Informal Institutions and Comparative Politics: A Research Agenda
Author(s): Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky
Source: Perspectives on Politics, Vol. 2, No. 4 (Dec., 2004), pp. 725-740
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Articles
Informal
Politics:
Institutions
A Research
and
Comparative
Agenda
Gretchen Helmke and Steven Levitsky
Mainstreamcomparativeresearchon politicalinstitutionsfocusesprimarilyon formalrules.Yetin manycontexts,informalinstitutions, rangingfrom bureaucraticand legislativenormsto clientelismand patrimonialism,shapeeven more stronglypolitical
behaviorand outcomes.Scholarswho fail to considertheseinformalrulesof the gameriskmissingmanyof the most important
incentivesandconstraintsthatunderliepoliticalbehavior.In thisarticlewe developa frameworkforstudyinginformalinstitutions
and integratingthem into comparativeinstitutionalanalysis.The frameworkis basedon a typologyof four patternsof formalinformalinstitutionalinteraction:complementary,
accommodating,competing,andsubstitutive.Wethenexploretwo issueslargely
in
literature
on
the
the
this
reasons
andmechanismsbehindthe emergenceof informalinstitutions,andthe nature
ignored
subject:
of theirstabilityandchange.Finally,we considerchallengesin researchon informalinstitutions,includingissuesof identification,
measurement,and comparison.
ver the last two decades,institutionalanalysishas
become a central focus in comparative politics.
Fueled by a wave of institutional change in the
developingand postcommunistworlds,scholarsfrom diverse
researchtraditionshave studied how constitutionaldesign,
electoral systems, and other formal institutional arrangements affectpoliticaland economic outcomes.1These studies have produced important theoreticaladvances.
Nevertheless,a growingbody of researchon LatinAmerica,2 postcommunist Eurasia,3Africa,4and Asia5 suggests
GretchenHelmkeis assistantprofessorofpolitical scienceat
the Universityof Rochester(hlmk@mail.
Her
rochester.edu).
bookCourts Under Constraints:Judges, Generals,and
Presidentsin Argentina,will bepublishedby CambridgeUniversityPress.StevenLevitskyis associateprofessorofgovernmentat Harvard University([email protected].
edu).
He is the authorof TransformingLabor-BasedParties
in Latin America:Argentine Peronismin Comparative
Perspectiveand is currentlywritinga bookon competitive
authoritarianregimesin thepost-Cold Warera. The
authorsthank the Weatherhead
Centerfor International
Affairsat HarvardUniversityand the KelloggInstitutefor
InternationalStudiesat the Universityof Notre Damefor
on informalinstitutions.The
generouslysponsoringconferences
authorsalsogratefullyacknowledgecommentsrJomJorge
Dennis Galvan, Goran
Dominguez,Anna Grzymala-Busse,
Hyden,JackKnight,LisaMartin, Hillel Soifer,Benjamin
Smith, SusanStokes,Maria VictoriaMurillo,and Kurt
Weyland,as well as threeanonymousreviewersand the
editorsof Perspectiveson Politics.
that many "rulesof the game" that structurepolitical life
are informal-created, communicated, and enforced outside of officially sanctioned channels.6Examples abound.
For decades, Mexican presidentswere selected not according to rules in the Constitution, the electorallaw, or party
statutes,but rathervia the dedazo("bigfinger")-an unwritten code that gave the sitting presidentthe right to choose
his successor,specified the candidatepool, and prohibited
potentialcandidatesfrom openly seekingthe job.7 In Japan,
the "strictbut unwrittenrules"ofAmakudari("descentfrom
heaven"), through which retiring state bureaucrats are
awarded top positions in private corporations, have survived decades of administrativereform.8In Central Asia,
clan-based norms have "become the rules of the game,"
while the constitutionalstructurescreatedafterthe collapse
of the Soviet Union are "increasingly... inconsequential."9And in much of the developing and postcommunist
world, patternsof clientelism, corruption, and patrimonialismcoexistwith (and often subvert)new democratic,market, and state institutions.10
Attention to informal institutions is by no means new
to political science. Earlier studies of "prismatic societies,"11 "moraleconomies,"12"economiesof affection,"13
legal pluralism,14clientelism,15corruption,16and consociationalism,17as well as on government-businessrelations
in Japan,18blat in the Soviet Union,19 and the "folkways"
of the U.S. Senate20highlightedthe importanceof unwritten rules. Nevertheless, informal rules have remained at
the marginsof the institutionalistturn in comparativepolitics. Indeed, much current literatureassumes that actors'
incentives and expectations are shaped primarily,if not
exclusively,by formal rules. Such a narrow focus can be
December 2004 1Vol. 2/No. 4 725
Articles | InformalInstitutions
and ComparativePolitics
forit risksmissingmuchof whatdrivespolitproblematic,
ical behaviorand can hindereffortsto explainimportant
political phenomena.21
This articlebroadensthe scopeof comparative
research
on politicalinstitutionsby layingthe foundationfora systematicanalysisof informalrules.Our motivationis simple: good institutionalanalysisrequiresrigorousattention
to both formaland informalrules.Carefulattentionto
informalinstitutions is criticalto understandingthe incen-
tivesthat enableand constrainpoliticalbehavior.Political
actorsrespondto a mix of formaland informalincentives,22and in some instances,informalincentivestrump
the formalones. In postwarItaly,for example,normsof
corruptionwere"morepowerfulthanthe lawsof the state:
the lattercould be violatedwith impunity,while anyone
who challengedthe conventionsof the illicitmarketwould
meetwithcertainpunishment."23
To takea differentexample, althoughBrazilianstate law prohibitsextra-judicial
withinthepublic
executions,informalrulesandprocedures
enable
even
and
securityapparatus
encouragepoliceofficers
to engagein suchkilling.24
Thusofficerswho killsuspected
violentcriminalsknow they will be protectedfromprosecutionandpossiblyrewarded
witha promotionorbonus.25
In suchcases,a strictanalysisof the formalruleswouldbe
woefullyinsufficientto understandthe incentivesdriving
behavior.
Considerationof informalrulesis also often criticalto
outcomes.Informalstructures
explaininginstitutional
shape
of formalinstitutionsin importantand
the performance
often unexpectedways.For example,executive-legislative
relationscannot alwaysbe explainedstrictlyin termsof
constitutionaldesign. Neopatrimonialnormspermitting
unregulatedpresidentialcontroloverstateinstitutionsin
Africaand LatinAmericaoftenyielda degreeof executive
dominancethat far exceedsa presidents'constitutional
Informalinstitutionsmayalso limitpresidenauthority.26
tialpower.In constitutionalterms,Chilepossesses"oneof
in theworld."27
the mostpowerfulpresidencies
Yet,dueto
executivecona setof informalinstitutionsthatencouraged
sultationandpowersharing,Chileanpresidentssystematiduringthe
callyunderusedtheirconstitutional
prerogatives
to vote by local brokers,such electionsare won not by
butby thosewiththelargestpolitical
ideologicalcandidates
machine.32
Informalinstitutionsalsoshapeformalinstitutionaloutcomesin a less visibleway:by creatingor strengthening
incentivesto complywith formalrules.In otherwords,
they maydo the enablingand constrainingthat is widely
to formalinstitutions.33
attributed
SincetheFederalist
Papers,
scholarshaverecognizedthatthe normsunderlyingformal
institutionsmatter.The stabilityof the UnitedStates'presidentialdemocracyis not only a productof the ruleslaid
out in the Constitution,butis alsorootedin informalrules
(such as gracious losing, the underuse of certain formal
andbipartisan
consensuson criticalissues)that
prerogatives,
into
preventformalchecksandbalancesfromdeteriorating
severeconflictamongthe branchesof government.
Thesearehardlyisolatedexamples.Informalrulesshape
formalinstitutionaloutcomesin areassuch as legislative
politics,34 judicial politics,35 party organization,36campaignfinance,37regimechange,38federalism,39
publicadministration,40and state building.41
Bringingtogethera largebut disparatebodyof scholarship,we developa researchagendaaimedat incorporating
informalinstitutions
intothetheoretical
toolkitsusedbystudentsof comparative
In
the
sectionwe clarify
first
politics.42
the conceptof informalinstitution,distinguishingit not only
fromthatof formalinstitution,butalsofromotherinformal
phenomena,includingweakinstitutions,informalbehavioralregularities,
informalorganizations,
andculture.Inthe
secondsectionwe examinehow formaland informalrules
interact.Expanding
on theworkof Hans-Joachim
Lauth,43
wedistinguish
four
of
institution:
cominformal
types
among
and
substitutive.
plementary,
competing,
accommodating,
The thirdandfourthsectionsaredevotedto issuesof informalinstitutionalemergenceandchange-questionslargely
research.Finally,we discuss
ignoredin recentcomparative
related
to
research
on informalinstituspecificchallenges
tions, such as issuesof identification,measurement,and
comparison.
A few caveatsarein order.Althoughthe terminformal
institutionencompassesa wide rangeof social (e.g., the
ortherulesof dating)andeconomic(e.g.,black
handshake,
1990s;28consequently,Chile was cited as an exception in a
dominance.29
markets)institutions,we areconcernedonly withpolitical
by presidential
regioncharacterized
rulesof the game.We restrictour analysisto the modern
electoral
Informalinstitutionsalsomediatethe effectsof
rules.For example,Costa Rica'sproportionalrepresenta- period,whencodificationof lawis nearlyuniversal.Before
this period,our distinctionbetweenformaland informal
reelectionofferno
tion systemand ban on congressional
rulesis less meaningful.Finally,althoughwe drawon a
to performconstituencyserformalincentiveforlegislators
broadrangeof cases,the exampleswe cite are illustrative
vice. YetCostaRicanlegislatorsroutinelyengagein such
activities in response to informal, party-sponsored "dis-
In the areaof candidateselection,
tricts"andblacklisting.30
studiesin theUnitedStatessuggestthatbecausecommitted
votersaremorelikelyto participatein primaries,primary
systemsencouragethe electionof ideologicallypolarizing
Yetin a contextof pervasive
candidates.31
clientelism,where
primaryparticipationis limited largely to people induced
726
Perspectives on Politics
only, not comprehensive.
What InformalInstitutions Are
(and Are Not)
The terminformalinstitutionhasbeenappliedto a dizzying array of phenomena, including personal networks,44
clientelism,45corruption,46clans and mafias,47civil society,48traditionalculture,49and a varietyof legislative,judicial, and bureaucraticnorms.We proposea more preciseand analyticallyuseful-definition of informal institution.
It should captureas much of the universeof informalrules
as possible, but it must be narrow enough to distinguish
informal rules from other, noninstitutional, informal
phenomena.
We begin with a standard definition of institutions as
rulesand procedures(both formaland informal)that structure social interactionby constrainingand enabling actors'
behavior.50How to distinguish between formal and informal institutionsis, however,less clear.Some scholarsequate
informal institutions with cultural traditions.51 Others
employ a state-societaldistinction, treating state agencies
and state-enforcedrules as formal, and the rules and organizationswithin civil society as informal.52Still others distinguish between informalnorms,which areself-enforcing,
and formalrules,which areenforcedby a third party,often
the state.53
Each conceptualizationfails to captureimportant informal institutions.Forexample,althoughsome informalinstitutions are undoubtedly rooted in cultural traditions,
many-from legislative norms to illicit patterns of party
finance-have little to do with culture. With respect to
the state-societaldistinction, many institutions within the
state (frombureaucraticnorms to corruption)arealso informal,54while the rules governing many nonstate organizations (such as corporations and political parties and
corporations)are widely considered to be formal. Finally,
although the self-enforcingdefinition is analyticallyuseful,
it fails to account for the fact that informal rules may be
externallyenforced(for example,by clan and mafiabosses),
even by the state itself (i.e., organizedstate corruption).55
We employ a fourth approach.We define informalinstitutions as sociallysharedrules, usuallyunwritten, that are
created,communicated,and enforcedoutsideof officiallysanctioned channels.56By contrast,formal institutions are rules
and proceduresthatarecreated,communicated,and enforced
through channelswidely accepted as official.This includes
state institutions (courts, legislatures,bureaucracies)and
state-enforcedrules (constitutions, laws, regulations),but
also what Robert C. Ellicksoncalls "organizationrules,"or
the officialrules that governorganizationssuch as corporations, political parties,and interestgroups.57
Distinguishing between formal and informal institutions, however,is only half the conceptual task. "Informal
institution" is often treated as a residual category, in the
sense that it can be applied to virtually any behavior that
departsfrom, or is not accounted for by, the written-down
rules.To avoid this pitfall,we must say more about what an
informal institution is not.
Four distinctions areworth noting. First,informalinstitutionsshouldbe distinguishedfromweakinstitutions.Many
formalinstitutions areineffective,in that rulesthat exist on
paperarewidely circumventedor ignored.Yetformalinstitutional weakness does not necessarilyimply the presence
of informalinstitutions.It may be that no stableor binding
rules-formal or informal-exist. For example,in his seminal articleon delegativedemocracy,GuillermoO'Donnell
arguedthat in much of Latin America, the formal rules of
representativedemocracyareweakly institutionalized.58In
the absenceof institutionalizedchecks on executivepower,
the scope of permissiblepresidentialbehaviorwidened considerably,which resulted in substantialabuse of executive
authority.In subsequentwork, O'Donnell highlightedhow
particularisticinformal institutions, such as clientelism,
undermined the effectiveness of representative institutions.59O'Donnell'swork points to two distinct patternsof
formalinstitutionalweaknessthat should not be conflated.
Clientelism and abuses of executive authorityboth depart
from formal rules, but whereas the former is an informal
institution, the latteris best understoodas noninstitutional
behavior.
Second, informalinstitutionsmust be distinguishedfrom
other informal behavioral regularities.Not all patterned
behavior is rule-bound or rooted in shared expectations
about others' behavior.60Behavioralregularitiesmay be a
productof a varietyof incentives.To cite an exampleoffered
by Daniel Brinks,61removing one's hat in church is an
informal institution, whereasremovingone's coat in a restaurantis simply a behavioralregularity.In the latter case,
leaving one's coat on may bring physicaldiscomfort,but it
is not expected to triggersocial disapprovalor sanction.To
be consideredan informalinstitution, a behavioralregularity must respond to an established rule or guideline, the
violation of which generatessome kind of external sanction. To take anotherexample, public graftis clearlyinformal behavior, but only some patterns of graft should be
considered institutional. Where graft is enforced from
above,62or where it is rooted in widely sharedexpectations
among citizensand public officials(and a refusalto go along
risks incurringimportant costs),63corruption may indeed
be an institution. By contrast,where graft is neither externally sanctioned nor rooted in sharedexpectations,but is
rathera responseto low public sector salariesand ineffective enforcement,it may be best characterizedas a behavior
pattern.
Third, informalinstitutionsshould be distinguishedfrom
informal organizations.Although scholars often incorporate organizationsinto their definition of institution,64it
is useful, following Douglass North, to separatethe political actors (or "players")from the rules they follow.65
Just as formal organizations (such as political parties or
unions) may be distinguishedfrom formal rules, informal
organizations (clans, mafias) should be distinguished
from informalinstitutions.Nevertheless,informalrulesmay
be embedded within these organizations,and just as formal political organizations are studied under the rubric
of "institutionalism,"clans, mafias, and other informal
December 2004 | Vol. 2/No. 4 727
Articles I InformalInstitutions
and ComparativePolitics
structures may be usefully Figure 1
incorporated into informal A typology of informal institutions
institutional analysis.
Effective formal
Ineffective formal
Finally,we returnto the disOutcomes
institutions
institutions
tinction betweeninformalinstitutionsand the broaderconcept
Substitutive
Convergent
Complementary
of culture.Culturemay help to
Divergent
Accommodating
shapeinformalinstitutions,and
Competing
the frontierbetween the two is
a criticalareafor research.66In
our view, however,the best way
tion noncompliance. Where formal rules and procedures
to pursue this agenda is to cast informal institutions in
areineffective,actorsbelievethe probabilityof enforcement
relativelynarrowterms by defining informal institution in
termsof sharedexpectationsratherthansharedvalues.Shared
(and hence the expected cost of violation) will be low.
These two dimensions produce the fourfold typology
expectationsmay or may not be rooted in broadersocietal
shown in figure 1. The types located in the upperleft (comvalues.67Distinguishing between sharedvalues and shared
plementary)and lower right (competing) cells correspond
expectationsallowsfuturescholarsto analyzepotentialcausal
to the "functional"and "dysfunctional"types that predominformal
between
culture
and
such
institutions,
relationships
inate in much of the literature.The typology also yields two
as whethersocietalvaluesreinforceor undermineparticular
novel types (accommodatingand substitutive)that allow us
informal institutions.
to make sense of other, less familiarinstitutional patterns.
Four Types of InformalInstitution
Formal and informal institutions interact in a variety of
ways. In this section, we develop a typology aimed at capturing these relationships.68Characterizationsof formalinformal institutional relationshipstend to fall into one of
two sharplycontrastingcategories.One camp treatsinformal institutions as functional, or problem solving, in that
they providesolutions to problemsof social interactionand
coordination,69which enhance the efficiency or performance of formalinstitutions.70A second camp treatsinformal institutions as dysfunctional, or problem creating.
Clientelism, corruption, and patrimonialism are said to
undermine the performanceof formal democratic,market,
and state institutions.71However, recent studies suggest a
more complex picture than envisioned by either camp, in
which informal institutions at times reinforceor substitute
for the formal institutions they appearto undermine.
To capture these differences,our typology is based on
two dimensions.The firstis the degreeto which formaland
informal institutional outcomes converge.The distinction
hereis whetherfollowing informalrulesproducesa substantively similar or differentresult from that expected from a
strict and exclusive adherenceto formal rules. Where following the informal rule leads to a substantivelydifferent
outcome, formal and informal institutions diverge.Where
the two outcomes are not substantivelydifferent, formal
and informal institutions converge.
The second dimension is the effectivenessof the relevant
formal institutions, that is, the extent to which rules and
proceduresthat exist on paper are enforced and complied
with in practice.72Effectiveformalinstitutions actuallyconstrain or enablepolitical actors'choices. Actors believe that
there is a high probabilitythat officialauthoritieswill sanc728
Perspectives on Politics
Complementary informal institutions
The left side of the figure correspondsto informal institutions that coexist with effective formal institutions, such
that actors expect that the rules that exist on paperwill be
enforced. The upper left corner combines effective formal
rulesand convergentoutcomes, producingwhat Lauthcalls
informalinstitutions.73Such institutions"fill
complementary
in gaps"either by addressingcontingencies not dealt with
in the formal rules or by facilitatingthe pursuit of individual goals within the formal institutionalframework.These
informal institutions often enhance efficiency. Examples
include the myriad norms, routines, and operating procedures that ease decision making and coordination within
bureaucracies,74and judicial norms (such as the opinion
assignmentproceduresand the "Ruleof Four")that facilitate the work of the U.S. SupremeCourt.75
Complementaryinformalinstitutionsmay also serveas a
foundation for formal institutions, creatingor strengthening incentivesto comply with formalrulesthat might otherwise exist merelyon paper.76Thus scholarshave linked the
effectivenessof the U.S. Constitution to a complementary
set of sharedbeliefsand expectationsamong citizens.77Likewise, the efficiencyof Singapore'spostcolonial bureaucracy
(the formalorganizationof which resembledthose of Indonesia and the Philippines) has been attributedto underlying norms of meritocracyand discipline.78Rural Chinese
villagegovernmentsaremore likely to providepublic goods
where there exist informal norms of social obligation generated by membership in local temple associations.79In
each case, informal institutions do not merely exist alongside effective formal ones, but rather play a key role in
making effectivethe formal rules of the game.
Accommodating informal institutions
The lower left cornerof figure 1, which combines effective
formalinstitutions and divergentoutcomes, correspondsto
accommodatinginformal institutions.These informal institutions create incentives to behave in ways that alter the
substantiveeffectsof formalrules, but without directlyviolating them; they contradictthe spirit, but not the letter,of
the formal rules.Accommodatinginformal institutions are
often createdby actorswho dislike outcomes generatedby
the formal rules but are unable to change or openly violate
those rules.As such, they often help to reconciletheseactors'
interests with the existing formal institutional arrangements. Hence, although accommodatinginformal institutions may not be efficiency enhancing, they may enhance
the stabilityof formal institutions by dampening demands
for change.
Chile'sexecutive-legislative
power-sharingmechanismsare
a clear example. Leadersof the Democratic Concertation
inheritedan "exaggeratedly
strongpresidentialsystem"and a
electoral
majoritarian
systemthat rancounterto theirgoal of
a
broad
maintaining
multipartycoalition.80Lackingthe legislativestrengthto amend the 1980 Constitution, Concertaci6n elites createdinformalmechanismsof interpartyand
executive-legislativeconsultationaimed at counteractingits
effects.These power-sharingarrangements"enhancedcoalitional trust"in a formalconstitutionalsettingthat otherwise
"providedvery few incentivesfor cooperation."81
Dutch consociationalpracticesmay also be characterized
as accommodating. The Netherlands' post-1917 democracy was based on a set of "informal,unwritten rules"of
elite accommodation and power sharing, including extensive consultationin policy making, mutualveto power,and
the proportionalallocationof governmentjobs among political parties.82Although these cartel-likearrangementsviolated the democratic spirit of the Dutch constitution (by
limiting the power of the vote), they reducedclassand religious conflict, therebyenhancing democraticstability.83
Accommodatinginformalrulesalso emergedwithin state
socialistinstitutionsin the SovietUnion. Becausestrictadherence to the formal rulesgoverningSoviet political and economic life did not allow enterprisesto fulfill state targetsor
permit individuals to meet basic needs, a set of informal
norms-commonly known as blat-emerged in which individuals met these goals through personal networks.84Not
strictlyillegal, blat enabled factorymanagers,workers,and
bureaucratsto "find a way around formal procedures."85
By helping enterprisesto fulfill state targetsand individuals
to obtain essentialgoods and services,this informalsystem
of exchangewas criticalto the survivalof the Sovietsystem.86
Competing informal institutions
On the right side of figure 1 we find informal institutions
that coexist with ineffective formal institutions. In such
cases, formal rules and proceduresare not systematically
enforced, which enables actors to ignore or violate them.
The cell in the lower right cornercombines ineffectiveformal rules and divergent outcomes, producing competing
informalinstitutions.These informalinstitutions structure
incentives in ways that are incompatible with the formal
rules:to follow one rule, actors must violate another. Particularisticinformal institutions such as clientelism, patrimonialism,clan politics,and corruptionareamongthe most
familiar examples.87Thus postwar Italian corruption was
embedded in "alternativenorms"underwhich actorscould
violate certainstate laws "with impunity,"88whereasthose
who adheredto the law "metwith certainpunishment."89
Competing informalinstitutionsareoften found in postcolonial contextsin which formalinstitutionswereimposed
on indigenous rules and authoritystructures.In postcolonial Ghana,civil servantswere officiallyinstructedto follow
the rulesof the publicbureaucracy,
but as RobertPricefound,
most believedthey would pay a significantsocial cost (such
as a loss of standingin the community) if they ignoredkinshipgroupnormsthatobligedthem to providejobsandother
favorsto their families and villages.90Similarly,scholarsof
legalpluralismhavearguedthat the imposition of European
legalsystemscreated"multiplesystemsof legalobligation."91
Becausethesesystems"embodiedverydifferentprinciplesand
procedures,"92adherenceto custom law at times requireda
violation of state law (and vice versa).
Substitutive informal institutions
Finally,the upper right corner,which combines ineffective
formal institutions and compatible outcomes, corresponds
to substitutiveinformalinstitutions.93Like complementary
institutions,substitutiveinformalinstitutionsareemployed
by actorswho seek outcomes compatiblewith formalrules
and procedures.Like competing institutions,however,they
exist in environmentswhere formal rules are not routinely
enforced. Hence, substitutiveinformal institutions achieve
what formalinstitutionsweredesigned,but failed,to achieve.
Substitutiveinstitutionstend to emergewherestatestructures are weak or lack authority. During Mexico's protracteddemocratictransition,formalinstitutionsof electoral
dispute resolution(such as the electoralcourts)lackedcredibility and were frequentlybypassed.In this context, officialsof the nationalgovernmentand the oppositionNational
Action Partyresolvedpostelection disputes through informal concertacesiones,
or "gentleman'sagreements."94Concertacesiones
thus served as a "waystation"for government
and opposition elites until formal institutions of electoral
disputeresolutionbecamecredible.95In ruralnorthernPeru,
where state weaknessresultedin inadequatepolice protection and ineffective courts during the late 1970s, citizens
createdinformal rondascampesinas(self-defensepatrols)to
defend their communities and rondaassemblies(informal
courts) to resolve local disputes.96In rural China, some
local officialscompensate for the state'sincapacityto raise
December 2004 1Vol. 2/No. 4 729
Articles I InformalInstitutions
and ComparativePolitics
revenueand provide public goods by mobilizing resources
throughtemple and lineageassociations,thereby"substituting the use of these informal institutions for ... formal
politicalinstitutionalchannelsof publicgoods provisions."97
Taken together, these four types suggest that informal
institutionscannotbe classifiedin simpledichotomous(functional versus dysfunctional) terms. Although substitutive
informal institutions such as concertacesiones
and rondas
subvert
formal
rules
and
campesinas
procedures,they may
help achieveresults(resolutionof postelectoralconflict,public security) that the formal rules failed to achieve. And
althoughaccommodatinginformalinstitutionssuch as consociationalism violate the spirit of the formal rules, they
may generateoutcomes (democraticstability)thatareviewed
as broadlybeneficial.It remainsan open question, however,
whether accommodating and substitutive institutions can
contributeto the developmentof moreeffectiveformalstructures, or whether they "crowdout" such development (by
quelling demands for formal institutional change or creating new actors, skills, and interestslinked to the preservation of the informalrules).98The following two sections lay
a foundation for addressingsuch questions.
Origins of InformalInstitutions
To date, much empiricalliteratureon informalinstitutions
has neglected questions of why and how such institutions
emerge.99Analysesof entrenchedcompeting informalinstitutions such as custom law,clientelism,and patrimonialism
frequentlytake them as historicalgivens, or part of a static
cultural landscape, rarelyasking why they emerged in the
first place. As a result, they often understatethe degree to
which informal institutions are modified, adapted,or even
reinventedover time.100Meanwhile, many existing explanations (particularly studies of complementary institutions) confronta majorpitfallof earlyfunctionalistaccounts
of formal institutions:they explain the emergenceof informal institutionsprimarilyin termsof theirpurportedeffects
(e.g., the efficiency gains they yield), without identifying
the mechanismsby which they arecreated.101For example,
many earlyrational-choiceanalysestreatedinformalnorms
as efficient solutions to problems of cycling, information,
or collectiveaction.102Although such explanationsmay partially explain the persistenceof informal institutions once
established,they areinsufficient,if not misleading,for generating theories about institutional emergence. In this section we seek to move beyond static and functionalist
accounts, arguingthat compelling explanationsof informal
institutions must not only ask why actors create informal
rules, but also examinehow actorscreateand communicate
those rules.
Why Informal Institutions?
We focus our discussion here on informal institutions that
areendogenousto formalinstitutionalstructures.103
In other
730
Perspectives on Politics
words, why, given the existenceof a set of formal rules and
rule-makingmechanisms,do actorschoose to createinformal rules?Building on the previous section, we see three
generalmotivations.
First,actorscreateinformalrules becauseformal institutions areincomplete.104Formalrulesset generalparameters
for behavior,but they cannot cover all contingencies. Consequently,actorsoperatingwithin a particularformal institutional context, such as bureaucraciesand legislatures,
develop norms and proceduresthat expedite their work or
addressproblemsnot anticipatedby formal rules.105
Second,informalinstitutionsmaybe a "secondbest"strategy for actorswho prefer,but cannot achieve,a formalinstitutional solution.106 In some cases, actors simply lack the
power to changethe formalrules.Thus post-Pinochetelites
in Chilecreatedinformalpower-sharing
because
arrangements
lacked
the
rewrite
to
the
Con1980
they
political strength
stitution.107Similarly,Soviet workersand managersopted
for the informalityof blatin partbecausetheywere unableto
reformor do awaywith state socialistinstitutions.
A broader statement of this motivation, elaboratedby
Carol Mershon, is that actors create informal institutions
when they deem it less costly than creatingformal institutions to their liking.108In postwar Italy,Christian Democratic leaders who sought to keep the communist and
neofascistpartiesout of power found it easierto develop an
informal"formula"to excludethose partiesfrom governing
coalitions than to push through parliamenta majoritarian
electoralsystemaimed at strengtheninglargemoderateparties.109Similarly,Costa Rican partyleaders'use of informal
devices to induce legislatorsto engage in constituency service may have been easier than overturning the ban on
legislativereelection.1l0
Inventing informal institutions may also be a secondbest strategywhere formal institutions exist on paper but
are ineffectivein practice.In the case of substitutiveinformal institutions, for example, actors create informal structures not becausethey dislike the formal rules, but because
the existing rules-and rule-makingprocesses-lack credibility.Thus Mexican opposition leadersengagedin concertacesionesduring the 1990s because they did not view the
formal electoral courts as credible, and Peruvianvillagers
created rondascampesinasbecause the state judicial system
failed to enforce the rule of law.
A third motivation for creating informal institutions is
the pursuit of goals not considered publicly acceptable.
Becausethey are relativelyinconspicuous,"1informalinstitutions allow actors to pursueactivities-ranging from the
unpopular to the illegal-that are unlikely to stand the
test of public scrutiny. Even where bribery,patrimonialism, and vote-buyingarewidely accepted,prevailingnorms
of universalismprevent their legalization. Norms of lax
enforcement-what the Dutch call gedogen-provide
anotherexample.112Prostitution,soft drug use, and euthanasia (or abortion in predominantly Catholic countries)
are legally proscribedbut widely tolerated. The informal
proceduresenabling extrajudicialexecutions in Brazilmay
also be explained in these terms.113
Informal institutions may also be created in pursuit of
goals that are not internationallyacceptable.For example,
the geopolitical changes produced by the end of the Cold
War raised the external cost of maintaining openly (e.g.,
military or Leninist one party) authoritarianregimes during the 1990s, which led many autocraticelites to adopt
formal democratic institutions. To maintain power in this
new internationalcontext, autocratsin countrieslike Belarus, Kazakhstan,Kenya, Peru, Russia, Ukraine, and Zimbabwe resorted to informal mechanisms of coercion and
control, rangingfrom use of paramilitarythugs to elaborate
systems of vote buying, fraud, co-optation, espionage, and
blackmail.14
Understandingwhy actorscreateinformalinstitutions is
not, however,sufficientto explainhow they areestablished.
Incompletenessdoes not by itself explain how the need for
additional rules translatesinto their creation (or, for that
matter,why informal,ratherthan formal,rulesareadopted).
Where informalinstitutions area second-beststrategy,why
are actorswho lack the capacityto change the formal rules
neverthelessable to establish and enforce informal ones?
And where actors share certain illicit goals, how are they
able to establish mechanisms that effectively circumvent
the formalrules?In short, to avoid the functionalisttrap,it
is essentialto examine the mechanismsby which informal
institutions are established.
How InformalInstitutions are Created
and Communicated
The construction of informal institutions differsmarkedly
from formal rule-makingprocesses.Whereas formal rules
are created through official channels (such as executives
and legislatures)and communicated and enforced by state
agencies (such as the police and courts), informal rules are
created, communicated, and enforced outside of public
channels, and usuallyoutside of the public eye. The actors
who create and enforce them may deny having done so.
Hence, their origins are often unclear.1l5
Preciselybecauseof these differences,scholarsshould take
the process of informal rule-makingseriously by identifying the actors, coalitions, and interestsbehind the creation
of informal rules.To the extent that these rules are created
in a context in which power and resourcesare unevenly
distributed, they can be expected to produce winners and
losers.ll6 Thus, following Jack Knight,117scholarsshould
be sensitive to underlying processes of conflict and coercion, ratherthan assume pure coordination.
Processes of informal institutional emergence vary. In
some cases,the processis "topdown";informalinstitutions
may be a product of elite design and imposition (the Mexican dedazo,Dutch consociationalism),or they may emerge
out of elite-level strategicinteraction (Mexico'sconcertacesiones). In other instances (corruption, clientelism, blat)
informalrulesemergeout of a decentralizedprocessinvolving a much largernumber of actors. In either process,we
may understandmechanismsof emergencein termsof focal
points, l8 repeatedinteraction,119or bargaining.120Alternatively, informal institutional creation may be a historicallycontingent processin which informalstructuresarean
unintended product of particularconflicts and compromises. For example, Amakudarioriginated as a makeshift
strategyby Japaneseministry officialsseeking to reconcile
prewarnorms of lifetime employment with postwar realities of resource scarcity and strict seniority systems.121
Although such informal institutions may ultimately take
on functions that are perceived as efficient or beneficial,
these functions often have little to do with their origins.
Analysesof the originsof informalinstitutionsmust also
account for how they arecommunicatedand learnedin the
absence of written down rules and public enforcement. In
some cases, informal institutionalizationappears to be a
processof sociallearningthroughwidely observedinstances
of trialand error.The Mexican dedazowas institutionalized
through a "processof learningby example,"as PRI leaders
who broke the informal rules during the 1940s and 1950s
suffered political defeat and marginalization,while those
who playedby the rules"wererewardedwith betterposts."122
Similarly,postwar Italian prime ministers who broke the
informal rule that gave parties the right to name government ministers "sawtheir governmentsmeet rapid ends."
Their successorsquickly "learnedthe lesson," and by the
mid-1950s, "the rule of negotiated decisions by party and
faction leadershad been hammeredout."123
Socialnetworksand politicalorganizationsmayalsotransmit informal rules. Thus the norms of Amakudariwere
diffused through social networks that linked universities,
state bureaucracies,and privatecorporations,124 and informal networkswithin the Peruvianand Ukrainianstatescommunicated the rules of corruption and blackmail that
sustainedautocraticregimesduring the 1990s.125Political
parties also carry informal rules. Parties communicated
power-sharingarrangementsin Chile, the Netherlands,and
postwarItaly;126 partyorganizationsenforcedthe systemof
kickbacksand briberyin Italy;127 and competinglocal party
leadersspread rondascampesinasacrossnorthernPeru.128
In sum, moving beyond functionalist accounts entails
identifying the relevantactors and interests behind informal institutions, specifying the process by which informal
rulesare created,and showing how those rulesare communicated to other actors in such a manner that they evolve
into sets of sharedexpectations.
InformalInstitutional Change
Informalinstitutions areoften characterizedas highly resistant to change, possessinga "tenacioussurvivalability."129
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and ComparativePolitics
When change occurs, it is expected to be slow and incremental.130Lauth, for example, argues that because informal rules "do not possess a center which directs and
co-ordinatestheir actions,"informalinstitutionalchange is
likely to be an "extremelylengthy"process.131Yet informal
institutions do change-and often quite quickly. The
centuries-oldChinese practiceof foot-binding disappeared
within a generation,132and many of the informalrulesthat
structuredMexican elite politics for much of the twentieth
century (includingthe dedazo)collapsedquicklyduringthe
late 1990s.133
Severalsources may generate the impetus for informal
institutional change. One important source is formal institutional change.The impact of formal rule changesshould
not, of course, be overstated;many informal institutions
have proved resilienteven in the face of large-scalelegal or
administrativereform.134Nevertheless, to the extent that
formal institutional change alters the costs and benefits of
adhering to particularinformal rules, it can serve as an
important catalystfor informal institutional change.
Two typesof formalinstitutionalchangearerelevanthere.
The first is change in formal institutional design. Particularly for informal institutions that are endogenous to formal structures,a change in the design of the formal rules
may affectthe costs and benefitsof adheringto relatedinformal rules, which can produce rapid informal institutional
change. In the case of complementary informal institutions, for example,modifying the relevantformalrulesmay
change the natureof the gaps that the informal institution
had been designed to address,which may createincentives
for actors to modify or abandon the informal rule. The
1974 Bill of Rights of Subcommitteesin the House of Representatives"produceda sharp change in formal rules that
overrodepreviousinformal committee structures."135
Informal institutional change may also be a product of
changes in formal institutionalstrengthor effectiveness.In
such cases, changes in the level of enforcement of formal
rulesalter the costs and benefitsadheringto informalinstitutions that compete with or substitutefor those rules. For
example, compliancewith competing informalinstitutions
becomes more costly with increased enforcement of the
formal rules, and at some point, these costs will induce
actors to abandon the informal institution. Thus the
increasedjudicialenforcementtriggeredby the Mani Pulite
investigations weakened corruption networks in Italy;136
the tight controls imposed by the postrevolutionarystate
weakenedtraditionalgift-givingnorms in Maoist China;137
and federalenforcementof civil rightslegislationweakened
Jim Crow practicesin the South.
Increased formal institutional effectiveness may also
weaken substitutiveinformalinstitutions. When the credibility of previouslyineffectiveformalstructuresis enhanced,
the benefits associatedwith the use of substitutiveinstitutions may diminish,potentiallyto the point of theirdispensability. For example, the increasedcredibility of Mexico's
732
Perspectives on Politics
electoral courts over the course of the 1990s reduced the
incentive of opposition leaders to work through informal
138and the increasedeffectivenessof Peru's
concertacesiones,
public security and judicial systems led to the collapse of
many rondascampesinasand rondaassemblies.139
Other sources of informal institutional change lie outside the formalinstitutionalcontext. For scholarswho view
informalinstitutionsprimarilyas a productof culture,informal institutional change is rooted primarilyin the evolution of societal values.l40 Because such shifts tend to be
glacialin pace, this patternof informalinstitutionalchange
will be slow and incremental.We might understand the
erosionof traditionalor kinship-basedpatternsof authority
in Europe in these terms.
Informal institutions may also change as the status quo
conditions that sustain them change. 1 Developments in
the external environment may change the distribution of
power and resourceswithin a community,weakeningthose
actors who benefit from a particularinformal institution
and strengtheningthosewho seekto changeit. Thus Mexico's
increasinglycompetitive electoral environment during the
1990s strengthenedlocal PRI leadersand activistsvis-a-vis
the nationalleadership,which allowed them to contest and
eventuallydismantle the dedazosystem.'42In the Netherlands, a long-term decline in class and religious identities
strengthened new parties that challenged the consociational rules of the game and induced establishedpartiesto
abandon them.143The growth of middle-classelectorates
erodes the bases of clientelism by reducing voters' dependence on the distributionof selectivematerialgoods.144In
these cases,informalinstitutionalchange tends to be incremental, as actors graduallyreorient their expectations to
reflect underlying changes in their and others' bargaining
power.
Other analytictools may be needed to explainsome rapid
informal institutional change or collapse. Tipping models
offer one such tool.145These models suggest that if a sufficiently large enough number of actors become convinced
that a new and betteralternativeexists, and if a mechanism
exists through which to coordinate actors'expectations, a
shift from one set of norms to another may occur quite
rapidly. Gerry Mackie argues that the move to end foot
binding in China hinged on creating an alternativemarriagemarketthat allowedsons to marrydaughterswho had
naturalfeet, therebyescapingconventional inferiority.'46
Figure 2 summarizesthese sources of informal institutional change. As the figure suggests, informal institutions
vary considerablywith respect to both the source and the
pace of change.Whereassome (complementary,accommodating) are highly susceptibleto changes in formal institutional design, others (substitutive, competing) are more
likely to be affected by changes in formal institutional
strength.With respectto the pace of change, culturalevolution is likely to produce incrementalchange, but formal
institutional change or coordination around an alternative
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Research Challenges: Identification,
Measurement, and Comparison
Bringing informal institutions into mainstreamcomparative institutional analysisposes a new set of researchchallenges.A majorissue is identifyingand measuringinformal
institutions. In formal institutional analysis, this task is
relativelystraightforward.Because formal institutions are
usuallywrittendown and officiallycommunicatedand sanctioned, their identificationand measurementoften requires
little knowledgeof particularcases,which facilitateslarge-n
comparison.Identifyinginformalinstitutions is more challenging. A country'sconstitution can tell us whether it has
a presidentialor parliamentarysystem of government,but
it cannot tell us about the pervasivenessof clientelism or
kinship networks.
One way of identifying informal institutions is to look
for instances in which similar formal rules produce different outcomes and then attributethe differenceto informal
institutions.147Although the logic of this approachis clear,
it reduces informal institutions to a residualcategory and
risksconflatinginformalinstitutionsand weak institutions.
An alternativestrategyis to identifystablepatternsof behavior that do not correspondto formal rules. However, this
approachruns the risk of treatingall behavioralregularities
as informalinstitutions.
At a minimum, efforts to identify informal institutions
should answerthree basic questions.148First,what are the
actors'sharedexpectationsabout the actualconstraintsthey
face?Only by examiningactors'mutualunderstandingof the
rules can one distinguish between informal behavior patternsand informalinstitutions.Second,what is the community to which the informalrulesapply?Whereasthe domain
of a formal institution is often delineatedby laws or other
statutes,the domain of informalrulesis often more difficult
to discern.The relevantcommunitymaybe avillage,a nation,
an ethnicor religiousgroup,or an organizationsuchasa politicalparty,legislature,or statebureaucracy.In some cases,the
relevantcommunityis a politicalelite,the boundariesofwhich
are often blurry.Third, how are informalrules enforced?If
informalbehavioris rule-bound,then violations must trigger externalsanction. Unlike formal enforcement mechanisms (police, courts),informalsanctioningmechanismsare
often subtle, hidden, and even illegal.They may rangefrom
hostileremarks,gossip,ostracism,andotherdisplaysof social
disapprovalto extrajudicialviolence.149
Identifying the shared expectations and enforcement
mechanismsthat sustaininformalinstitutionsis a challenging task, requiringin most cases substantialknowledge of
the community within which the informal institutions are
embedded. Hence there is probablyno substitutefor intensive fieldworkin informalinstitutionalanalysis.Indeedmost
December 2004 [ Vol. 2/No. 4 733
Articles I InformalInstitutions
and ComparativePolitics
studies of informal institutions take the form of either
abstracttheory (N=0) or inductive case studies (N= 1).150
Case studies provide essentialbuilding blocks for comparison and theory building. However,a more generalbody of
theorywill requirescholarsto incorporateother methods as
well.
One such method is rigoroussmall-n comparison.Without losing the sensitivity to context that characterizescase
studies, small-n analysescan begin to identify patterns of
informal institutional effects, formal-informalinstitutional
interaction, and informal institutional change. For example, Kathleen Collins'scomparativestudy of three Central
Asian statesenabledher to examinethe interactionbetween
clan networks and different formal regime types.'51 Similarly, Scott Desposato's analysis of legislative behavior in
five Brazilian states with varying degrees of clientelism
allowed him to consider how clientelism affects the functioning of legislatureswith similarformal structures.152
Large-nsurveysmay alsoproveusefulin researchon informal institutions. Surveyresearchmay captureactors'expectations and beliefs about the "actual"rules of the game.
Here it is important to distinguish between conventional
surveys that capture values or attitudes toward particular
institutions (e.g., the World Values Survey) and those
designedto capturesociallysharedbeliefsabout constraints
thatindividualsface.An exampleof the latteris SusanStokes's
analysisof informalinstitutions of accountabilityin Argentina, which uses surveydata to demonstratethe existencein
some parts of the country of shared citizen expectations
that voters will punish politicians who behave dishonestly.153Although expectations-basedsurveysmay initially be
limited to identifying of informal institutions, they might
eventuallybe used to generateand test causalclaims.
Conclusion
SinceJamesMarchand Johan P.Olsen declaredthat "anew
institutionalismhas appearedin politicalscience,"154research
on political institutions has advanced considerably. Yet
because the comparativepolitics literaturehas focused primarily on formal institutions, it risks missing many of the
"real"incentivesand constraintsthatunderliepoliticalbehavior.Indeed,rational-choiceanalysesof institutionshavebeen
criticized for an "excessiveattention to formal rules"and
"insufficientattention to firmly establishedinformal practices and 'institutions.'"'55
We have sought to provide a frameworkfor incorporating informal rules into mainstreaminstitutional analysis.
Farfrom rejectingthe literatureon institutions, we seek to
broaden and extend it, with the goal of refining, and ultimatelystrengthening,its theoreticalframework.We see several areasfor future research.First,we must posit and test
hypotheses about how informal rules shape formal institutional outcomes. For example, how do clientelism and
patronagenetworksmediate the effectsof electoraland leg734
Perspectives on Politics
islative rules?156In comparativepolitics, the issue of how
informal institutions sustain or reinforce-as opposed to
undermine or distort-formal ones has not been well
researched.When institutionsfunction effectively,we often
assume that the formal rules are driving actors' behavior.
Yet in some cases, underlyinginformal norms do much of
the enabling and constrainingthat we attributeto the formal rules.
Second, we need to theorize more rigorouslyabout the
emergence of informal institutions and particularlyabout
the mechanismsthrough which informal rules are created,
communicated,and learned.Some seeminglyage-old informal institutions are in realityrelativelyrecent reconfigurations (or reinventions);this fact makes the issues of origins
all the more compelling.157
Third, we need to betterunderstandthe sourcesof informal institutional stability and change. One question not
addressedin this article is that of codification of informal
rules.In some instances,state actorsopt to legalizeinformal
institutions that are perceived to compete with or undermine formalrules.SeveralLatinAmericangovernments"constitutionalized"aspects of indigenous law (granting them
constitutional status) during the 1990s in an effort to
enhance compliance with state law.158Similarly,in Argentina, in an effort to regulatePresidentCarlos Menem'suse
of extraconstitutionaldecree authority,legislatorsincluded
a provision for executive decrees in the 1994 Constitution.159We need to know more about what induces state
actorsto formalizeratherthan oppose informalinstitutions.
Comparativepolitics researchon informalinstitutions is
still at an incipient stage. Advances are likely on several
fronts, ranging from abstractformal modeling to ethnographicstudies to survey research.New insights will come
from a varietyof disciplines, including anthropology,economics, law, sociology, and political psychology.Hence, it
is essentialto promotea broadand pluralisticresearchagenda
that encouragesfertilizationacrossdisciplines,methods, and
regions. Given the range of areasin which informal rules
and organizationsmatterpolitically,it is essentialthat political scientists take the real rules of the game seriouslywhether they arewritten into parchmentor not.
Notes
1 For an excellent surveyof this literature,see Carey
2000.
2 Taylor 1992; Hartlyn 1994; O'Donnell 1996; Siavelis 1997; Starn 1999; Van Cott 2000; Levitsky2001;
Levitsky2003; Helmke 2002; Brinks2003a; Eisenstadt 2003.
3 Clarke 1995; Ledeneva1998; Borocz2000; Easter
2000; Sil 2001; Collins 2002a, 2003; GrzymalaBusseand Jones Luong 2002; Way 2002; Gel'man
2003.
4 Dia 1996; Sandbrookand Oelbaum 1999; Hyden
2002; Lindberg2003; Galvan2004.
5 Yang 1994; Hamilton-Hart 2000; Wang 2000;
Gobel 2001; Tsai 2001, 2004; Colignon and Usui
2003.
6 For generalanalysesof informal institutions, see
North 1990; Knight 1992; O'Donnell 1996; Lauth
2000.
7 Langston2003.
8 Colignon and Usui 2003.
9 Collins 2002b, 23, 30.
10 O'Donnell 1996; Lauth 2000; Borocz 2000; Gibel
2001; Lindberg2003.
11 Riggs 1964.
12 Scott 1976.
13 Hyden 1980.
14 Hooker 1975; Griffiths1986.
15 Scott 1972; Lemarchand1972;
16 Scott 1969; Waterbury1973; Rose-Ackerman1978.
17 Lijphart1975.
18 Johnson 1974, 1982.
19 Bauer,Inkeles, and Kluckhohn 1956; Berliner 1957.
20 Matthews 1959.
21 O'Donnell 1996; Weyland 2002.
22 North 1990.
23 Della Portaand Vannucci 1999, 15.
24 Brinks2003a, 2003b.
25 Brinks2003b.
26 O'Donnell 1994; Hartlyn 1994; Sandbrookand Oelbaum 1999.
27 Siavelis2002a, 81.
28 Siavelis2002b.
29 O'Donnell 1994.
30 Taylor 1992.
31 Wright and Berkman 1986.
32 Levitsky2001; 2003.
33 Stokes 2003.
34 Mershon 1994; Desposato 2003.
35 Helmke 2002; Van Cott 2003; Bill Chavez 2004.
36 Freidenbergand Levitsky2002; Langston2003; Levitsky 2003.
37 Della Portaand Vannucci 1999; Samuels2003.
38 Collins 2002a, 2002b; Ottaway 2003.
39 Way 2002.
40 Della Portaand Vannucci 1999; Hamilton-Hart
2000; Colignon and Usui 2003.
41 Darden 2002; Grzymala-Busseand Jones Luong
2002; Tsai 2004.
42 For other efforts in this direction, see Lauth 2000
and Pasotti and Rothstein 2002.
43 Lauth 2000.
44 Wang 2000.
45 O'Donnell 1996; Lauth 2000.
46 B6r6cz 2000; Darden 2002.
47 Lauth 2000; Collins 2002a; Collins 2003.
48 Boussard2000; Manor 2001.
49 Dia 1996; Pejovich 1999.
50 See North 1990; Knight 1992; Carey2000.
51 Dia 1996; Pejovich 1999. Pejovichdefines informal
institutions as "traditions,customs, moralvalues, religious beliefs, and all other norms of behaviorthat
have passedthe test of time .... Thus, informalinstitutions are the part of a community'sheritagethat
we call culture"(p. 166).
52 Boussard2000; Manor 2001; Tsai 2002.
53 Knight 1992; Calvert 1995.
54 Hamilton-Hart 2000; Grzymala-Busseand JonesLuong 2002; Colignon and Usui 2003.
55 Waterbury1973; Darden 2002; Langston2003.
56 This definitionborrowsfrom Brinks2003a and is consistent with North 1990; O'Donnell 1996; Carey
2000; and Lauth 2000. We treat informal institutions and norms synonymously.However,norms
have been defined in a varietyof ways, and some conceptualizationsdo not include externalenforcement. See Elster 1989.
57 Ellickson 1991, 31.
58 O'Donnell 1994.
59 O'Donnell 1996.
60 See Hart 1961; Knight 1992.
61 Brinks2003a.
62 Waterbury1973; Darden 2002.
63 Manion 1996; Della Portaand Vannucci 1999.
64 See Huntington 1968.
65 North 1990.
66 North 1990; Galvan 2004.
67 For example, some indigenous institutions in Latin
Americadraw on culturaltraditionsbut others do
not. See YrigoyenFajardo2000; Van Cott 2003.
68 Lauth2000 distinguishesamong threetypesof formalinformal institutional relationships:complementary,
substitutive,and conflicting. He does not elaborate on these types, however.
69 Ullman-Margalit1978; Axelrod 1986.
70 Weingast 1979; Weingast and Marshall1988; March
and Olsen 1989.
71 O'Donnell 1996; Borocz 2000; Lauth 2000; Collins
2002a.
72 By effectiveness,we do not mean efficiency.History
is litteredwith examplesof inefficientinstitutions
that neverthelesseffectivelyshaped actors' expectations (North 1990).
73 Lauth 2000.
74 March and Olsen 1989.
75 Maltzmanand Wahlbeck 1996; Epstein and Knight
1997.
76 Stokes 2003.
77 North, Summerhill,and Weingast,2000.
78 Hamilton-Hart 2000.
79 Tsai 2004.
80 Siavelis2002b, 10-11.
81 Ibid., 21.
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Articles I InformalInstitutions
and ComparativePolitics
82 Lijphart1975, 122-38.
83 Ibid.
84 Bauer,Inkeles, and Kluckhohn 1956; Berliner 1957;
Ledeneva 1998.
85 Ledeneva 1998, 43, 1.
86 Berliner1957; Ledeneva1998. Guanxi,or personalrelationships maintained by gift giving and reciprocal
favors,playeda similarrole in post-Maoist China. See
Yang 1994.
87 O'Donnell 1996; Borocz 2000; Lauth 2000; Collins
2002a, 2003; Lindberg2003. Accordingto O'Donnell
(1996, 40), particularisticnorms are "antagonistic
to one of the main aspectsof the full institutionalpackage of polyarchy.... Individualsperformingroles
in political and state institutions are supposed to be
guided not by particularisticmotives but by universalisticorientationsto some version of the public
good.... Where particularismis pervasive,this
notion is weaker,less widely held, and seldom
enforced."
88 Della Portaand Vannucci 1999, 146, 15.
89 Ibid., 15, 122.
90 Price 1975.
91 Hooker 1975, 2; also Griffiths 1986; Merry 1988.
92 Merry 1988, 869.
93 Lauth 2000.
94 Eisenstadt2002; Eisenstadt2003.
95 Eisenstadt2002.
96 Starn 1999.
97 Tsai 2001, 16.
98 Wang 2000; Tsai 2001.
99 The question of informal institutional emergence
has been the subject of a largeliteraturewithin formal political theory. See Schotter 1981; Knight
1992; Calvert 1995.
100 For example, some indigenous institutions widely
viewed as "traditional"are in fact recent creations
that merelydrawon earliertraditions.See Starn 1999;
Van Cott 2000, 2003; Galvan 2004.
101 For a critique, see Knight 1992.
102 See, for example, earlywork on legislativenorms by
Weingast 1979; Shepsle and Weingast 1981; Weingast and Marshall1988.
103 Many informal institutions emerge endogenously
from formal institutional arrangements.Actors create them in an effort to subvert, mitigate the
effectsof, substitutefor,or enhancethe efficiencyof formal institutions. However,other informal institutions develop independently of formal institutional
structures, in response to conditions that are
unrelatedto (and frequentlypre-date)the formalinstitutional context. Formalinstitutions may then be
built on the foundation of these informal institutions (actorsmay formalizepre-existinginformal
rules or use them as the bases for designing formal
736
Perspectives on Politics
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
ones), or they may be createdwithout taking preexisting informal structuresinto account (as occurred
with many colonial institutions).
Johnson 2002.
March and Olsen 1989; Nelson and Winter 1982;
Weingast 1979; Weingastand Marshall 1988.
We thank Susan Stokes for suggesting this point.
Siavelis2002b.
Mershon 1994.
Ibid.
Taylor 1992.
Mershon 1994, 50.
Van Oenen 2001.
Brinks2003a.
Darden 2002; Levitskyand Way 2002; Schedler
2002; Ottaway 2003.
See, for example, Starn'saccount of the disputed origins of the ronda campesinasin Peru (1999, 36-69)
and Ledeneva's(1998) analysisof the origins of
blat in the Soviet Union.
Knight 1992.
Ibid.
Schelling 1960.
Sugden 1986; Schotter 1981; and Calvert 1995.
Knight 1992
Johnson 1974; Colignon and Usui 2003. Similarly,
norms of restraintand flexibilitywithin Japan'ssecurity forces have been tracedto the intense sociopolitical conflicts in the aftermathof World War II
(Katzenstein1996).
Langston2003, 14-16.
Mershon 1994, 67-68.
Colignon and Usui 2003.
Darden 2002; Moreno Ocampo 2002.
Siavelis2002b; Lijphart1975; Mershon 1994.
Della Portaand Vannucci 1999, 93-124.
Starn 1999.
North 1990, 45; See also Dia 1996; O'Donnell
1996; Pejovich 1999; Collins 2002b.
North 1990; Lauth 2000.
Lauth 2000, 24-25.
Mackie 1996.
Langston2003.
Dia 1996; O'Donnell 1996; Pejovich1999. Forexample, Amakudaripersistedfor decadesdespite multiple legislativereformsaimedat its eradication(Colignon
and Usui 2003, 43-49); clan politics in Central
Asiasurvivedthe riseand fallof the SovietUnion (Collins 2002a, 2002b); and many Soviet-eranorms survived Russia'stransitionfrom state socialism to a
marketeconomy (Clarke 1995; Sil 2001).
North 1990, 88.
Della Portaand Vannucci 1999.
Yang 1994.
Eisenstadt2002.
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
Starn 1999.
North 1990; Dia 1996; Pejovich 1999.
Knight 1992.
Langston2003.
Lijphart1975.
Kitschelt2000.
Schelling 1960, 1978.
Mackie 1996.
See, for example, North 1990.
For a more elaboratediscussion of how to identify
and measureinformal institutions, see Brinks2003b.
An additionalproblem, identified by Brinks(2003b),
is that some informalrulespermit, but do not require,
certain behavior.Under rules of this type, actors
who refrainfrom the permittedbehavior(e.g., government officialswho choose not to collect bribes) do
not breakthe informalrule and thus will not be sanctioned. In such cases, sanctions are likely to be
applied only to actorswho seek to formallysanction
behaviorpermittedby the informalrules-i.e., whistle blowers.
Within the case study tradition, a more microlevel
approachis to construct analyticnarrativesthat
blend elements of deductive and inductive reasoning. See Bates et al. 1998.
Collins 2002a.
Desposato 2003.
Stokes 2003.
March and Olsen 1984, 734.
Weyland 2002, 67.
On these questions, see Kitschelt 2000; Desposato
2003 and Taylor-Robinson2003.
Van Cott 2000, 2003; Galvan 2004.
YrigoyenFajardo2000; Van Cott 2000, 2003.
FerreiraRubio and Goretti 1998, 56-57.
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