Contents
List of Tables and Figures vii
Acknowledgements ix
Notes on Contributors x
Introduction: My Name Is Legion. The Resilience and
Endurance of Informality beyond, or in spite of, the State 1
Abel Polese and Jeremy Morris
Part I Thinking Informality and Development Writ
Large and Small
1 Evaluating the Validity of the Contrasting Theoretical
Perspectives towards the Informal Economy in Ukraine 25
Colin C. Williams and Olga Onoshchenko
2 Institutional Transformation and Informality in
Azerbaijan and Georgia 51
Huseyn Aliyev
3 Fighting the Shadows: Lithuania’s Informal Workers and
the Financial Crisis 70
Ida Harboe Knudsen
4 Formal Crutches for Broken Sociality 95
Aet Annist
Part II Retheorizing Informality: Power, Culture,
Kinship and History
5 Field Notes on Informality’s Culture of Ubiquity:
Recognition and Symbolic Power within Informal
Economic Practices in Kosovo 117
Anna Danielsson
6 The Importance of Having štela: Reproduction of Informality in the Democratization Sector in Bosnia 139
Karla Koutkova

7 Perceptions vs. Practices: Nepotism in Small Businesses in
Bulgaria 154
Tanya Chavdarova
8 The Importance of Personalized Relationships in
Post-Socialist Rural Bulgaria: Informality of New Capitalist
Entrepreneurs 175
Christian Giordano
Part III Informal Public Sectors and Welfare: State
Intervention or Withdrawal?
9 Informal Payments for Healthcare Services in Lithuania
and Ukraine 195
Tetiana Stepurko, Milena Pavlova, Irena Gryga, Liubove
Murauskiene and Wim Groot
10 Nuclear Borders: Informally Negotiating the Chernobyl
Exclusion Zone 225
Thom Davies
11 Governing Informal Payments in Healthcare: Lessons
from China 245
Jingqing Yang
12 Informal Economic Practices within the Kyrgyz Police
(militsiia) 270
Liam O’Shea
Conclusion: Agency Strikes Back? Quo Vadis Informality? 294
Jeremy Morris and Abel Polese

Informed by in-depth case studies focusing on a wide spectrum of micro and macro post-socialist realities from Lithuania to Kosovo, from Ukraine to China, this volume demonstrates the multi-faceted nature of informality and suggests that it is a widely diffused phenomenon, used at all levels of a society and by both winners and losers of post-socialist transition. In particular, by critically engaging with concepts such as bribery, nepotism and illegal transactions in general, the collection suggests that informality has a systemic reality not only at the micro but also, and more importantly, at the macro level. In an attempt to move beyond functionalist or structuralist perspectives, the authors propose that informality at the macro scale is an alternative way of responding to policy-making and that its reality must inform policy decisions