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Alena Ledeneva

Professeur
University College London
Economies of Favour or Corrupt Societies? Exploring the Boundaries Between Informality and Corruption
01 October 2013 - 30 June 2014
Sociology
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Alena V. Ledeneva is Professor of Politics and Society at the University College London (UCL), UK. She authored several books including Can Russia Modernise? Sistema, Power Networks and Informal Governance (CUP 2013), How Russia Really Works (Cornell University Press 2006), and Russia’s Economy of Favours (CUP 1998) and many articles. Her expertise is on informal networks, governance practices and corruption.

My project is aimed at exploring the boundaries between informality and corruption.
Considering the importance of informal practices both in post-communist economies and across the globe, research into this field has been slow to develop. Some of the reasons for this are pragmatic: in studying sensitive issues associated with informal institutions, networks and practices, researchers encounter methodological challenges, pressures to work cross discipline, and unwelcoming attitudes from respondents. Yet there are also conceptual puzzles in integrating the informal dimension into disciplinary research and in breaching moral resistance to unearth inconvenient facts about the functionality of grey areas in politics, economy and society. Through its comparative and ethnographic investigations, this project will shed light onto the existence of multiple moralities, which account for the resilience of informal practices, and explore their legitimacy and institutional arrangements as well as the cultural and historical contexts that produce and reproduce the porous boundaries between informal and corrupt practices.

Round table organized by A. Ledeneva, 2013-2014 Paris IAS fellow
06 Nov 2018 16:00 -
06 Nov 2018 18:00,
Paris :
The Global Encyclopaedia of Informality
Colloque organisé par Alena Ledeneva, résidente à l'IEA de Paris et Nicolas Sauger
26 Jun 2014 00:00 -
27 Jun 2014 00:00,
Paris :
The Invisible and the Immeasurable: Towards Alternative Indicators of Corruption
13 Dec 2013 00:00 -
13 Dec 2013 00:00,
Paris :
Measuring the immeasurable: obliquity and second-tier indicators
24 Nov 2013 18:15 -
24 Nov 2013 19:45,
Table Ronde : « Tous citoyens du monde ? Un défi pour les institutions »
03 Oct 2013 10:30 -
03 Oct 2013 11:45,
Lund :
Economies of favours or corrupt societies? Exploring the boundaries between informality and corruption
437
2013-2014
Contemporary period (1789-…)
a.ledeneva@ssees.ucl.ac.uk