Informal Politics in the Middle East

Informal Politics in the Middle East PDF Author: Suzi Mirgani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197644112
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

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Book Description
The culture of politics within any system of governance is influenced by how state and society interact, and how these relationships are mediated by existing political institutions, whether formal or informal. The chapters in this volume highlight two broad types of informal political engagement in the Middle East: civil action that works in tandem with the state apparatus, and civil action that poses a challenge to the state. In both cases, these activities can and do achieve tangible results for particular groups of people, as well as for the state. For many, informal politics and civil mobilization are not a choice, but a necessity to secure--collectively--some kind of social security, through communal reciprocity and everyday activism. Ironically, Middle Eastern authorities often turn a blind eye to informal organizing, because 'self-help' schemes allow certain social groups to survive--reducing their instinct to make demands of, or seek support from, the state. People are discouraged from political action and dissent; yet they are simultaneously encouraged to seek their own betterment, often leading to politicized groups and associations. By analyzing these formations, the contributors shed light on informal politics in the region.

Informal Politics in the Middle East

Informal Politics in the Middle East PDF Author: Suzi Mirgani
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0197644112
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 250

Get Book Here

Book Description
The culture of politics within any system of governance is influenced by how state and society interact, and how these relationships are mediated by existing political institutions, whether formal or informal. The chapters in this volume highlight two broad types of informal political engagement in the Middle East: civil action that works in tandem with the state apparatus, and civil action that poses a challenge to the state. In both cases, these activities can and do achieve tangible results for particular groups of people, as well as for the state. For many, informal politics and civil mobilization are not a choice, but a necessity to secure--collectively--some kind of social security, through communal reciprocity and everyday activism. Ironically, Middle Eastern authorities often turn a blind eye to informal organizing, because 'self-help' schemes allow certain social groups to survive--reducing their instinct to make demands of, or seek support from, the state. People are discouraged from political action and dissent; yet they are simultaneously encouraged to seek their own betterment, often leading to politicized groups and associations. By analyzing these formations, the contributors shed light on informal politics in the region.

Informal Politics

Informal Politics PDF Author: John Christopher Cross
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804730628
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 286

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Book Description
As economic crises struck the Third World in the 1970s and 1980s, large segments of the population turned to the informal economy to survive. This book looks at street vending as a political process in the largest city in the world.

Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India

Informal Labor, Formal Politics, and Dignified Discontent in India PDF Author: Rina Agarwala
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107311101
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 273

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Book Description
Since the 1980s, the world's governments have decreased state welfare and thus increased the number of unprotected 'informal' or 'precarious' workers. As a result, more and more workers do not receive secure wages or benefits from either employers or the state. This book offers a fresh and provocative look into the alternative social movements informal workers in India are launching. It also offers a unique analysis of the conditions under which these movements succeed or fail. Drawing from 300 interviews with informal workers, government officials and union leaders, Rina Agarwala argues that Indian informal workers are using their power as voters to demand welfare benefits from the state, rather than demanding traditional work benefits from employers. In addition, they are organizing at the neighborhood level, rather than the shop floor, and appealing to 'citizenship', rather than labor rights.

Party System Formation in Kazakhstan

Party System Formation in Kazakhstan PDF Author: Rico Isaacs
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136791078
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

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Book Description
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Central Asian states have developed liberal-constitutional formal institutions. However, at the same time, political phenomena in Central Asia are shaped by informal political behaviour and relations. This relationship is now a critical issue affecting democratization and regime consolidation processes in former Soviet Central Asia, and this book provides an account of the interactive and dynamic relationship between informal and formal politics through the case of party-system formation in Kazakhstan. Based on extensive interviews with political actors and a wide range of historical and contemporary documentary sources, the book utilises and develops neopatrimonialism as an analytical concept for studying post-Soviet authoritarian consolidation and failed democratisation. It illustrates how personalism of political office, patronage and patron-client networks and factional elite conflict have influenced and shaped the institutional constraints affecting party development, the type of emerging parties and parties’ relationship with society. The case of Kazakhstan, however, also demonstrates how in the former Soviet space political parties emerge as central to the legitimization of informal political behavior, the structuring of factional competition and the consolidation of authoritarianism. The book represents an important contribution to the study of Central Asian Politics.

Informal Politics in Post-Communist Europe

Informal Politics in Post-Communist Europe PDF Author: Michal Klíma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 9780367777036
Category : Democratization
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
This book offers a fascinating, thought-provoking and ground-breaking study of post-communist political life. It is one of the first full-length academic works to explore the question of how informal structures, headed by bosses, godfathers and oligarchs, affect formal party politics and democracy.

Talking about Politics

Talking about Politics PDF Author: Katherine Cramer Walsh
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 0226872211
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 310

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Book Description
Whether at parties, around the dinner table, or at the office, people talk about politics all the time. Yet while such conversations are a common part of everyday life, political scientists know very little about how they actually work. In Talking about Politics, Katherine Cramer Walsh provides an innovative, intimate study of how ordinary people use informal group discussions to make sense of politics. Walsh examines how people rely on social identities—their ideas of who "we" are—to come to terms with current events. In Talking about Politics, she shows how political conversation, friendship, and identity evolve together, creating stronger communities and stronger social ties. Political scientists, sociologists, and anyone interested in how politics really works need to read this book.

The Politics of Order in Informal Markets

The Politics of Order in Informal Markets PDF Author: Shelby Grossman
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108833497
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
This book introduces a theory for how the state shapes private governance, leveraging data from informal markets in Lagos, Nigeria.

Authenticity and the Cultural Politics of Work

Authenticity and the Cultural Politics of Work PDF Author: Peter Fleming
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199547157
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
The 'personal' was once something to be put to one side in the work place: a 'professional manner' entailed the suppression of private life and feelings. Now many large corporations can be found exhorting their employees to simply be themselves. This book critically investigates the increasing popularity of personal authenticity in corporate ideology and practice. Rather than have workers adhere to depersonalising bureaucratic rules or homogenous cultural norms, many large corporations now invite employees to simply be themselves. Alternative lifestyles, consumption, ethics, identity, sexuality, fun, and even dissent are now celebrated since employees are presumed to be more motivated if they can just be themselves. Does this freedom to express one's authenticity in the workplace finally herald the end of corporate control? To answer this question, the author places this concern with authenticity within a political framework and demonstrates how it might represent an even more insidious form of cultural domination. The book especially focuses on the way in which private and non-work selves are prospected and put to work in the firm. The ideas of Hardt and Negri and the Italian autonomist movement are used to show how common forms of association and co-operation outside of commodified work are the inspiration for personal authenticity. It is the vibrancy, energy and creativity of this non-commodified stratum of social life that managerialism now aims to exploit. Each chapter explores how this is achieved and highlights the worker resistance that is provoked as a result. The book concludes by demonstrating how the discourse of freedom underlying the managerial version of authenticity harbours potential for a radical transformation of the contemporary corporate form.

Informal Politics in Post-Communist Europe

Informal Politics in Post-Communist Europe PDF Author: Michal Klíma
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351332252
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 223

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Book Description
This book offers a fascinating, thought-provoking and ground-breaking study of post-communist political life. It is published just as the countries of Central and Eastern Europe mark thirty years since gaining freedom and have embarked on the path of democracy. This book is one of the first full-length academic works to explore the question of how informal structures, headed by bosses, godfathers and oligarchs, affect formal party politics and democracy. The unique post-communist transition is observed as a specific historical moment of disorder, offering a window of opportunity for the large-scale exploitation of public resources in the sense of a kind of "Klondike Gold Rush." Phenomena of corruption, clientelism, patronage, party capture and state capture are topical themes that are deeply explored. This text will be of key interest to scholars and students of Central and Eastern European politics, democratisation, transitional societies, clientelism, party systems and more broadly of comparative and European politics.

Western Intervention and Informal Politics

Western Intervention and Informal Politics PDF Author: Troels Burchall Henningsen
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000523438
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 148

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Book Description
This book examines the political and military dynamic between threatened local regimes and Western powers, and it argues that the power of informal politics forces local regimes to simulate statebuilding. Reforms enabling local states to take care of their own terrorist and insurgency threats are a blueprint for most Western interventions to provide a way out of protracted internal conflicts. Yet, local regimes most often fail to implement reforms that would have strengthened their hand. This book examines why local regimes derail the reforms demanded by Western powers when they rely on their support to stay in power during existentially threatening violent crises. Based on the political settlement framework, the author analyses how web-like networks of militarized elites require local regimes to use informal politics to stay in power. Four case studies of Western intervention are presented: Iraq (2011-2018), Mali (2011-2020), Chad (2005-2010), and Algeria (1991-2000). These studies demonstrate that informal politics narrows strategic possibilities and forces regimes to rely on coup-proofing military strategies, to continue their alliances with militias and former insurgents, and to simulate statebuilding reforms to solve the dilemma of satisfying militarized elites and Western powers at the same time. This book will be of much interest to students of statebuilding, international intervention, counter-insurgency, civil wars, and international relations.