Why are informal practices still prevalent in Russia? -- Chernyi piar : dirty campaigning and the workings of Russian democracy -- Kompromat : the use of compromising information in informal politics -- Krugovaia poruka : sustaining the ties of joint responsibility -- Tenevoi barter : shadow...

The paper defines the key features of Chinese guanxi and Russian blat networks, explores similarities and differences in the use of these networks both in communist and post-communist economies, and discovers their ambiguous relationship with the formal institutions. Having compared guanxixue...