Achievements

⇒  ORCID

 

1) Helou, J. and A. Polese, (2025) Informal Governance and Crisis: How Invisible, Everyday Tactics of Survival Affect, Reshape and Redesign Policymaking and Governance. London and New York: Routledge

2) Polese, A. (2019) The SCOPUS diaries and the (il)logics of academic survival: A short guide to design your own strategy and survive bibliometrics, conferences and unreal expectations in academia. Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag (distributed by Columbia University Press)

3) Polese, A. and T. Dadabaev (2026) “Who “Knows Better?” On Epistemic Binaries, Epistemocides and the Risks of (Selective) Decolonisation in Central Asian Narratives” Eurasian Geographies and Economicshttps://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15387216.2026.2620815#d1e219

4) Polese, A., G. Nassimova, A. Zhunussova, G. Ileuova, M. Buzurtanova (2026) “25MB/sec activism: reframing political participation in Kazakhstan after January 2022”, Central Asian Affairs (accepted, forthcoming)

5) Helou, J. and A. Polese (2025) “There’s nothing more permanent than temporary solutions: Solar panel transition and everyday coping in Lebanon’s multi-dimensional crisis since 2020”, Third World Quarterly 45(17-18): 2448-2468

6) Polese, A. and A. Sheranova (2024) “When “branding” meets “building”: possible (un)intended The cconsequences of nation branding on identity of nation branding in Estonia and Kyrgyzstan”, Journal of Baltic Studies 55(2): 435-457

towards a theory of informality

I am currently working to a theoretical framework linking the concept of everyday informality and governance. I would do this to set the theoretical bases for the study of informality on local and regional governance with particular focus on the Asian region - post-Soviet Central Asia and Japan - where I have studied mechanisms of solidarity and social cohesion (i.e. Polese et al. 2023; Polese 2024) Everyday governance is an idea developed from Scott’s concept of infrapolitics suggesting that ”...the accumulation of thousands or even millions of (such) petty acts can have massive effect for warfare, land rights, taxes and property relations (Scott 2012: xx)”. Since its early works (1976, 1985), Scott’s approach switches attention from macro to the micro by reevaluating the everyday agency of common people. The idea is that any policy, or rule, is bound to fail only as people somehow tacitly agree and comply with them. Indeed, there is an array of documented cases where lack of compliance led to the dismissal of an otherwise successful policy (Navarro- Yashin 2002; Scott 1998). This has been shown not to be confined to a single case or geographical area but function, with various dynamics, across all world regions(Ledeneva 2018,2024, see also the Global Informality Project https://www.in-formality.com/wiki/index.php?title=Global_Informality_Project). I am currently developing this with a short article named "informality as the dumping ground of social theory" that should soon be expanded into an academic article or even a book if possible.

 

Principal areas of interest

• Informality and informality theory
• Governance
• Risk, disaster and conflict management
• Decolonial debates (critique to)