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ased work easier to fit in around their householdresponsibilities. Formal sector businesses maychoose to outsource work to informal workers togain flexibility. That said, these jobs are mostlyvery badly paid, often dangerous, and they relyheavily on children (ILO 2003). Most people whotoil in the parallel economy do so out of necessity,not freely exercised choice. Judith Tendler (2002)writes of an implicit ‘devil’s deal’ in Brazil and othercountries, whereby informal economy workers andentrepreneurs consent to support certain politicians.In return, the politicians agree not to enforce tax,environmental, or labour regulations; and to keepthe police and inspectors from harassing the poor.This arrangement is difficult for either side to getout of and it limits the options for legal empowerment.Tendler suggests the way to break the ‘devil’sdeal’ is by demonstrating the paths by which smallfirms grow into form ones, including treating workersbetter and helping to upgrade their skills.The boundary between the informal and the formaleconomies is fluid and poor people can push it in adirection that favours them. Cairo, to take an example,has an informal refuse collection system whichactually has a well-defined set of internal rights,responsibilities, and sanctions that evolved overseveral decades in response to a changing externalenvironment. The city tried to bring refuse collectionunder municipal control by issuing licenses to largecorporate contractors. Refuse collection is a majorenterprise for poor people so the city was threateningtheir livelihood. After negotiation and mutualadjustment, a new arrangement emerged in whichsmall-scale service providers selectively adoptedinstitutional forms recognised by the municipalauthorities, while hanging on to the personalisedand adaptable practices that marked their informalsystem (Assaad 1996). The second element ofinformality that concerns Legal Empowerment of thePoor policy implementation is found in the politicalsystem. Similar to what goes on in the economy,informality here is based on implicit and unwrittenunderstandings. In effect, it is a coping method forthe poor. The terms used to describe this grey governmentzone are ‘patrimonialism’ and ‘clientelism.’Its dimensions are hard to measure, but the informalpatron-client political system is widespread inmany countries and may crowd out the official statesystem of rule, along with that system’s broad policiesthat guarantee rights and distribute privilegesaccording to objective criteria.Patron-client politics emerge from webs ofpersonal bonds that develop between patronsand their individual clients or followers. Thesebonds are founded on mutual material advantage:the patron furnishes excludable resources (money,jobs) in return for support and cooperation (votes,attendance at rallies). Typically, marginalizedmembers of society are drawn into patron-clientarrangements as a more reliable means thanthe state to take care of their everyday concerns(Brinkerhoff and Goldsmith 2004). Clientelismis widely seen as a barrier to more transparentgovernance and professional public administration.It lives on, however, because it provides somethingof value to people. No society is so ‘advanced’ thatit relies exclusively on de jure institutions to run itscommon affairs. For all their drawbacks, informalpatron-client exchanges are expedient means to getthings done.Clientelism evolves and adapts to the formalgovernance system, similar to what happens in theeconomic sphere. In fact, individuals who holdthe formal levers of power are often also head uppatronage networks. Political openness, widespreadpolitical participation and the emergence of broadprogrammeme that help people regardless of theirpersonal affiliations are ways ‘clientelism’ can bepushed back to benefit the poor (Brinkerhoff andGoldsmith 2005). But this is a struggle. Patrons do304