SUMMARY Acceptance of merit's pivotal role in establishing and maintaining effective bureaucracies has become second nature. In this paper I explore the association between merit and kinship in the Philippine civil service, although the conclusions that emerge are not peculiar either to the case of the Philippines or to the ‘developing’ world in general. I argue that merit is no less social than kinship; that its meaning for actors is broader, and the value of kinship and other ‘traditional’ social categories of behavior greater, than commentators and reformers often allow for. Indeed, when merit is narrowly defined (as it so often must be for practical reasons) and its complex dimensions ignored, it is socially divisive, produces deep inequalities, and leaves organizations less flexible and less capable of innovation. I suggest that, however paradoxical it might seem, more effective, humanitarian, flexible, and creative organizations thrive in what is often portrayed as an unsatisfactory transitional state between third‐world informality and Weberian‐style formality. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Philippine civil servants staff the country's executive agencies, the secretariats of the legislature, the five commissions, the judiciary, local government, and the organs of the Autonomous Muslim Region of Mindanao. They number some 1.3 million (1) of which some 18 000 are noncareer political appointees. (2) In spite of its faults, which are many, the civil service is essential to the life of the Philippines. Without it, the organs of government, inefficient though they may often be, would cease to function. Yet relatively little academic analysis has been directed at the Philippine civil service. Empirical data and field studies are fragmented, poorly disseminated, and often remain unpublished. Also, notwithstanding valuable contributions made by individual scholars, the conceptual basis of its study is narrow and uncertain when looked at in the round, and is heavily conditioned by a public administration approach. (3) This is concerned primarily with the delivery of services to the people through`cooperative human action' (de Guzman, 2003, page 4), whether in the public bureaucracy, the private sector, or nongovernmental organizations. Thus, the Philippine bureaucracy is viewed as only one amongst many sets of activities and organizations (public, private,

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Informality in the global south thought to matter because it is a threat, or a stage on the road, to (or embedded in) formality; or because it is a permanent condition acceptable on its own terms and has the potential to keep formal bureaucratic organizations running and in touch with citizens. These understandings of informality also share an assertion: that the quality of informality is different -almost genetically so -from formality. The purpose of my remarks here is to point this discussion in another direction. I argue that the difference between informality and formality is only conceptual. The supposition that there exists in fact an informal-formal dichotomy, dualism or dialectic, and its use as an analytical lens, produces apparent features which it cannot easily account for. I illustrate these features and then go on to sketch out another approach and its implications. New Global Studies 2016; aop Unauthenticated Download Date | 6/13/16 12:46 PM spontaneous, off-the-books, and outside established routines and practice; and a wider context in which capital and advanced technology are scarce and labor is used intensively. Measures of the extent of informality in the developing world also vary but are striking. About 50 % of employment and 30-40 % of all economic activities are thought to be informal. Figures are higher for some activities and in some regions. A good proportion (60-70 %) of manufacturing across the developing world is said to be informal. In Latin America, about half of the salaried workforce is informal, while figures for the urban workforce alone range from 30 to 70 %. Proportions of the labor force in informal employment rise to 72 % in sub-Saharan Africa and to 65 % in Asia. (See Galiani and Weinschelbaum 2012; Maloney 2004; Moreno-Monroy 2012; Funder and Marani 2015; Maiti and Mitra 2011).In establishing a reasonably distinct and tangible phenomenon for analysis and enumeration, collections of features which are necessarily recurring, predictable, and quantifiable are required, together with an assertion that informality is different -almost genetically so in some instances -from formality. A number of accounts or understandings of "informality" follow from this. First, informality is a barrier to progress. It delineates a detached sector producing different (and inferior) products with different (and inferior) labor and with little capital (see, for instance, La Prota and Shleifer 2014). Enterprises are inefficient and poorly managed, have low employment growth rates, seldom evolve into formal organizations, and see formality as a menace (ibid.). Thus, informality closes down opportunities, suppresses motivation, discourages freedom and creativity, inhibits and distorts communication; and -as markets expand, the division of labor deepens, and the number, scale and complexity of transactions increase -it becomes less cost effective (Balogh 1966, Bardhan 2002Bauer and Yamey 1963;Olson 1982;Sobel 2002). The only remedy is economic development. The informal will only wither as more comp...

Philippine political and bureaucratic organisations are usually presented as weak, permeable, distorted and corrupt and, as such, lie some way from a proper condition of formality. There is no question that informal behaviour can and does have a deleterious effect on the civil service and the organisations it staffs. But it is also clear that, within the bureaucracy, there is a deal of positive informal behaviour. It is suggested here that informality is essential to the day-to-day operation of bureaucratic organisations, a vital source of innovation, and the base material from which the formal is shaped. Possible explanations for the emergence of these qualities are also revealed. There are, in particular, overlapping and mutually reinforcing circumstances or conditionsnegative informality, divergent representations, divisions in authority, and overconformity -that appear to excite positive informality, and that may constitute useful elements in developing an explanatory model of informality in Philippine bureaucracy.

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