Between formal and informal. Promoting feminization of the managerial positions of Italian universities after the neoliberal turn

Playing by the rules? The formal and informal rules of candidate selection

This chapter explores how and why formal and informal organizational rules influence the application of long and short-term perspectives within evaluations that are commissioned or led by the Norwegian and United Kingdom’s international development agencies. We reflect on differences between the two agencies and provide a comparative analysis of their formal and informal rules. We define formal rules as regulations and required ways of working and informal rules as organizational norms and socially negotiated ways of working. These definitions are based on Douglass North’s framework and analysis of institutions. We subsequently apply a purposive sample to select four evaluations that have been commissioned by the international development agencies of Norway and the United Kingdom. Through these case studies we explore how and why long and short-term perspectives were selected and applied within evaluations. We compare their strengths and limitations based on their choice of time perspective and reflect on how this has influenced use of findings. The final section of the chapter considers how formal rules could be developed to support greater organizational reflection and learning from the long term.

Constitutional courts operate under a framework of formal and informal rules. While formal rules have been extensively studied, our understanding of informal rules remains limited. Courts often rely on internal practices, traditions and unwritten customs developed over time, posing a significant challenge due to their hidden nature. Numerous constitutional courts lack detailed voting protocols in their statutes and internal regulations, leaving essential aspects to the court's discretion, such as, inter alia, the voting order, deliberation style, outcome versus issue voting and tie-breaking protocols. By employing a case study of strategic breaching of informal voting protocols in the Mexican Supreme Court, this article highlights the complexity of enforcing informal voting rules given that external actors may be unaware of them, along with other factors. Even when informal rules are broadly known, certain circumstances may diminish the efficacy of informal sanctions addressing their breach. Thus, key judicial players, such as chief justices or judge-rapporteurs, may take advantage of the informal rules of voting protocols to advance their policy preferences.

Social activity involves human interactions on two levels. The first level concerns the development, modification, and specifications of institutions. Institutions define the basic framework within which people interact with one another; we can refer to them as the rules of the game. The second level of social activity concerns human interactions within the prevailing institutional arrangements; we can refer to this level of activity as the game itself. The two levels of social activity are interrelated. By constraining the scope and contents of human interactions, the rules help interacting individuals to predict each other's behavior, or, to put it another way, the rules lower the transaction costs of playing the game. Of course, lower transaction costs mean a higher level of economic activity. By implication, a change in the rules changes both the way the game is played and the level of economic activity.

In this article the author tries consider a question important for economic development: what happens when formal rules and informal rules of economic behaviour are in conflict. Under such circumstances even the best, wealth creation-enhancing rules must bring about different outcomes if introduced in the different political, economic, and socio-cultural environments. These considerations begin with the overview of possible balances and imbalances in the relationships between formal and informal rules and potential conflicts that may arise in the latter cases. The next step is the selection of institutional characteristics that facilitate the explanation and prediction of outcomes of formal rules&informal rules interactions. The third, and final, step considered in the article concerns the adjustment of rules (formal, informal, or both) over time and possible patterns of adjustment.

This paper deals with the interaction between informal sanctions imposed by social norms and formal sanctions authorized by law. While some scholars claim that the formal rule merely substitutes for the informal rule, other authors argue that formal and informal rules are complementary. If the former view is correct, we do not need the costly formal rules. If the latter view is correct, the joint use of the formal rule by the government and the informal rule by the local community would provide more efficient outcomes than the use of the informal rule in isolation. The purpose of this paper is to show whether these two rules are substitutes or complements.

REVIEWS 769 The final section of this collection focuses on recent attempts to reform the Russian criminal justice system.William Butler begins by assessing the increase inHIV associated with higher levels of intravenous drug use in recent years, and analyses some of the problems with state attempts to implement a policy of 'harm reduction' in this area. Daniel Rodeheaver and James Williams focus on exploring high levels of juvenile crime as a result of the post-socialist transition and highlight inadequacies in the existing state response to juvenile crime. Finally, studies by Adrian Beck and Annette Robertson and Roy King and Laura Piacentini assess two components of the Russian justice system that have proven most resistant to change in the post-Communist period: the police and prison system. Beck and Robertson highlight the slow process of police reform inRussia, in its struggle to adapt from the Communist legacy to a more accountable, democratic culture of policing, while King and Piacentini's study concludes that despite continued problems, there is some evidence of change in theRussian penal system. This is a collection with a broad remit, and succeeds in providing a com prehensive and insightfuloverview of changes to law, crime and justice in Russia in recent years, highlighting a number of positive developments whilst stressing that the longer term forecast for Russia remains uncertain. However, the broad thematic structure of the content also makes it accessible for scholars working in specific areas of this remit to 'dip in and out' of studies particularly relevant to their area of interest. School of History Kelly Hignett Keele University Ledeneva, Alena V. How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices thatShaped Post-Soviet Politics andBusiness. Culture and Society after Socialism. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY and London, 2006. xii + 270 pp. Illustra tions. Figures. Tables. Appendices. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $22.95: ^2.95 (paperback). Alena Ledeneva has written a lively book on informal practices of business, government and politics in contemporary Russia. She shows that most infor mal practices are carry-overs from the Soviet period and, in some cases, such as collective responsibility, date to the remote tsarist past. Her data come from sixty-two in-depth interviews with elites, business practitioners, journalists and those handling technical business matters such as accountants and lawyers. This database is supplemented by press accounts and by a careful reading of the secondary literature. Ledeneva's key propositions are that contemporary Russia is runmore by informal than by formal rules and thatmost informal practices can be traced to the Soviet period or earlier. Insofar as these informal rules are non transparent and change frequently, they can only be understood by insiders. Thus an alternative titleof thisbook could have been 'An Insider's Account ofHow Russia Works'. The author uses sports analogy to describe Russian informal practices as a 'feel for the game, as the practical mastery of the logic or of the immanent necessity of a game ? a mastery acquired by experience 770 SEER, 86, 4, OCTOBER 2008 of the game' (p. 20). It is through her respondents that Ledeneva herself acquires thismastery, which she ispassing on to outsiders in her book. According to the author, informal rules exist because of the weakness of formal rules. The co-existence of formal and informal rules has profound consequences for individual behaviour. In this environment, anybody can be found guilty of violating some formal rules (which everyone at some point must disregard). Because everyone isguilty of something, punishment must be selective. Therefore, avoiding selective punishment in a setting where every one is 'guilty' is a goal ofmastering the game of contemporary Russian busi ness. Moreover, the violation of unwritten rules can lead to punishment for theviolation of formal rules.As we all know, an oligarch who disobeys unwrit ten rules about not challenging the establishment can find himself selectively prosecuted for the violation of tax laws; whereas his peers are left alone. Selective punishment where formal guilt isborne by all was also characteristic of the Soviet regime. The 'plan was the law' and everyone violated some aspect of the plan but only a few could be punished. Indeed, what Ledeneva isdescribing for contemporary Russia was just as trueof Stalin's...

Extant research presents a conflicting picture of change dynamics during institutional discontinuities. Some studies propose or depict formal rules as changing first. Others argue that norms need to change before formal rules can be revisited, let alone change. An examination of the literature suggests a contingency theory. In mature organisational fields with institutionalised informal rules, norms need to be questioned and changed before any change in formal rules can take place. On the other hand, in emergent organisational fields – where no particular rules of the game have been institutionalised ‒ change in higher-level institutions begins with a change in formal rules. The article also presents two historical cases of major institutional change in professional American baseball that illustrate the theory proposed.

In this chapter we explore the embedding of gender equality in Irish higher education through the implementation of the Athena Swan Ireland Charter in three higher education institutions (HEIs). A research study was conducted to explore the process of embedding gender equality from the perspectives of critical institutional actors, using feminist institutionalism (FI) with institutional change theory as a theoretical framework for understanding how formal and informal rules and structures interact to undermine, or support, efforts at institutional change for gender equality. Semi-structured interviews took place with 26 participants, who were working within institutional Athena Swan teams. Narrative analysis of interview transcripts uncovered the extent to which the Charter is a mechanism for modest institutional adaptation. The study found that the formalising nature of Athena Swan actions is a major enabler to the process of implementation and of incremental change. However, the research also suggests that the institutional change triggered by Athena Swan is dominated by modes of change that are not only slow and gradual but at risk of being undermined due to the focus on the formal at the expense of the informal. Therefore, the Athena Swan Charter will need to tackle the informal structures and cultures that continue to reproduce gender inequalities.

Underground Activity and Institutional Change: Productive, Protective and Predatory Behavior in Transition Economies

Why do informal rules emerge alongside—and at variance with—the formal constitutional constraints that shape bargaining over coalition governments? The presence of informal rules at odds with formal rules appears as an anomaly within both institution-free and institution-focused theories of coalitions. The author argues that politicians create informal rules in order to alter formal institutions that do not function to their benefit. The costs of a formal change in institutions offer incentives to politicians to invent informal rules as alternatives to such change, and repeated interactions teach politicians what to expect and then invent. The author's emphasis on the manipulability of rules echoes long-standing themes in the study and practice of politics.

In the article, abortion is presented as one of the indicators of the demographic transition, characterized by a low birth rate and mortality, a change in marital and family behavior, and the transformation of the composition of the population of modern Russian society. The practice of abortion is in the center of our attention and is considered in interaction with other social phenomena.The purpose of the study is to determine the factors influencing the practice of abortion in the current demographic situation. As the methodology of this research, the authors of the article use the analysis of the scientific literature of domestic scientists, the results of their own sociological research and the results of sociological research of VTSIOM.The authors identify socio-cultural, institutional, psychological factors that influence the practice of abortion. At the individual level, a woman's attitude to "unexpected pregnancy" plays an important role, the availability of opportunities for termination of pregnancy (formal and informal rules and regulations, legislative acts, public approval or condemnation), the perception of abortion as a social problem, forms of behavior of individuals participating in the practice of artificial termination of pregnancy. The novelty of the study is presented as an analysis of the factors that influenced the practice of abortion and the results of the author's sociological research. The analysis of scientific literature has shown that the traditions that have developed in a particular society, the level of development of the health and education system, as well as the specific situation in which a woman who decides to have an abortion finds herself are of great importance. The results of sociological research, official statistics show that formal and informal norms and rules, the development of pharmacology, the emergence of new methods of contraception, changes in basic institutions have an impact on the practice of abortion in the context of demographic transition.

Abstract‘Here’ is a hypothetical place where governance is poor, and justice often denied. The situation in ‘Denmark’, another hypothetical place, is the opposite. The journey from Here to Denmark is a quest seeking good governance for all. That in turn needs robust, inclusive institutions which are both the formal and informal rules governing a society. Formal rules are essentially aspirational and by now, most countries have put formal institutions in place though many still do not perform effectively. Informal rules evolve from shared beliefs, social norms, mental models, and local cultural context. Such informal rules greatly influence how well institutions function in a society and take time to change and evolve. In addition to efforts at trying to make the formal institutions work better, the key challenges for any society are to build greater public trust, change peoples’ behaviors and influence informal institutions so crucial for better governance. Enhanced human capital through improved education and health will also be crucial to empower citizens and enable them to participate more effectively in the affairs of their society. There is no easy road map for this journey. Each society will have to find its own way to Denmark. But, history indicates that the arc of the journey does bend towards Denmark. The book has outlined ten global megatrends which give hope that many countries will indeed be able to reach Denmark, sooner rather than later, where, to quote Tagore, ‘the mind is without fear and the head is held high’.

It has been widely observed that the same formal rules, enacted in the parliaments in the form of written laws, give vastly different results in different social and cultural environments. This phenomenon came to be particularly pronounced in the process of transition of the formerly communist countries to market economies and politically pluralized societies. Highly similar and occasionally identical institutional changes turned out to be unequally accepted by the societies under consideration and produced widely different results in the material restructuring of the economies. It became clear that the notion of institutions had to be widened so as to encompass the informal rules: the customs, the traditions, cultural values and national myths. Informal rules define the constraints for implementing the formal ones and, on the other hand, determine the actual effects of the latter once they are implemented. Forcing the formal rules upon the transition societies cannot be successful unless preceding and/or contemporaneous changes of informal rules are provided for. The paper ends with a design of the strategy for the decisively important changes in values and other components of informal rules.

In Liberia's 1927 election, C.D.B. King, the candidate of the True Whig Party, faced T.J.R. Faulkner, the opposition leader of the People's Party. It was a lopsided victory for the incumbent True Whigs, as their candidate won an official tally of 243,000 votes, compared to just 9,000 for the People's Party. There was just one problem. Formal rules on voter eligibility were so strict that only 15,000 people were legally allowed to cast ballots in Liberia by 1927 (Kieh Jr. 2003: 202). The election was certainly rigged. Either each eligible voter had cast an average of seventeen ballots apiece (and most of them in favour of the True Whigs), or hundreds of thousands of ineligible voters were allowed to vote. It is no surprise that African elections in 1927 were arenas of competition that had little regard for formal rules. Such events are rare today. Increased importance has been given to formal electoral laws, although official regulations are certainly not ironclad guarantors of electoral behaviour. Degrees of electoral manipulation were commonplace in the intervening decades – throughout the era of paternalistic colonialism, ‘Big Men’ and one-party states, and finally the third wave of democracy that swept across the continent in the 1990s (Huntington 1991). There are endless examples of African elites contravening electoral institutions in order to illegitimately gain an upper hand (Chaturvedi 2005; Calingaert 2006; Aalen and Tronvoll 2009; Beaulieu and Hyde 2009; Collier and Vincente 2012; Cheeseman 2015). However, the interaction between formal and informal rules is markedly different than it was when the True Whigs blatantly stole an election with an obviously implausible vote tally. Today, only amateurs steal elections by brazenly breaking the law. In this chapter, I aim to demonstrate how African electoral manipulation has shifted into a new realm of ‘strategic rigging’, whereby incumbents may bend, re-interpret or change election laws, but always with a critical focus on being perceived as democratic, and in accordance with codified institutions. Elite behaviour in response to institutional change provides an important insight into the role of formal political institutions in Africa: institutions constrain elite action, but may also incentivise new forms of rule-bending or -breaking, in pursuit of the same goals – such as new, but no less insidious, forms of manipulation.