Alena Ledeneva: The Limits in Checks and Balances Enable Informal Governance in WB

Informal practices which play significant roles in governance all around the globe are unwritten rules that people use to “get things done” and acquire goods and services more efficiently by circumventing written rules. These practices underpin corruption in the societies with weak rule of law systems, but they exist in prosperous countries as well. What is the correlation between informal practices and corruption, how to recognize informalization of governance and create policies to address these issues are some of the topics we have discussed with Alena Ledeneva, Professor of Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies of University College London in the United Kingdom.

Professor Ledeneva is known for the first Global Encyclopaedia of Informality (UCL Press, 2018) and is currently leading the Global Informality Project, she is also a founder and editor of FRINDGE Centre. She was the keynote speaker on the Belgrade Security Forum which took place in October 2020.

Read the whole interview given to European Western Balkans, Strategic Media Partner of the Belgrade Security Forum 2020.