 9) propose several well-argued and empirically informed recommendations for Lithuanian and Ukrainian governments to combat informal payments in the health-care system. The value of the book is also in its balanced perspective on postsocialist informalities that, on the one hand, admits the importance of informal practices and, on the other hand, warns against their often undemocratic and discriminatory nature. The book, however, could have offered even more if the authors had been able to establish a dialogue not only with the previous scholarly literature on informality but also with each other within the book. The attention to the gender imbalance in postsocialist informalities would have also been a timely contribution given that women in the region are massively involved in informal activities on a daily basis. The inclusion of the Chinese case in the book about informalities in the former Eastern bloc looks unexpected and requires more contextualization from the editors. Nevertheless, the high standards of the editors’ and authors’ work exceed any weaknesses of the book.