Download or read book Social Networks, Informal Accountability, and Public Goods Provision in Rural China written by Jie Chen and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few political scientists would deny the centrality of institutions in comparative political studies. Institutions, conceptualized as “the rules of the game in society” (North 1990, 3), impose constraints on people's behavior and shape their strategies of interaction. These humanly devised constraints, according to North's conceptualization (North 1990; Mantzavinos et al. 2004), can be either formal, such as written rules, or informal, such as shared conventions and customs. In this study, we focus on the informal institutions.