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Abstract
Informal economic activity is often a defining feature of the political economy of conflict and post-conflict cities. Despite its prevalence, however, its implications for peacebuilding remain largely under-theorised. This article draws on the extensive literature on informal economic activity more generally, with a focus on cities, to outline three contrasting perspectives on its significance for peacebuilding: first, that informal economies can support peacebuilding efforts by providing crucial livelihood support and access to essential goods and services in the absence of functioning formal markets; second, that they are a manifestation of resistance to unpopular top-down peacebuilding processes that fail to cohere with local understandings of economic justice; and third, that they can reproduce the conditions that led to conflict by re-establishing socio-economic hierarchies and systems of marginalisation. It argues that each of these perspectives has important implications for the theory and praxis of peacebuilding and raises conceptual challenges that remain unresolved. It then claims that any effort to incorporate urban informal economies into peacebuilding processes must prioritise democratic inclusion, grassroots organisation and formal employment creation if they are to have a meaningful impact on the lives of the urban poor.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Walt Kilroy for his insightful comments on an early draft of this paper at the International Studies Association Annual Convention in Toronto in 2019, as well as two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 International Labour Office, Women and Men in the Informal Economy, 23 and 32.
2 United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, “World Urbanization Prospects.”
3 See, for example, Gusic, Contesting Peace in the Postwar City; Elfversson, Gusic and Höglund, “Spatiality of Violence”; and Björkdahl, “Urban Peacebuilding.”
4 Relevant examples of this work include Pugh, Cooper and Turner, Whose Peace?; and Distler, Stavrevska, and Vogel, “Economies of Peace.”
5 For relevant categorizations of this literature, see: Carr and Chen, Globalization; Chen, Informal Economy; Habib-Mintz, “To What Extent Can the Informal Economy”; Portes, and Schauffler, “Competing Perspectives”; and Yusuff, “A Theoretical Analysis.” Also see Young, “The State and the Origins of Informal Economic Activity,” 408–409.
6 See, for example, Danielsson, “Reforming and Preforming the Informal Economy”; Nitzschke and Studdard, “Legacies of War Economies”; Strazzari and Kamphuis, “Hybrid Economies and Statebuilding”; and Wennmann, “Resourcing the Recurrence of Interstate Conflict.”
7 Divjak and Pugh, “Political Economy of Corruption.”
8 Schomerus and Titeca, “Deals and Dealings.”
9 Menzel, “Between Ex-Combatization and Opportunities for Peace.”
10 Goodhand, “From War Economy to Peace Economy?”
11 Adapted from International Conference of Labour Statisticians, “Guidelines Concerning a Statistical Definition.” The visual representation of this definition is widely used in ILO documents. See, for example, Hussmanns, Measuring the Informal Economy, 27; International Labour Organization, “Decent Work in the Informal Economy,” 123; and International Labour Organization, “Revision of the 15th ICLS Resolution,” 13. Also see Chen, Informal Economy.
12 See the marginalization perspectives discussed below. A useful internal structure is offered in Chen, Informal Economy. 9.
13 Brown et al., “Insurgency and Disaster: Kathmandu – Nepal”; Brown et al., “Urban Violence: Karachi – Pakistan”; and Mackie et al., “Informal Economies, Conflict Recovery.”
14 For early approaches to informal economic activity, see Hart, “Informal Income Opportunities”; and International Labour Organization, “Employment, Incomes and Equality.”
15 Demirgüc-Kunt, Klapper and Panos, Entrepreneurship in Post-Conflict Transition.
16 Lamb, Assessing the Reintegration of Ex-Combatants.
17 McMullin, Ex-Combatants and the Post-Conflict State, 4.
18 This has long been a central tenet of peacebuilding. It is increasingly framed in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). See, for example, United Nations and the World Bank, Pathways for Peace, 6.
19 Ibid., 90–91; and Ohiorhenuan and Stewart, “Post-Conflict Economic Recovery.” For the role of business in the promotion of peace, see United Nations Security Council, “Role of Business in Conflict Prevention.” For the relationship the United Nations and the private sector, see United Nations Global Compact Office, United Nations and the Private Sector.
20 International Labour Conference, “Recommendation 204.”
21 United Nations, New Urban Agenda, 7, 17.
22 For the World Bank’s approach to informality, see Perry et al., Informality: Exit and Exclusion.
23 See the marginalization perspectives outlined below.
24 Habib-Mintz, “To What Extent Can the Informal Economy”; and Portes and Sassen-Koob, “Making It Underground.” A similar description is presented in Young, “The State and the Origins of Informal Economic Activity,” 409.
25 Danielsson, Informal Economies and Power, 5. Original italics removed.
26 The latter are central to the ILO’s approach to the informal economy. See International Labour Conference, “Recommendation 204”; also see Miller, “Living outside the Law.”
27 Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; Pugh, “Local Agency and Political Economies of Peacebuilding”; and Richmond and Mitchell, “Peacebuilding and Critical Forms of Agency.”
28 De Soto, The Other Path.
29 Tripp, Changing the Rules.
30 Notable treatments of resistance and the ‘hybrid turn’ can be found in Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; and Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace.
31 De Soto, The Other Path.
32 Young, “Conceptualizing Resistance in Post-Conflict Environments,” 178.
33 Burchell, Gordon and Miller, Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality; and Lemke, “‘Birth of Bio-Politics.”
34 Nadarajah and Rampton, “Limits of Hybridity.”
35 Bayat, Life as Politics; Bayat, “From ‘Dangerous Classes’ to ‘Quiet Rebels’”; and Bayat, “Un-Civil Society.”
36 Scott’s theories of everyday resistance have also been used to politicise the actions of those who engage in informal economic activity. Tripp’s work is particularly relevant here; see Tripp, Changing the Rules. For alternative treatments, see Moyo, “Resistance and Resilience by Informal Traders”; and Musoni, “Operation Murambatsvina.” For Scott’s work on resistance, see Scott, Domination and the Arts of Resistance; and Scott, Weapons of the Weak.
37 For a discussion of each, see Young, “Conceptualizing Resistance in Post-Conflict Environments,” 172–174.
38 This reflects a more general blindness to class dynamics that characterise theories of post-conflict resistance. See Iñiguez de Heredia, “Conspicuous Absence of Class and Privilege.”
39 McMullin, “Reintegration of Combatants,” 630.
40 See, in particular, Mac Ginty, International Peacebuilding and Local Resistance; Richmond, A Post-Liberal Peace; and Pugh, “Local Agency and Political Economies of Peacebuilding.”
41 For the importance of placing the agency of the poor in its proper economic and social context, see Rizzo, Taken for a Ride.
42 For the issue of the ability to ‘speak’ for marginalised groups, see Spivak, “Can the Subaltern Speak?”
43 Randazzo, “Paradoxes of the ‘Everyday.’”
44 Young, “Conceptualizing Resistance in Post-Conflict Environments,” 173–174.
45 Prominent examples of this literature include Portes, Castells and Benton, Informal Economy; Moser, “Informal Sector or Petty Commodity Production”; and Portes and Schauffler, “Competing Perspectives.” Also see Young, “The State and the Origins of Informal Economic Activity,” 409.
46 Galtung, “Violence, Peace, and Peace Research.”
47 See, for example, Baten and Mumme, “Does Inequality Lead to Civil Wars?”
48 Romanticizing ‘the local’ is a broader problem in peacebuilding policy and scholarship. See Richmond, “Romanticisation of the Local.”
49 Büscher, “African Cities and Violent Conflict.”
50 See note 3 above for notable exceptions.
51 Challenging these reforms is central to critical approaches to the liberal peace. See, for example, Pugh, “Political Economy of Peacebuilding.”
52 Cahill-Ripley, “Reclaiming the Peacebuilding Agenda.”
53 Roever and Skinner, “Street Vendors and Cities.”
54 Crossa, “Resisting the Entrepreneurial City”; “Morange, “Street Trade, Neoliberalisation and the Control of Space”; and Swanson, “Revanchist Urbanism Heads South.”
55 Popke and Ballard, “Dislocating Modernity.”
56 Kamete, “Cold-Hearted, Negligent and Spineless?”; and Kamete “In the Service of Tyranny.”
57 A useful framework for understanding these contestations is offered in Mackie, Bromley and Brown, “Informal Traders and the Battlegrounds.”
58 These views, along with other arguments commonly used in support of or opposition to street vending, are outlined in Bromley, “Street Vending and Public Policy.”
59 Cross, “Street Vendors, Modernity and Postmodernity;” and Setšabi and Leduka, “Politics of Street Trading in Maseru.”
60 Newman, “Violence of Statebuilding in Historical Perspective.”
61 Young, “The State and the Origins of Informal Economic Activity.”
62 For a critical analysis of the relationship between peacebuilding and statebuilding, see Newman, “Violence of Statebuilding in Historical Perspective.” Also see Curtis, “Limits to Statebuilding for Peace in Africa.”
63 Agarwala, Informal Labor, Formal Politics; Agarwala, “Reshaping the Social Contract”; Holland, Forbearance as Redistribution; and Holland, “Forbearance.”
64 Meagher, Identity Economics; Meagher, “Manufacturing Disorder”; Meagher, “Social Capital or Analytical Liability?”; and Meagher, “Social Capital, Social Liabilities, and Political Capital.”
65 Cross, Informal Politics: Street Vendors.
66 See, for example, Paris, At War’s End.
67 Young, “De-Democratisation and the Rights of Street Vendors.”
68 Ahn, Organizing for Decent Work in the Informal Economy; and International Labour Office, “Decent Work in the Informal Economy.”
69 Eaton, Schurman and Chen, Informal Workers and Collective Action; and Kabeer, Sudarshan and Milward, Organizing Women Workers in the Informal Economy.
70 See, for example, Meagher, Identity Economics, 105–120; Lindell, “Informality and Collective Organising”; Meagher, “Politics of Vulnerability”; Rizzo, “‘Life Is War’”; and Sanyal, “Organizing the Self-Employed.”
71 Brown and Lyons, “Seen but Not Heard.”
72 Theories of collective action that focus on political opportunity structures are particularly relevant. See McAdam, Political Process and the Development of Black Insurgency; Tarrow, Strangers at the Gates; and Tilly, From Mobilization to Revolution.
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Graeme Young
Graeme Young is a Research Associate at the University of Glasgow. His work has been published in International Peacekeeping, Journal of Eastern African Studies, The International Journal of Human Rights, Canadian Foreign Policy Journal and Urban Forum. He holds a PhD in Politics and International Studies from the University of Cambridge.