The Political Economy of Border Checkpoints in Shadow Exchanges

ABSTRACT

This introductory article revisits cross-border shadow exchanges in a comparative perspective and reflects on their theoretical implications. It explores the diversities and complexities of shadow operations and critically examines the concept of informality that is commonly used to describe such non-state-sanctioned practices. It further underlines the key role played by checkpoint politics in border governance. Border checkpoints serve both as a state institution in regulating border crossings as well as a political site where material and power exchanges among state and non-state actors are negotiated. Such negotiation of selective passage through state-controlled gateways is often predicated upon the skilful manipulation of time and space by experienced traders and brokers.     

Eurosceptics in trilogue settings: interest formation and contestation in the European Parliament

Trilogues have been studied as sites of secluded inter-institutional decision making that gather the Council of the European Union, the European Parliament (EP) and the European Commission. Trilogues, however, are not exempt from formal and informal party-political dynamics that affect intra- and inter-institutional contestation. The increase in Eurosceptics in the 2014 EP elections offers an opportunity to investigate their efforts to shape the position and behaviour of the EP negotiating team in trilogues. Therefore, this article investigates to what extent Eurosceptic party groups participate in trilogue negotiations and how mainstream groups deal with their presence. The analysis shows that the opportunities to participate in trilogues and shape the EP’s position are higher for those perceived as soft Eurosceptic MEPs, while mainstream groups apply a ‘cordon sanitaire’ to those perceived as being part of hard Eurosceptic groups – which reduces the chances of MEPs from those groups being willing to participate in parliamentary work.     

Insurgent informality: the struggle over space production between the Israeli state and its Palestinian Bedouin communities

This article addresses the political and spatial agenda of the people of informalities. It conceptualizes insurgent informality as a discursive social reality, which is based on the struggle between the state hegemonic discourse regarding informal spaces and modes of space production and the countering-hegemonic discourse of communities. Based on empirical case, this paper interrogates the discourses of Israel and the its Arab communities regarding informal spaces. The analysis suggests that the state hegemonic discourse is articulated through three interrelated logics of difference, threat and spatiality. The countering discourse challenges the hegemonic discourse through its logic of justice, recognition, and protest.     

Running to stand still: aggressive immobility and the limits of power in Russia

The common conception of Russian politics as an elite game of rent-seeking and autocratic management masks a great deal of ‘mundane’ policymaking, and few areas of social and economic activity have escaped at least some degree of reform in recent years. This article takes a closer look at four such reform attempts – involving higher education, welfare, housing and regional policy – in an effort to discern broad patterns governing how and when the state succeeds or fails. The evidence suggests that both masses and mid-level elites actively defend informality – usually interpreted in the literature as an agent-led response to deinstitutionalization and the breakdown of structure – creating a strong brake on state power. More than a quarter century into the post-Soviet period, this pattern of “aggressive immobility” – the purposeful and concerted defense by citizens of a weakly institutionalized state – has in fact become an entrenched, structural element in Russian politics.     

Rural informalities and forest squatters in the reserved forests of Assam,India

It has now been well established that forests in South Asia are postcolonial political zones. In Assam, in northeast India this was accomplished through the colonial project of converting jungles into Reserved Forests. Using the politics of dokhol (“to grab or occupy by force”) as an entry point, this article examines the comparative epistemologies of squatting and informality in urban and rural contexts. My intent is to unpack the everyday practice, maintenance, and sustenance of dokhol within the reserved forests of Bodo Territorial Autonomous District. This entails an extension of existing scholarship on formal-informal dichotomies in relation to rural squatters, in particular those on forestland. I do so by combining an ethnographic study of dokhol by rural squatters with three influential strands of critical scholarship on urban squatting, namely Partha Chatterjee’s “political society,” Asaf Bayat’s “quiet encroachment,” and Ananya Roy’s take on planning and deregulation. This article advances the case of rural informalities and opens a dialogue between the two forms of informalities – rural and urban, especially in the context of South Asia.     

Normative transformations in EU external relations: the phenomenon of ‘soft’ international agreements

Abstract

The European Union increasingly uses ‘soft’ international arrangements rather than formal international agreements in establishing relations with non-EU states. This contribution aims to raise the question of to what extent a move from hard to soft law in relations between the EU and its partners can be seen as allowing the Union to ‘step outside’ the legal framework (if that indeed is what is happening) and disregard the rules and principles that define the way in which EU external relations are to take shape. Possible consequences include the risk that these instruments are not subject to appropriate safeguards, that parliamentary influence (by the European Parliament as well as by national parliaments) is by-passed and that transparency is affected. There are various reasons for the EU not to use formal procedures, but a turn to informality does come at a price.     

The bazaar in ruins: rent and fire in Barakholka,Almaty

ABSTRACT

Since 2013, there have been multiple fires in bazaars in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Most of these fires have occurred in Barakholka, the largest bazaar in Central Asia, known for wholesaling in apparel, shoes and low-quality household and office supplies. Ownership of Barakholka is opaque. Using recurrent Barakholka fires as my point of departure, this article contributes to scholarship by describing how the clearing of old bazaars is followed by new property developments and the imposition of new rent regimes. In doing so, I argue that fire – a form of ruination that not only destroys property but also severs networks and people's relationship to a place – is illustrative of how the bazaar, as a new institution within an emerging post-Soviet market economy, was moulded by private interests, and repeated, often ruinous assertions of control over property. I also argue that this process was embedded in a larger political economy that sought to ‘civilize’ the earlier marketplaces. This article is based on ethnographic interviews and repeated visits to the Barakhola between 2016 and 2018, and media accounts of the fires.     

‘Gender,Neoliberalism, and the Venezuelan Migrant Crisis’: Female Migrants' Informal Labour and Access to Services in Urban Colombia

Neoliberalism, informality, and migration are all inextricably linked and the Venezuelan migration crisis has certain implications for women. While extensive post-neoliberal spending programmes under Chávez served to reverse the feminisation of poverty, millions of Venezuelans have migrated in recent years due to a severe economic crisis. Oral history testimonies highlight how female Venezuelan migrants in neoliberal Colombia often have no choice but to engage in precarious informal earning strategies and also experience reduced access to public services, which can substantially increase their domestic labour and outgoings. In many ways they are better off in Venezuela, thus highlighting how neoliberalism exacerbates gender poverty in both Latin America and the Global South.     

Comparing Brokers in India: Informal Networks and Access to Public Services in Bihar and Gujarat

ABSTRACT

Faced with unresponsive and intimidating state institutions, citizens often need to rely on brokers to obtain state benefits. This article compares the ways in which brokers help people gain access to public services in two Indian states. Using ethnographic fieldwork in both states, we compare Bihar and Gujarat to argue that the evolution of the informal networks through which citizens gain access to public services constitutes an important dimension of democratisation processes. In both Gujarat and Bihar such brokerage networks have fragmented considerably over the last 40 years, while also becoming less marked by social hierarchies. This change has taken place despite a differing role and strength of political parties in the two states. The fragmentation and levelling of brokerage networks have enabled citizens to put more pressure on state institutions and power holders. This process of “informal democratisation” suggests that the comparative study of brokerage networks constitutes a promising and largely unexplored avenue to interpret the challenges facing governance and local democracy in India.