Formalization and its Discontents: Conceptual Fallacies and Ways Forward

The concept of formalization has long underpinned policy interventions and measures intended to connect informal entities with state institutions or formal economic structures. However, despite the policy enthusiasm, the outcomes of formalization policies have frequently been disappointing. This article argues that this disconnect lies in the concept of formalization itself and that common approaches to formalization are often rooted in three conceptual fallacies: a binary distinction between formal and informal economic actors, a lack of appreciation for the diversity of informal economic actors and the idea that ‘becoming’ formal necessarily spurs positive externalities. These conceptual confusions pay insufficient attention to contextual complexity and the political and social dynamics that shape informality in a given context and they are frequently rooted in the practicalities and power structures that shape knowledge creation in this area. This article demonstrates this through case studies of tax registration and property titling. Thus, it argues for a new research agenda on formalization that challenges both its conventional conceptual foundations and the practices of research that engage with it.     

The Engagement of Territorial Knowledge Communities with European Spatial Planning and the Territorial Cohesion Debate: A Baltic Perspective

Abstract

Recent, dramatic spatial development trends have contributed to the consolidation of a unique territorial governance landscape in the Baltic States. The paper examines the transformation of this evolving institutional landscape for planning practice and knowledge, which has been marked by the disintegration of Soviet institutions and networks, the transition to a market-based economy and the process of accession to the EU. It explores the evolution of territorial knowledge channels in the Baltic States, and the extent and nature of the engagement of actors' communities with the main knowledge arenas and resources of European spatial planning (ESP). The paper concludes that recent shifts in the evolution of these channels suggest the engagement of ESP has concentrated among epistemic communities at State and trans-national levels of territorial governance. The limited policy coordination across a broader spectrum of diverse actors is compounded by institutionally weak and fragmented professional communities of practice, fragmented government structures and marginalized advocacy coalitions.     

Ethnographies of terror

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Death and Disorder in Guatemala. Volume 7, number 1. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. 53 pp. including 29 photographs, 8 tables, 1 map, and bibliography. $5.00 paper.

Cultural Survival Quarterly. Voices of the Survivors: The Massacre al Finca San Francisco, Guatemala. Occasional Papers of the Anthropology Resource Center, Number 10. Cambridge, MA: Cultural Survival, Inc., 1983. ii + 105 pp. including 5 photographs, 2 maps, and glossary. $5.00 paper.