Towards a Descriptive Typology of Informal Institutions and Practices
Towards a Descriptive Typology of Informal Institutions and Practices

Summary/Abstract: Despite increasing awareness of the impact of informal activities in shaping political outcomes, scientific interest did not work in favor of conceptual clarity, and there have been no entirely successful efforts to classify informal institutions or other types of informal phenomena. The primary objective of this study is to offer a new descriptive typology of informal institutions, based on two variables: the compatibility between formal and informal rules, and the impact of informal activities on the functioning of the formal system. Two categories of the proposed typology capture situations of compatibility (complementary and substitutive informal institutions) and two refer to configurations of incompatibility. The latter differ regarding the impact of informal rules, which can either increase (deviant informal institution) or decrease the performance of the formal institutions (competing informal institution). Furthermore, the study formulates some critical remarks concerning existing conceptualizations of informality in political science, and argues for the use of the broader concept of „informal practices” next to that of the narrower „informal institutions”. The new typology delivers clear criteria to differentiate both between various forms of informal institutions and informal practices, and it is suitable to accommodate salient forms of informal activities practiced in different political systems, which is illustrated through a large set of cases.

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