Negotiating welfare with the informalizing state: Formal and informal practices among engineers in post-Soviet Azerbaijan

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThis article discusses the use of informal practices in negotiating welfare with state institutions in Azerbaijan. One of the effects of transition to market economies in the postsocialist countries has been the partial withdrawal of the state from welfare provision and residualization of welfare. Recent research has shown that informal practices play an important role in "structuring welfare from below" (Morris & Polese, 2014b) across postsocialist realm. Based on in-depth interviews with engineers at different periods of their careers, namely mid-career, working pensioners, and engineering students, this article demonstrates how formal and informal institutions and practices are strategically used by individuals, families, and low level bureaucrats to achieve desired career and welfare goals. Rather than compensating for the deficiencies of formal rules and institutions, formal and informal are intertwined and merged and are actively employed both by the citizens and state institutions.

Managing access to full-time public daycare and preschool services in Romania: Planfulness, cream-skimming and ‘interventions’

“…Others decided 'not to push the issue' and accepted refusal. This contrasts starkly with professionals' predatory practices in the public healthcare system (Stan, 2012: 78e79) or in higher education in other post-socialist contexts (Sayfutdinova, 2015).…”

Azerbaijan Country Gender Assessment

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Introduction: Informality and power in the South Caucasus

“…However, informality has also prompted studies on informal institutions (Helme and Levitt 2005), economic and corporate organizations (Dixit 2007), as well as more bottom-up approaches at the community and urban levels (McFarlane and Waibel 2012), together with a variety of actors and practices (Williams and Williams 2011; Morris andPolese 2014, 2015). Recent writing on informality has gone beyond both a merely economic view and, building on the early works of Granovetter (1985), rediscovered its interconnection with social phenomena (Gudeman 2001;Yalçın-Heckmann 2014) to propose a more holistic interpretation of the meaning of informality and its influence in various spheres of life (Ledeneva 1998(Ledeneva , 2013Misztal 2002;Helmke and Levitsky 2004;Isaacs 2010Isaacs , 2011Morris 2011;Ó Beacháin 2012Ó Beacháin , 2015Sayfutdinova 2015).…”