Varieties of Legal Dualism: Making Sense of The Role of Law in Contemporary Russia

Legal Studies Research Paper Series Paper No. 1119

Wisconsin International Law Journal
(forthcoming)

Varieties of Legal Dualism:
Making Sense of the Role of Law
in Contemporary Russia

Kathryn Hendley

This paper can be downloaded without charge from the
Social Science Research Network Electronic Paper Collection at:

http://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Making Sense of the Role of Law in Contemporary Russia
by Kathryn Hendley
Voss-Bascom Professor of Law and Political Science
University of Wisconsin-Madison
Prepared for Laws Locations: Textures of Legality in Developing and Transition Societies, held
in Madison, WI, from April 23-25, 2010, and for the Annual Meeting of the Law & Society
Association, Chicago, IL, May 27, 2010. Please do not distribute without the author’s consent.

Making Sense of the Role of Law in Contemporary Russia
by Kathryn Hendley
“Ìû íå çàêîíîñëóøíûå ãðàæäàíå ...” “We aren’t law-abiding citizens”

Polina, age 25, Moscow social worker1
“Òåïåðü ìû ìîæåì ðàññ÷èòûâàòü íà êàêèå-òî ïðàâà. Ðàíüøå íå óäàëîñü ... Òåïåðü ëþäè
êàê-òî áîðþòñÿ çà ñâîè ïðàâà.” “Now we can count on some rights. Previously this wasn’t
possible. But now people are somehow fighting for their rights.”
Karina, age 42, Saratov doctor
Nowhere does law work perfectly. The goal of even-handed law applied equally to all
irrespective of their station in life is not realistic, though it can be useful as an ideal to which
societies aspire. To paraphrase Tolstoy, however, all dysfunctional legal systems are
dysfunctional in their own ways. In this paper, I reflect on the Russian legal system with the goal
of identifying themes that may resonate in other countries that struggle with authoritarian
legacies. My goal is to unravel the varieties of legal dualism that permeate the Russian legal
system and assess how they impact the willingness of ordinary Russians to use law to solve their
problems.2
Law in Russia is generally characterized as unuseable (e.g., Hale 2005; Varese 2001; Hay
and Shleifer 1998). The reasons are many. At the top of most lists is the politicization of law.
Much has been made of the ability of wealth and politically well-connected Russians to have
laws tailored to their needs. This is, of course, not a practice that is unique to Russia or to
regimes with authoritarian predilections. More troubling is the tendency of the Russian state to
enforce the law instrumentally. Those in favor with the Kremlin routinely disregard the law,
while those who have provoked the ire of the Kremlin are pursued with Javert-like doggedness.
The manipulability of law on view in high-profile contexts has given rise to a belief that Russian
law is unreliable. In the judicial setting, many presume that decisions in politically charged cases
are ordered by political elites and, thus, are dictated by “telephone law” rather than by the law on
the books (Ledeneva 2008). Others have documented the potency of “telephone law” in such
cases (Sixsmith 2010; Sakwa 2009). Elsewhere I have argued that its impact on mundane cases
is less profound than had been assumed (Hendley 2009). My research suggests that, when
deciding whether or not to pursue claims to court, Russians are more motivated by fears of high
1
All excerpts from the focus groups and interviews have been translated by the author.
Respondents were promised anonymity. Pseudonyms have been used.
2
The dual state concept was laid out by Fraenkel (1969) in his work on Nazi Germany. Others
have applied his framework of prerogative and normative states to more modern states (e.g.,
Meierhenrich 2008; Jayasuriya 2001). My approach owes more to Sharlet’s (1977) work on the Stalinist
legal system. He argued that, notwithstanding the horrors of the purges, the multitude of mundane cases
were handled by the law.

costs and long delays than by fears of political interference. They implicitly recognize the duality
of the system and act accordingly.
In this article, I focus on the role of law outside the judicial arena with an emphasis on the
attitudes and behavior of ordinary Russians.3 I am interested in the extent to which Russians are
willing to rely on law to help them solve their problems. Like people the world over, Russians
face choices when they encounter difficulties. The first is whether to engage with the problem or
ignore it. If they opt to engage, then they have to decide whether to pursue a solution through
formal or informal channels. Their trust in the law will inevitably color their choices. Russians’
skepticism in the capacity of law to act in their interests was hard-earned during the Stalinist
purges. To some extent, it persisted during the remaining decades of Soviet power. Beginning
with the 19th Party Conference in 1988, the official rhetoric shifted away from law as a means to
an end to an embrace of the goal of a “rule-of-law-based state” (pravovoe gosudarstvo)
(Gorbachev 1988).4 The extent to which this translated into societal trust for law is unclear.
Soviet history provides ample grounds for ongoing societal skepticism, as does the uneven track
record of Gorbachev and his post-Soviet successors in living up to their lofty rhetoric.
The reality is that “telephone law” is not necessarily limited to courtroom settings.
Connections can come into play in a variety of problem-solving settings. During the Soviet
period, the practice of relying on friends or workplace colleagues to maneuver through the
3
In doing so, I follow the lead of George Feifer who, in his ethnography of the Soviet courts in
the Khrushchev era, noted:
I was interested not in cases defining the fringes of political rights, but in all those
ordinary cases in the middle: the daily cases that deal with common crimes and disputes;
the great mass of cases that have nothing at all to do with state security or ideological
purity; the kids of cases that American courts – there is no denying it if you have served
on a jury or have read the law journals or if your uncle is a lawyer – handle so badly
when there are no constitutional principles to fight for; the kinds of cases Americans
never hear about (Soviet terror and political trials make so much better copy) but which
most directly affect Ivan, that average fellow. I wanted to know what happens to him
when he falls afoul of the law, his wife, or his boss.
And I wanted to test for myself whether in these cases Ivan gets a fair trial. Soviet times had
changed not a little since the Moscow Trials of the 1930s which, classic example of perversion of
the law that they are, had become the Western symbol of socialist legality. And although by
dwelling on that bygone era ... it could be proved that the Soviet people have suffered and that
Our Cause is just, not much could be learned about the average day of the average Muscovite in
court (Feifer 1964: 15-16).
Jane Burbank (2004) likewise uncovered the ways in which ordinary people handled disputes in the
tsarist era.
4
A quote from Lazar Kaganovich, one of Stalin’s henchmen, gives a sense of the hostility to the
“rule of law” concept. “If anyone talks serious about pravovoe gosudarstvo, or, worse still, applies the
notion ‘pravovoe gosudarstvo’ to the Soviet state, it means he deviates from Marxist-Leninist teachings
on the state.” Quoted in Ajani (1992: 16).

system was known as blat (Ledeneva 1998). It was distinctive from such practices elsewhere in
that, due to the overall de-monetization of the Soviet economy, monetary payments were not the
norm. Instead, blat was grounded in an elaborate set of unwritten rules that operated on a quid-
pro-quo basis. With the introduction of market incentives in the 1990s, money became more
valuable and has begun to replace blat as a way of achieving goals. Blat has not disappeared,
both because it represents an ingrained behavioral pattern and because many Russians lack the
financial wherewithal to make monetary payments.
The article begins with a brief overview of the tsarist and Soviet legacy on the interplay
between law and connections. This historical review serves to remind us that scholars have
consistently dismissed the value of law in Russia. Yet intrepid researchers have just as
consistently been correcting this overly simplistic view by digging deeper in the archives and
engaging in field research (e.g., Feifer 1964; Burbank 2004). My own contribution falls into this
latter tradition. The article continues with findings from a series of focus groups and interviews
conducted with ordinary Russians during the summers of 2007 and 2008. I first report on their
discussions about the relative power of law and connections. I then lay out a series of examples
drawn from these discussions where the respondents explain their behavioral choices. I conclude
by drawing out the ways in which legal dualism has constrained the mobilization of law in
Russia.
Before delving into the substance of the article, a few words of explanation about the
underlying methodology are in order. In order to understand how Russians think about law, I
wanted to listen to how they talk about law when able to express themselves freely. More
importantly, I wanted to learn more about their problem-solving strategies and the extent to
which they see law as relevant. To that end, I convened a series of 29 focus groups during the
summers of 2007 (Moscow and Saratov) and 2008 (Tomsk, Shumerlia, and Kushchevskaia).5
The selection of these locations for the research was designed to provide a contrast, as Table 1
documents. Each focus group included 6 to 12 individuals. In addition, I carried out follow-up
interviews with 79 of the focus group participants with the goal of probing more deeply into their
attitudes towards law and their motivations for using and/or avoiding the legal system. The
conversations ranged from one to two hours and were recorded. Table 2 provides background on
the respondents referenced in the article.
In organizing both the focus groups and the interviews, the goal was to include a diverse
5
I worked with Polina Kozyreva and Mikhail Kosolapov of the Institute of Sociology in Moscow,
which is part of the Russian Academy of Sciences, on the logistical side of the project. Since 1992, they
have coordinated the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS), a series of nationally
representative surveys designed to monitor the effects of Russian reforms on the health and economic
welfare of households and individuals in the Russia (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/rlms/). Thanks to this
work, Kozyreva and Kosolapov have developed a strong network of social scientists throughout Russia.
We worked with their colleagues in each of the focus group sites to organize the focus groups. These
local contacts recruited the participants based on the agreed-upon criteria.

set of Russians. We sought variation in terms of age, gender, educational background, and work
experience. Participants were given modest honorariums to compensate them for their time. The
combination of focus groups and interviews permitted my respondents to speak at length on a
variety of law-related topics. Though these qualitative methods sacrifice the breadth of topics
that a survey can cover, they allow for a depth that is not possible in a survey. More to the point,
they facilitate greater spontaneity and flexibility in that the questioner can pursue topics that the
respondent raises but were initially unanticipated by the questioner. While I make no claims to
have created a random sample, the insights and the larger themes that emerge from these
conversations give rise to a number of hypotheses that deserve more systematic exploration.
Historical Legacy of Legal Dualism
Law has had a tortured history in Russia. At least two types of dualism have been at play.
Though they sometimes combined to form an unholy alliance, the ideas behind them were
distinct and, thus, are deserving of separate discussion.
The first is grounded in a concept of law as an instrument of power. Put simplistically for
the sake of illustration, law was seen primarily as a means to an end for both the tsars and their
Communist successors. When the interests of the state were challenged, law was mobilized in
defense of state interests. This was most visible when those who were perceived to be
threatening to the regime were put on trial. After a few false starts, both the tsarist6 and the
Communist regimes perfected the scripted political trial. During the tsarist period, the
defendants in such trials tended to those who had attempted high-level assassinations. These
defendants’ activities were clearly aimed at destabilizing the government. During the early
decades of Communist power, the lines between activities that genuinely threatened the state and
activities that simply challenged the authority of certain leaders were blurred.7 Even worse, often
there were no overt acts underlying the charges; merely an unfounded accusation by someone
6
Historians view the trial of Vera Zasulich in 1878 as the moment when the tsarist regime
committed itself to an instrumental approach. Zasulich was acquitted of charges of attempting to
assassinate the governor of St. Petersburg, Theodore Trepov, despite having been witnessed shooting him
by a large crowd. Yakovlev (1996: 15) argues that the jury was guided by its conscience rather than by
the dictates of the law. Wortman (1976: 283-84) writes: “The judgment ... confirmed the lingering fear
that, rather than impartial tribunals, the courts represented a political element, a forum for anti
government sentiments menacing to the autocratic power. ... After the Zasulich trial, the government
gave up its pretense of legality in its struggle against the revolutionaries. It dealt with them through the
administrative order – direct police punishment or by summary military justice. ... The strained tolerance
the autocracy had shown toward its judiciary now turned into open animosity.”
7
Shapiro (1971: 277) shows that, in the immediate aftermath of the October Revolution of 1917,
justice was dispensed by emergency revolutionary tribunals staffed by Communists that were charged
with deciding on the basis of “revolutionary consciousness” or “socialist consciousness of justice.” Both
he and Huskey (1992: 24-30) detail the ways in which some semblance of procedural regularity returned
to the courts, even while the purges were underway.

tortured into naming additional names. The Stalinist repressions were justified on the grounds of
protecting Soviet society from so-called “enemies of the people.” The absence of any sort of due
process protections for those accused turned the courts into star chambers and, in the process,
stripping the law of any moral authority.8
The second type of legal dualism derives from blat. Defining it for those unfamiliar with
Russian culture is difficult. In her monograph on blat, Ledeneva struggles to define the term.
She notes that “everybody [in Russia] knows what blat is about but few grasp its essence. One
reason is that the term means different things in different contexts” (Ledeneva 1998: 33). When
pressed, she defines blat as“an exchange of ‘favours of access’ in conditions of shortages and a
state system of privileges,” that “was often mediated and covered by the rhetoric of friendship or
acquaintance” (Ibid.: 37). She likens it to a dense set of patron-client networks. Acknowledging
that blat bears some resemblance to bribery, Ledeneva draws on Crankshaw (1956: 74) to clarify
the difference. He emphasizes that the motive for the exchange of favors under blat is self-
defense and notes that “the most incorruptible individuals deal in it freely.” Ledeneva concludes
that “[b]ribery implies a conflict of interest where one is to be ‘compensated’ for doing
something one would not do otherwise, while blat is a form of cooperation and mutual support
with a long-term perspective, implying trust rather than compensation for risk” (Ledeneva 1988:
40). Her illustrations of blat focus on its use by Soviet citizens as a way to compensate for the
shortages that were endemic to the planned economy (Ibid.; Smith 1976; Simis 1982). Smith
(1976: 114) describes it as an “essential lubricant” of Soviet life. Ledeneva’s respondents tell of
using the connections of acquaintances to get appointments for their children with reliable
pediatricians or to travel. People who had access to goods or services in short supply were
valuable links in any blat network.
Underlying the widespread use of blat was a societal recognition that rules were
malleable, and that one’s ability to skirt the rules was correlated with one’s connections.9 The
persistence of the system of nested privileges for Communist Party members arguably signaled to
society that the rules were not for everyone. By combining the prefix for “circling” (ob) with the
verb “to go” (idti), a succinct verb is created that captures this practice of going around the rules
(obiti). This verb was used not only when jumping the queue for a car or apartment, but also
when going around the law. When people got into trouble, their first instinct was to search
through their friends and acquaintances to see who could “fix” the problem for them. Relying on
the formal legal procedures was seen by many as unappetizing. This desire to resolve problems
informally is certainly not unique to Russia, nor does it necessarily mark the legal system as
dysfunctional. What is unusual about Russia is the checkered history of its legal system during
the first half of the 20th century. Even so, ethnographic accounts of the Soviet legal system
8
There is a huge and varied literature on the purges. For example, Figes (2007) tells the stories
of the victims in their own words through their letters and memoirs, while Conquest (2007) relies on
statistics and documentary evidence.
9
On the nomenklatura system, see Smith (1976) and Simis (1982).

suggest that many were willing to turn to the courts in non-political cases (Feifer 1964).10
Sometimes these two strains of legal dualism combined. The clearest examples of this
arose in the economy. Soviet industrial enterprise managers struggled to meet the production
targets of the national economic plan, which had the force of law. The practice of padding
reports (ochkovtiratel’stvo or, literally, “eye washing”) to make them more palatable to
bureaucratic superiors (both in the Communist Party and in the industrial ministries) was
commonplace (Pomorski 1978). Though doing so blatantly violated the law, it was rarely
prosecuted. The justification for looking the other way was twofold. Keeping industry on an
even keel was in the national self interest. Viewed more cynically, the general directors of these
plants were sufficiently well-connected to avoid close scrutiny. Put more bluntly, they were able
to oboiti the law flagrantly.11 At the same time, the Party kept scrupulous records and whenever
a top manager put a foot the wrong way, the evidence was used to justify his dismissal and,
during the Stalinist period, his prosecution.
In addition to these conceptual dualisms, law under both the tsars and the Communist
Party suffered from a host of practical shortcomings that served to undermine its legitimacy. A
full accounting of its flaws is beyond the scope of this article, but a few examples from the
Communist era will provide a sense of the problem. Legal theorists generally agree that law
ought to be clear, flexible, and transparent (Fuller 1964). Basic codes were adopted in the 1920s,
but were left to ossify for decades. They established general principles, but were supplemented
by a constantly-changing array of unpublished regulations (pod-zakonnye akty) and executive
decrees (ukazy). As a result, Soviet citizens were often unable to figure out the formal rules.
Even when they did find the governing law, it was often drafted in a purposely vague manner
with the goal of preserving maximum flexibility for the state in enforcing it.
Following Stalin’s death in 1953, an effort was made to scale back the privileges
available to Party members (Solomon 1992: 3-5). But the plan to make law more evenhanded
lost steam with Khrushchev’s ouster in 1964. The role of law in Soviet society does not rise to
the fore until decades later when Gorbachev made it part of his reform platform at the 19th Party
Conference in 1988. A round-table discussion in Literaturnaia gazeta among prominent legal
10
Huskey (1992:29) reminds us that law was not just window dressing during the Soviet era: “It
is tempting ... to view law as little more than useful camouflage for injustice in the 1930s. It served this
function, of course. But law was also an alternative means of social control, at once more legitimate and
stable than terror. Only by understanding that law and terror competed for the favor of the Stalinist
leadership can one appreciate the significance of a partial restoration of law in the 1930s. For millions of
Soviet citizens even the compromised, self-serving, and ‘suspendable’ legal system of Stalinism was
better than no law.” Along similar lines, Ajani (1992: 7) is critical of those who see tsarist Russia as
lacking a “legal ethos.” Burbank (2004) painstakingly documents the legal activities of Russian peasants
in the decades before the October Revolution.
11
For background on the informal mechanisms used by Soviet managers to meet their production
targets under the plan, see Berliner (1957) and Granick (1960).

scholars, policy-makers, and journalists published before the Party Conference and reflecting on
the “theses” to be discussed at the Conference broached the once-taboo subject of “telephone
law” and acknowledged the difficulty of rooting it out (Kakim dolzhen byt’, 1988). M.P.
Vyshinskii, the then-deputy minister of justice spoke of his delight at the inclusion of law in the
theses.
At last we are talking about what we ought to have been talking about for a long
time. Until recently law [pravo] was an instrument of coercion in the hands of the
state. Stalin ‘showed’ [pokazal] us what it is possible to accomplish in the
country with the help of this instrument. Due to this in our social consciousness
arose a paradox. Law was either completely ignored or understood in a truncated
fashion only as a means in the battle with crime. But law’s primary function is the
protection of the rights and freedoms of citizens (Ibid.).
Professor Aleksandr Iakovlev, who was then a deputy department head at the Institute for State
and Law of the Academy of Sciences, but who later became one of Gorbachev’s most trusted
advisors (Yakovlev 1996), reflected on how to explain Gorbachev’s concept of a pravovoe
gosudarstvo to ordinary citizens.
How to answer clearly and simply? Perhaps this is the essence: the difference
between a rule-of-law-based (pravovoe) and a non-rule-of-law-based
(nepravovoe) state consists in the following. A non-rule-of-law-based state
commands by law. In a rule-of-law-based state, state organs are subordinated to
law (Kakim dolzhen byt’, 1988).
In his speech to the Conference, Gorbachev himself advocated a democratization of the USSR
and argued that this would require:
the establishment of a socialist rule-of-law state (sotsialisticheskoe pravovoe
gosudarstvo). To put it briefly, the foremost salient feature of a state committed
to rule of law is that it effectively ensures the primacy of law. Not a single govt
body, official, collective, Party organization, public association or individual can
be exempt from abiding by the law (Gorbachev 1988: 65).
He is pushing for an end to being able to go around the law for those who are well-connected.
Later in his speech, he called for an overturning of a fundamental assumptions of Soviet
legislation to “unswervingly observe the principle not prohibited by law is allowed” (Ibid.: 66).
His call for change was echoed in influential Party journals (Kudriavtsev and Lukasheva 1988),
as well as more scholarly law reviews (Manov 1989).
Gorbachev’s speech embracing a rule-of-law based state marked a turning point in

Kremlin rhetoric. Subsequent leaders have followed his lead.12 Their flowery rhetoric has not
always been matched by their actions. Interestingly, Gorbachev warned of this in his 1988
12
The rhetoric is not always the same. Putin, for example, speaks more often about the
“supremacy of law” (using the phrases gospodstvo zakona or verkhovnost’ zakona). Like many
languages, Russian has two words for law. Pravo is a broad concept of rights, whereas zakon is a
narrower concept of positive law. It is worth noting that Gorbachev’s concept of “rule of law” state is
grounded in “pravo,” while Putin prefers the narrower concept.

speech. He cautioned: “[w]hat is needed today more than ever are deeds, actions, not talk ...”
(Gorbachev 1988: 44). The decades since the 19th Party Conference have witnessed institutional
reforms that have furthered Gorbachev’s vision. At the same time, Gorbachev and his successors
have slipped into Soviet-era behavior from time to time. As they learned about the messiness of
truly democratic lawmaking, they reverted to the age-old practice of achieving policy change
through executive order (ukaz) when frustrated by their inability to convince their legislative
opponents of the desired approach. As Russia devolved into a quasi-one-party state under Putin,
such maneuvers became unnecessary. But Putin, like his predecessors, has taken a page from the
Soviet playbook in dealing with his enemies. He has used the full power of the state, including
the courts, to break his adversaries.13 When it became apparent that some regime opponents were
faring better by opting for jury trials, he had the procedural rules changed to foreclose this
alternative.
Even if the state and its leaders had followed through perfectly, such top-down reforms
would not have been sufficient to transform Russia into a pravovoe gosudarstvo. Societal
change was also necessary. Gorbachev recognized this. Breaking from the longstanding
tradition of pushing reform in an exclusively top-down fashion (Gorlizki 1999), he called upon
citizens to join Party and government officials in working to achieve change. He warned that
“perestroika is not manna from the heavens” (Gorbachev 1988: 44). Changes in both the
attitudes and behavior vis-a-vis law would be required on the part of ordinary citizens.
Attitudes Toward Law in Contemporary Russia
Gorbachev’s role in shifting the terms of the debate over the role of law remains obscure
to most Russians. The respondents from my focus groups were no exception. Their views of
Gorbachev were uniformly negative. In this, they mirrored Russian society. A public opinion
poll fielded by the respected Levada Center in December 2009 found that only 13 percent of
Russians have a positive attitude towards Gorbachev.14 Kirill, a 58 year-old Shumerlia factory
manager, expressed the general sentiment well:
13
As noted earlier, the prosecution of Khodorkovskii and his colleagues from Iukos is the most
vivid example of this proclivity. Russians are not blind to what is happening. When surveyed in, 41
percent of those surveyed in February 2010 believed that pressure had been put on the court to obtain the
desired outcome in the case. http://www.levada.ru/press/2010031001.html [accessed on April 10, 2010].
14
The Levada Center first began polling on Russians’ attitude toward Gorbachev in December
2002. His approval rating was likewise 13 percent at that time. The remainder of Russians are either
neutral on the subject or are negatively disposed toward him. In 2002, society was more negative, with
46 percent expressing their disapproval and 39 percent expressing ambivalence. By 2009, that dynamic
had turned around, with 34 percent disapproving and 45 percent neutral.
http://levada.ru/press/2010031101.html [accessed on April 2, 2010]. The Levada Center’s polling
likewise reveals little support for Yeltsin. His approval rating experienced a temporary increase of 19
percent at the time of his death, but before and after, hovered around 10 percent.
http://www.levada.ru/press/2008011003.html [accessed on April 2, 2010].

For us, perestroika was devastating. I know that Gorbachev is revered in
America, but he is not well-respected here. A lot people say that he accomplished
almost nothing concrete. Everything was done in spite of him. One reason why
he is not respected is because he failed to take responsibility. Take the events in
Tblisi when the special forces were sent in and the demonstration was put down.
He said that he didn’t know about it – that it happened without him. How is this
possible? He was the president of the country – how could it be dome without his
knowledge? Later it came out that he knew but stayed silent.
This belief that he was unable or unwilling to see his policies through was expressed often,
especially by those who had lived through the tough years of perestroika, when rationing of basic
foodstuffs was reintroduced in many parts of the Soviet Union. Zinaida, a 66-year-old pensioner
from Tomsk, who had spent decades as a high-school teacher, damned Gorbachev with faint
praise: “he was very smart and spoke well, ... but didn’t follow through.” Another Tomsk
respondent of the same generation, Georgii, attributed Gorbachev’s failures to a lack of courage.
Those who are now pensioners claimed that they saw through Gorbachev at the time. On
the other hand, many of those who were in high school or university during perestroika admitted
to having their hopes raised by Gorbachev’s lofty rhetoric. Svetlana, 38-year-old Saratov doctor,
spoke of her initial enthusiasm, due largely to the lifting of restrictions on previously banned
literature. She gradually realized that deeper changes would not be forthcoming. Inessa, a 45-
year-old Saratov teacher, told me how she and her friends would gather to watch Gorbachev’s
speeches and the sessions of the Congress of People’s Deputies. She remembered his call for a
pravovoe gosudarstvo as promising, but now sees that these were empty words.
Both generations saw the roots of the chaos of the 1990s in perestroika. Tatiana, a 52-
year-old Moscow x-ray technician, explained that “we were accustomed to stability. Under
Soviet power, everything was stable ... we had secure jobs. We may have gotten low wages, but I
was sure that when tomorrow came, I would get paid. But under Gorbachev, I didn’t get paid.”
Problems with non-payments became endemic under Yeltsin. Several people also attributed the
rise of the oligarchs to policies initiated by Gorbachev. Konstantin noted that Party apparatchiks
were mysteriously able to get the funds necessary to start businesses. He believes that Gorbachev
facilitated such practices. In his view, the ideology of the Party was replaced by the “ideology of
money.” Given this, it is not surprising that Gorbachev’s contribution to legal theory goes
unrecognized by the masses.
Before participating in this exercise, few of my respondents had thought systematically

about law. During the course of the conversations, it became clear that, even so, they informally
distinguished between the two types of legal dualism outlined above. They were well-aware of
the capacity of the state to use law instrumentally to punish its enemies. I used the ongoing case
against Mikhail Khodorkovskii, his colleagues, and his company (Iukos) to start the conversation

about such dangers. A few respondents were unaware of the case, but most knew of it.15 Much
like the rest of the world, they were of different minds as to why Khodorkovskii had been
targeted. Some pointed to his enormous wealth, arguing that it could only have been achieved
illegally. Those who took this position generally saw the prosecution as justified. Others saw his
political challenges to the Kremlin as the catalyst for his arrest. Those in this camp believed the
charges had been trumped up. Even those who believed him to be guilty thought the state had
exerted influence over the trial, ensuring a conviction. Why the state did so was a more divisive
question. The most common refrain I heard was that the outcome “must have been advantageous
for someone.” All agreed that it was a “show trial” (pokazatel’noe delo) that was decided by
“telephone law.” Some felt it was intended to show other oligarchs that they were not immune
from prosecution and to discourage them from supporting political opponents of the regime.
Others saw society as its target. Dmitrii, a 21-year-old Moscow student who was working at a
travel agency to put himself through school, put it well: “it is easier to frighten all of Russia
through one show trial than to earn their trust.” Sara, a 45-year-old Saratov manager, put it in
starker terms. “If the state grabs up some anonymous Peter Ivanov, who has a small firm and
televises how this Peter Ivanov is going to be punished, then no one much cares. But if the state
grabs up the most powerful person, then we realize it can happen to anyone.”
Taken on its own, the belief that the state is capable of manufacturing a case against a
citizen to serve its purposes is certainly troubling. A significant portion of my respondents
subscribed to this view. For my purposes, however, the more important question is its impact on
their daily lives. Most believed that political cases were quite rare. Moreover, they saw the
Khodorkovskii case and its ilk as being quite remote from their lives. Another comment by
Dmitrii is illustrative: “It is the logic of the Russian people. If it doesn’t affect them directly,
then they don’t care about it.” Indeed, the results of public opinion polling confirm this attitude.
While a majority of those polled feel that Khodorkovskii was unfairly railroaded, only a small
minority supports his release from prison. Thus, the widespread recognition that “telephone law”
controls political cases does not necessarily translate into a belief that it will affect ordinary
citizens on a regular basis.
By contrast, blat was a more constant presence in their lives. Reactions to questions
about the role of connections were remarkably consistent. When raised in the focus groups, the
participants grew noticeably exorcized and often interrupted each other in their eagerness to share
their experiences. All agreed that it is easier to protect oneself through connections than law in
contemporary Russia. Arkadina, a 27-year-old office worker from Kushchevskaia, spoke of her
frustration when trying to get her mother reinstated after she was dismissed from her job two
years shy of her pension. “We are ordinary people. No one is going to help us because we don’t
have enough money. We lack the critical connections. ... Everyone has local connections, but
anything more is not realistic.” Her comments reveal the increased importance of money in the
post-Soviet context.. While requests for help are still styled as favors between friends (or friends
15
In public opinion polls from 2004 to 2008, two-thirds of those surveyed said that they did not
follow the case closely. http://www.levada.ru/press/2008103103.html [accessed on April 10, 2010].
10

of friends), money now greases the skids in a way that it didn’t in the Soviet era. Over and over
again, I heard that money equals power. Put more plainly, my respondents believed that whoever
had more money would prevail in a dispute. Money now acts as a proxy for connections.
To some extent, this idea of blat, now interlaced with money, has become a Russian
variant of Galanter’s (1974) familiar distinction between the “have’s” and the “have nots.”
When talking about consumer complaints, Anatolii, the chief financial officer of a local utility in
Shumerlia, explained that those who have the money to hire experienced lawyers are more likely
to prevail. He didn’t view the attendant advantages as a form of bribery, but rather as a way the
petitioner could benefit from their lawyer’s knowledge of the formal law and the judge’s
predilections. In this way, “have nots” are transformed into “haves.” Of course, not everyone
will have the resources to hire competent lawyers. Knowing how to work the system does not
always require the skills of lawyers. Respondents also told of hiring contractors who knew their
way around licensing requirements.
Other respondents were more cynical about the influence of money. As Stella, a 19-year
old seamstress from Shumerlia, put it: “whoever has more money will simply pay a bribe and
that’s it. ... It’s now possible to buy anything with money. Absolutely anything.” Such beliefs
are not limited to the young. Miroslava, a 58-year old Tomsk economist, saw money as a deeply
corrupting force.
It seems to me that ‘telephone law’ has become less prevalent because money has
appeared. Thus, results are bought. In the past, under the Soviet Union, no one
had much money, so there was ‘telephone law.’ Those higher up in the system
called and everything was decided by phone. But now, maybe, due to the free
flow of money, people pay bribes. Even so, I don’t think ‘telephone law’ has
disappeared. But I think it is less common.
Crankshaw’s (1956) distinction between blat and bribery has become impossibly blurred.
Yet the focus group discussions revealed that Russians themselves are not yet ready to abandon
it. Vassa, a 56-year-old Kushchevskaia cashier, told her group that she sometimes gave someone
a box of candy if they did her a good turn, but that she never paid money for favors. Others
spoke with pride of family members who, despite having jobs as policemen or doctors that are
notorious for side-payments, refused to accept bribes. The very way they told their stories, as
well as the skeptical reactions of the other group members, told me that paying bribes had lost
any sort of stigma of immorality. Indeed, the majority of group members saw bribery as a
necessary coping mechanism.16 This is analogous to the role of blat in the shortage economy of
the Soviet period.
16
An April 2010 public opinion poll conducted by the Levada Center indicates that my
respondents reflected the views of society at large. Almost 80 percent of those surveyed had paid bribes,
albeit reluctantly, within the past year. Moreover 55 percent believed that everyone pays bribes.
http://www.levada.ru/press/2010051201.html [accessed on May 13, 2010].
11

As this implies, Russian officialdom is complicit. A full discussion of the reasons why
and its consequences are beyond the scope of this paper. The question of whether this morally
duplicitous environment has facilitated the sense that law is incapable of protecting citizens. In
all of the research sites, I heard comments to the effect that Russians are “without rights”
(bezpravnnye). Some took it further. For example, Polina, the 25-year-old Moscow social
worker quoted at the outset of this paper, told me that, “the law works against us.” Daria, a 55-
year-old Saratov pensioner, put it more bluntly. “In our country, it has never been possible to
defend oneself with law.”17 Another pensioner, Ivan, expressed the deep-seeded pessimism that
permeated the focus groups and interviews with his comment: “we write about the fact that we
will have a pravovoe gosudarstvo, but we don’t. We’ve never had it and we never will.”18 The
question of who is to blame for this state of affairs is yet another topic deserving of further
exploration but is beyond the scope of this paper.19
This sense of alienation on the part of society is not uncommon in modern societies,
especially in countries as large as Russia. But what my respondents reported goes beyond the
usual disconnect between the needs of society and the priorities of policy-makers. That is part of
the story, but the dissatisfaction goes deeper.20 Though they voiced complaints about loopholes
in the law and problems with implementation, they were more troubled by the failure of the state
to obey its own laws. In their colorful words: “the fish rots from the head.”
For many Russians, this justifies sidestepping the law. Maksim, a 28-year-old Tomsk
manager in the health care sector who was then going to law school in the evenings, captured this
sentiment. “If people find the law inconvenient, they don’t use it.” A number of respondents
17
Not everyone agreed with Natalya’s view that there was no distinction between the Soviet past
and the Russian present. Fiodor, who had enjoyed a comfortable life as the general director of a factory
in the Soviet era, but had been largely cast aside in the post-Soviet era, saw a qualitative difference.
“There was order under Soviet power; there was someplace to complain to; everything was very clear ...”
Along similar lines, Oleg, a Tomsk factory worker who, like Fedor, was in his 60s, traced the start of the
bespravnyi status of Russians to the start of perestroika.
18
Hearing his skepticism about the prospects for the “rule of law,” most would think that
someone like Ivan would shy away from the courts. Yet as my article on mobilizing the law when home
repair projects go wrong demonstrates, Ivan was an inveterate plaintiff (Hendley 2010). He thrived on
the conflict.
19
For the most part, my respondents put the blame squarely on the state. A number of people
complained about the failure of legislators to think through the consequences of bills. They described the
resulting legislation as “not fully worked out” (ne doraboteno). Only a handful of respondents put any of
the blame on society.
20
Liudmila, a 44-year-old Saratov microbiologist, argued that “laws are adopted without the
knowledge of the people. Maybe I’m not right, but it seems to me that the terms of the law ought to be
put forward for discussion and we ought to consider how the law will work and, further, how people feel
about it. What people have said should be taken into account and only then should it be adopted.”
12

rationalized their behavior, saying that the unreliability of law had taught them they self-reliance.
To that end, Angelina, a 22-year old hospital attendant from Shumerlia, related how her friends
casually paid bribes to secure spots for their infants in local nurseries. They’ve learned through
experience that “all problems are resolved more quickly with money.” When I asked whether
they feared retribution, she spoke candidly. “Young people now spit on the law. For them, law
means nothing. In any event, they make their own way. It seems to me that this is never going to
change.”
Mobilizing Law in Contemporary Russia
This summary of what I heard in the course of the focus groups and interviews paints a
rather dismal picture of the capacity of law to serve the interests of society in Russia. It reflects
Kurkchiyan’s (2003:30) finding that “the negative myth of the rule of law is dominant [in
Russia].” There is no question that the first reaction of almost all of my respondents to a
question about the value of law in Russia was a soliloquy on its shortcomings. This reality has
been accurately captured by the surveys fielded on attitudes toward law.
The value of my approach was that I stuck around for a longer conversation. When I
asked about what sorts of problems they had faced and how they had solved them, a different
picture emerged. I learned that many of those who were quick to dismiss law as irrelevant and/or
hopelessly corrupt had, in fact, been able to use it to redress challenges in their daily lives. My
emphasis is not on courtroom battles. Elsewhere I have addressed the respondents’ propensity to
litigate (Hendley 2009). Here I focus on their use (or avoidance) of law in other settings, though
the question of whether a distaste for litigation constrained their options cannot be entirely
avoided. I purposely take on the “hard” case, examining the extent to which my respondents
were willing to use the law to help them when facing more powerful opponents, such as the local
or national government or their employers. In such cases, their opponents had the advantage of
better funding, staff attorneys, and strong connections.
Labor Law.
The Soviet labor code severely restricted management’s ability to punish or fire its
workers (Hendley 1996). With the current labor law, the pendulum has swung to the opposite
end of the spectrum (Kewinbuk 2009). According to my respondents, workers have few
workplace protections. As I learned through my conversations, many are reluctant to exercise
their remaining rights for fear of being labeled a troublemaker. In an economic environment
where jobs are scarce, people are willing to take jobs on whatever terms they are offered.
Young people felt themselves to be particularly vulnerable. Many times my younger

respondents told me that they had taken under the table jobs. By law, workers turn over their
“work book” (trudovaia knizhka) to their employer. This work book contains their full
employment history, i.e., where they have worked and why they left each job. Hiring someone
without retaining their labor book is a clear violation of the labor code. Taking such a job marks
13

the employee as desperate, in that he did not feel entitled to insist on following the rules.
Needless to say, when such an employee becomes an inconvenience, he is easily discarded,
without paying attention to the minimal protections afforded workers under the law.
The experience of Mikhail, a 21-year-old Saratov student, is illustrative. Thanks to the

intervention of a friend, he obtained a job with a firm that traded in raw materials. For six
months, he was paid regularly, but he kept his labor book. Officially, he did not work for the
firm. At first, he liked the arrangement. Because he was, in essence, invisible, he felt no
obligation to pay taxes on his earnings. When he was summarily dismissed, he came to
appreciate the disadvantage of his invisible status. He asked his supervisor whether this was a
type of layoff. It was. Mikhail told me that, “according to the labor code, the employer is
required to pay two months salary to the laid-off worker while he is looking one for another job.
I hinted at this. He understood what I was getting at. He looked at me and it was clear in his eyes
that I would get nothing.” When I asked why he hadn’t pursued it further, he told me: “It would
have been completely pointless. I couldn’t prove anything.” Indeed, he would have been unable
to prove that he had ever worked at the firm. Mikhail’s mother, who worked as a real-estate
agent, and whom he described as “legally savvy” (podkovana iuridicheski), advised him to let it
go.
Even those who work above board face an uphill battle when challenging management.
Valentina’s 22-year-old son was thrilled when he got a job as a salesman in Moscow’s Reebok
store. After some time, he was transferred to the warehouse and, over time, rose to become the
head of the warehouse. His pay, however, was never increased to match his new responsibilities.
He was reluctant to press management. Ultimately, he left for another job, telling his mother that
he saw that only the friends and relatives of top management were allowed to make a career at
the company. His experience provides a potent example of post-Soviet blat at work. This
variant of blat feels familiar to those of us who have experienced the “old boys’ network” in its
many forms. Valentina was convinced that the hundreds of dollars in wages he lost due to not
being compensated for his true duties was a violation of the labor code. She felt this
demonstrated the sleaziness of the company, but said that her son had no appetite for pursuing a
claim. She attributed this to his youth. She became aware of the situation only when he left
Reebok. She said that she would have pushed him to stand up for himself with Reebok had she
known.
The potency of connections is demonstrated by an example from Kushchevskaia. Rufina,

a 61-year-old who had retired from her job as a hospital worker and now made a living as a
security guard, shared her daughter’s experience. Her daughter was employed by the state as a
social worker. While pregnant, her daughter’s workplace went through a layoff. Management
decided to start the layoffs with those who were then pregnant and who were on maternity leave.
She got the news on New Year’s Eve and gave birth on January 12th. Rufina appealed to
management on behalf of her daughter and the others affected, saying that they first ought to lay
off the last people to be hired. Her petition fell on deaf ears. She resolved to pursue the matter
to court and hired a lawyer (advokat). She tried to get the others affected to join her lawsuit, but
14

was rebuffed. She called the trade union office in Krasnodar (the regional capital), and was told
that similar reductions were occurring across the region. Her lawyer informally investigated and
told Rufina there was no point in pursuing the case because the decision to layoff the women had
come from the governor of Krasnodar oblast’, A.N. Tkchaev. Though Rufina herself would have
liked to push further, the others affected were unwilling to participate once they learned of the
possible involvement of the governor. Her daughter told her to stop. Thus, notwithstanding the
viability of the claim – the prohibition on laying off who are pregnant or who are on maternity
leave is clear from the law – Rufina dropped it. The fact that the invocation of Tkchaev would
bring the process to a screeching halt did not surprise the other members of the focus group.
The case of Simon demonstrates that management is not always beyond the reach of
workers. At the time of the focus groups, he was unemployed. Previously he had been
unofficially employed at an industrial factory where he had lost one of his hands in an accident.
His initial request to management for compensation for his injuries was denied. He believes that
they felt no responsibility for him as a temporary worker. Though his medical expenses as well
as the cost of rehabilitation was covered by the state, he was keen for management to admit its
fault. There was no trade union at the factory. He sought advice from a lawyer who was the
acquaintance of a neighbor. Simon could not afford to hire him; he paid for an hour-long
consultation. The lawyer explained his options, and Simon then went to the library and studied
the labor code and other relevant sources. He brought a claim against the factory and its top
managers (the general director and the chief engineer) in the local justice-of-the-peace court
(mirovoi sud). I asked if he was fearful of suing these powerful actors. He responded: “There
was no need to be afraid. Law (zakon) is equal for everyone. Even if you’re on the lowest rung
and you sue someone on the top step, the court may decide in your favor.” He saw no evidence
of connections between the judge and the defendants. “The judge was independent. He was
neither on their side, nor on mine.” Though Simon had clearly educated himself on the law,
whether he could have bested the factory with its in-house counsel on his own is unclear.
Fortunately for him, the office of the prokurator (prosecutor) took an interest in the case and
intervened on his behalf, representing him in the judicial hearings. Simon believes that the
severity of the injury he suffered brought his situation to the procurator’s attention. The case
was decided in Simon’s favor. He won a small settlement. For him, the money was less
important than the finding of fault on the part of the factory management.
At first glance, Simon hardly seemed like a candidate to spearhead this sort of lawsuit.
He was unsophisticated, having been raised in a small rural community outside Shumerlia. He
had only a high school education and was working under the table. In his words, “my buddies
told me that you can’t win this thing because you weren’t working officially – you weren’t on the
job rolls – and you got injured due to your own stupidity.” He told me that, prior to this episode,
he had little trust in the courts. He pursued it as a matter of principle. “I simply resolved to
prove to myself and my friends that it was possible to do it. And so I did. I decided and then I
followed through. ... I wasn’t concerned with damages. Just whatever the prokurator asked for.”
As a result of the accident, Simon was considered an invalid and so received a regular subsidy
from the state. The idea of seeking a large damage award to compensate him for his lower
15

earning potential seemed not to have occurred to him. For our purposes, what is notable is that,
despite having the odds stacked against him, he persevered and prevailed.
Perhaps Simons naivete worked to his benefit. Not knowing that he should be
apprehensive about challenging authority, he soldiered on. He had some good luck along the
way. The patent unfairness of what happened to him no doubt contributed to the decision of the
prokurator to take on his case. Simon’s belief in the evenhandedness of law was confirmed by
his experience. Though Rufina shared this belief in the potential of the legal system to provide
justice, the outcome in her case was less favorable. She ran headlong into the buzz saw of
connections. The lawyer Rufina consulted agreed that her daughter should not have been laid
off, but once he learned that the governor was involved, he told Rufina that her daughter’s case
was hopeless. This result would not have surprised Mikhail or Valentina. These Moscow
respondents believed that the employers held all the cards and so made no effort to mobilize their
rights. In their behavior, the continuing power of connections – a form of blat – is clearly
visible. The dictates of the law took a back seat to the short-term desires of the powerful.
Housing Law
A number of my respondents faced housing-related problems. In Shumerlia, Ella told me

how her landlord had attempted to remove her telephone. As a 32-year old manager of a local
insurance company, she would seem to be the underdog when battling with the large defense
plant that owned her apartment building. But she was uncowed, telling me: “if the truth is on my
side, then I will assert my rights. I won’t be silenced.” The landlord sent her a notice, saying that
telephone service was going to be discontinued. When she contacted the landlord to complain,
she was told that the defense plant had been subsidizing the phone service for many years, and
was unwilling to continue this practice.21 She then explained to the representatives of the plant
that she had received no such subsidies. Indeed, six years earlier, when her husband was serving
in Chechnya, she had paid 6000 rubles to have a reliable phone line installed in her apartment.
She had a small baby and wanted to be sure she could reach him at all times. In addition to these
installation charges, she had also been paying a rather substantial monthly phone bill. She did
not believe her service could be discontinued arbitrarily. She grounded her argument in the
written service contract. I did not have an opportunity to review its terms, but Ella believed they
would require the enterprise to return at least half of the initial installation fee if phone service
was terminated. Her obstreperousness provoked threats to sue her. She returned the favor. Her
husband, who had graduated from the law faculty at a military school, urged her on.
Though Ella had no personal litigation experience, she had confidence in the system.
This, in turn, gave her the courage to stand firm. When I asked her whether she was nervous
21
Ella explained that this change in policy came when a new general director took over at the
defense plant. To be fair, he may have been trying to get rid of any remaining social subsidies that the
enterprise was providing to local residents. During the Soviet era, enterprises often maintained the
nearby housing and provided municipal services (including phone service) at nominal cost.
16

about the power of the defense plant to mobilize its financial resources and connections against
her, she told me that she believed that, if it came to litigation, the court would base any decision
on the law. “I guess money might play a role, but the law is the law, after all. In my view, if the
law is on my side, then I will prevail.”
Legal dualism was more central role in the thinking of two of the respondents from
Saratov who faced housing issues. Both lived on the second floor of multi-story buildings that
had retail establishments on the ground floor. In both cases, the managers of these stores had
engaged in substantial renovations without consulting them or complying with building code
requirements. Their reactions were different.
When the pharmacy below her built a new entrance, Svetlana, who was referenced earlier
in the discussion of reactions to perestroika, did nothing, even though the construction limited
her ability to use her balcony. She generalized her response, telling me that Russians prefer to
brush off (otmanut’sya) problems rather than expending energy fighting quixotic battles. In her
view, it is “simpler to resign oneself to one’s fate and not to seek out the guilty and punish them.”
She was convinced that any formal rights she might have would be trumped by the money and
connections of the pharmacy.
Liudmila, a 44-year old microbiologist, faced a similar problem when the business below
her apartment undertook illegal renovations. The impact on her was more profound than that
described by Karina. The construction resulted in a significant deterioration in her living
conditions and raised safety concerns. As it was underway, she was complaining to the
businessmen as well as to the police and fire inspectors. She was able to quote the specifics of
the relevant fire regulations to me. The fire marshal sided with her and told the businessmen that
they had to restore the staircase they tore out because it compromised the safety of Liudmila and
other residents. His warning did not spur them to action. She stopped short of initiating a
criminal complaint, fearing that if she was found to have made false charges, she could somehow
be found liable. When we spoke, she had not yet consulted an attorney. She was still gathering
evidence with the goal of reaching a settlement with the businessmen. She told me that
threatening them with a lawsuit would be better than actually going to court. She believed that
they had been able to undertake the construction by paying bribes or otherwise calling on their
connections. Indeed, in a private conversation, one of the businessmen told her “it is easier to
murder you than to resolve your apartment question.”
In contrast to both Ella and Svetlana, Liudmila had prior litigation experience. She had
weathered a nasty divorce that dragged on for over 18 months that left her with no confidence in
the courts.22 Indeed, she was convinced that her husband had “bought” the judge. Even so, she
22
Her husband concealed his income from a second job in an effort to reduce his child support
obligations. The court had to garnish his wages to ensure consistent payments. He made no effort to
maintain a relationship with his son after the divorce. In a particularly cruel twist of events, he
convinced Liudmila’s lawyer to come over to his side and later married the lawyer. Despite the obvious
17

was the only one of the three who was actively planning for a lawsuit. Svetlana had decided to
“lump” her claim. Ella talked a big game, but had not yet taken any concrete action.23 Though
Liudmila held out little hope for prevailing against the businessmen in a Saratov court, describing
it as a “game of roulette,” she was confident that she would have better luck on appeal. Thus, her
distrust of the courts was grounded in her belief that law could be trumped by connections. Once
the dispute could be heard in a neutral location where the businessmen’s connections would be
less potent, then her underlying optimism took over.
These two Saratov respondents clearly believed that connections trumped law. For
Svetlana, this dualism within the legal system rendered any effort to use formal legal channels to
remedy her situation pointless. Liudmila was less jaded. Ella was not ready to dismiss the
potential of law. While conceding that the legal system was far from perfect, she held out hope
that she could use it as a cudgel to blunt the economic power of her landlord.
Administrative Law
Getting Into Kindergarten. Fighting over labor or housing issues pale in comparison to
taking on city hall. Challenging local administrations is particularly difficult in smaller towns
like Shumerlia and Kushchevskaia where I was told that everyone knew one another. By
contrast, fading into anonymity was possible in metropolises like Moscow, Saratov, and Tomsk.
Getting their children or grandchildren into municipal nurseries and kindergartens was an issue
that troubled many of the women in the small town focus groups. The shortage of spaces seems
to be a relatively recent development. When Klavdia’s older daughter entered a Shumerlia
kindergarten in 1996, no special efforts were required. Even though she put her younger
daughter on a list for entry when she was born, when the time came for her to enter kindergarten
a few years ago, she was told that there was no room. If, however, she was willing to provide
“sponsor’s help” (sponsorskaia pomoshch’), then there would be a place for the girl. Ostensibly
the money would fund repairs at the kindergarten, but Klavdia regarded it as a bribe. When we
spoke, she hadn’t yet decided whether she would succumb to the demand for a side payment.
Earlier, I referenced a comment by Angelina about how many young Shumerlia parents
were paying for spots in nurseries. She herself refused to provide this “sponsor’s help” as a
matter of principle. Echoing the sentiments of others, she said: “Probably, I have the right to
appeal somewhere. I simply don’t know all the laws. I don’t know what rights I have. Because
of that, I didn’t appeal.” Instead, her grandmother made a personal appeal to the mayor of
Shumerlia. The mayor gave an order (ukaz) to find a place for Angelina’s daughter. She
conceded that few others would have the necessary connections to solve this problem. She
ethical violations of such behavior, Liudmila was not aware of any sanctions having been imposed on the
lawyer. By the latter stages of the case, Liudmila had run out of money for lawyers and was representing
herself.
23
On “lumping,” see Felstiner (1974-1975: 81).
18

suspected that most paid to get a place for their children. Looking to the future, she commented,
I am afraid for my child. If our generation behaves this way, what will things be
like when she grows up? I am horrified. ... I don’t think things are going to get
better; it’s hard to change customs. ... People are now accustomed to paying
money.
Stella, a new mother who spoke earlier of the ubiquitousness of bribes in contemporary Russian
culture, saw herself as an exception. She had already put her newborn onto a list for kindergarten
and did not anticipate having to pay a bribe. In contrast to Angelina, she was hopeful that the
situation would be different by the time her daughter is old enough for kindergarten.
The older generation was able to put the situation into a broader perspective. When
Bela’s daughter gave birth, they immediately put the child on a list. As a student, her daughter
should have been given preferential treatment. When they were told that all the Shumerlia
kindergartens were full, Bela took matters into her own hands.
A friend of mine works in the city government; she has an influential position. I
spoke with her and began to look for ways around by using envelopes [to pay
money]. In the past this was called bribery, but now it’s called sponsor’s parental
help.
Left with no choice, Bela made the requested payment. Notwithstanding the label, she suspected
that most of the money went into the pockets of the kindergarten administrators. Her own
grandmother had worked as the director of one of Shumerlia’s kindergartens in the 1970s, which
allowed her to contrasted the practices of the present and the past. She admitted that blat was
widespread in the Soviet era, but said it was qualitatively different from what she experienced
with her grandchild. She said that her grandmother might get flowers, nice cards or books from
parents, but that paying monetary bribes would have been unthinkable.
Regina, a 60-year old Kushchevskaia grandmother, likewise paid money to secure a

place. She said that some might characterize the payment as a form of blat, but she saw it as a
bribe (vziatka). Afterwards, her daughter-in-law proposed that they go to the prosecutor
(prokurator). Her distaste for bribery buttresses that expressed by some of the younger
Shumerlia respondents, and shows the complexity of Russian legal culture. Regina resisted her
entreaties, fearing the possible consequences. Her fellow focus group members supported her,
saying that if she made trouble, then her grandchild might not be fed or changed regularly.
None of my respondents framed their behavior as a response to the dualistic nature of the
legal system. Yet their actions underscored their belief that calling on powerful friends and/or
paying bribes were the most effective means of securing child care. In essence, they reordered
their behavior in recognition of the power of connections and money. For these women,
asserting their legal right to a place for their child was not a viable option. Most never
considered it. Angelina did, but quickly dismissed it as too much trouble. Several others hinted
at the dangers of repercussions. The lack of anonymity in these small towns discouraged parents
from openly charging kindergarten administrators with corruption. Parents feared that local
officials would be reluctant to pursue such charges, leaving them and their children as pariahs.
19

Indeed, the equanimity with which the small town participants regarded the prospect of side-
payments for places in kindergartens signaled that it was a fact of life for them. Such payments
were uniformly seen as bribes rather than as a form of blat.
Fighting Environmental Damage. Claims against local administration were often

collective. Complaints about the environmental harm caused by a leather factory dominated
several of the Kushchevskaia focus groups. The factory, which is an Italian-Russian joint-
venture, spews out noxious fumes. It is located in the middle of a residential zone. Those who
live nearby are unable to keep their windows open. Some have suffered from hair loss. David,
who was educated as a chemical engineer, explained that the environmental danger stemmed
from the factory’s use of chromium to treat the leather. Having worked at the plant for several
months, he characterized management “unscrupulous,” noting that they paid him less than was
promised.
The premises occupied by this factory were the site of an abandoned Soviet-era meat-
processing plant. Thus it was not the Italians’ decision to build in a residential zone. Having
factories in heavily populated areas was not uncommon during the Soviet period. Why it was
approved as a leather-works site in the mid-1990s is unclear. Several participants pointed out
that the factory brought much-needed jobs and tax revenues. Valentina, a 61-year old security
guard, took a more cynical view, noting that the investment had been approved by local
authorities during the “crazy bandit years” of the 1990s. Others echoed her sentiments, arguing
that the decision must have been advantageous for local authorities, which hinted at pay-offs for
turning a blind eye to the possibility of environmental damage. All agreed that this sort of
factory would not be tolerated in the midst of a residential area in Italy.
In each group, we asked whether anything could be done to shut down this factory.
Inevitably, the initial reaction was to tell us how hopeless any such effort would be. When we
pushed, we learned that the residents had taken various measures to rein in the factory, but had
been stymied at every turn. They had, for example, regularly complained about the noisome
smells in the local press in an effort to stir up public pressure on authorities. Several
investigations were launched, only to discover that the factory was in compliance with all
applicable regulations. Whether this was the result of a lack of comprehensive regulations or
corrupt inspectors is unclear. Residents also took the matter to court. None of the respondents
had participated in this case, but they knew of it. The court ordered the plant to clean up its
operation, but neither the court nor the local officials wanted to be responsible for shutting it
down. When we asked why, a number of hypotheses emerged, including a natural disinclination
for politicians to destroy jobs and a suspicion that these politicians had been bribed into non-
action.
This incident provides some insight into why Russians lack confidence in law. The
residents’ efforts to mobilize the law to regain safe living conditions was completely
unsuccessful. To my respondents, this proved the power of connections over law. The
willingness of local officials to look the other way when presented with clear-cut evidence of
20

environmental damage harkens back to the Soviet-era practices of “eye-washing,” i.e., the
widespread practice of padding reports to the central authorities. As was the case in the past, the
Kushchevskaia authorities and their regional superiors had to be aware of the risk to the
population of allowing the plan to continue to spew noxious fumes. But the prospect of keeping
residents employed and keeping its tax coffers full outweighed such concerns.
Pension Law.
If the prospect of standing up to one’s employer seems daunting, then imagine the
courage required to take on the national bureaucracy. Two of my respondents faced similar
circumstances. Each had been widowed and was counting on receiving their husband’s pension
to supplement their income. Neither received it automatically. Remedying the situation required
them to mobilize the law to serve their interests. Though they shared the same goal, their
problem-solving strategies were remarkably different.
At age 56, Galina was still teaching part-time at a Moscow technical college. Her
husband died in 1990. A neighbor had told her about a change to the law that might help her.
The law, which had been championed by Putin and adopted at the end of 2006, was an
amendment to the basic pension law that allowed those who had been widowed to receive two
pensions.24 Her daughter printed out the text for her.
I went to the pension department with the law, where it was printed in black and
white. The woman told me: ‘we don’t know anything. Leave the text with us ‘...
I then went to the military commissariat (voenkomat). There I also left a copy.
This was in February. The law was passed in December. I learned about it in
January and by June, I was receiving a pension. A success! This law was in
force, but the bureaucrats weren’t aware of it. ... Imagine, I went there with my
highlighted copy of the law and showed them.
Galina then began to spread the word among women similarly situated. Even after she had her
personal triumph, officials at the pension department continued to claim they knew nothing of the
law to other petitioners. With her newly acquired knowledge and confidence , she was also able
to sort out her own pension status. She hadn’t realized that she had been eligible for a pension
since age 50, and that she was entitled to a series of retirement benefits. She received a lump
back payment of 42,000 rubles, which she used for renovating her apartment.
24
Galina made my search for the relevant statute very easy by giving me the number of the law.
This might seem like an odd detail for a lay-person to remember, but I have been struck by how Russians
frequently can quote statute numbers fluently. Federal’nyi zakon ot 21 dekabria 2006 g. No. 239-FZ “O
vnesenii izmenenii v stat’iu 7 Zakona Rossiiskoi Federatsii ‘O pensionnom obespechenii lits,
prokhodivshikh voennuiu sluzhbu v organakh vnutrennikh del, Gosudarstvennoi protivopozharnoi
sluzhbe, organakh po kontroliu za oborotom narkoticheskikh sredstv I psikhotropnykh veshchestv,
uchrezhdeniiakh I organakh ugolovno-ispolnitel’noi sistemy, I ikh semei’ I stat’iu 3 Federal’nogo zakona
‘O gosudarstvennom pensionnom obespechenii v Rossiiskoi Federatsii.”
http://base.garant.ru/12151147.htm#65537 [accessed April 5, 2010].
21

Daria, was a year younger than Galina. Like Galina, her husband had made his career in
the military. They had moved around the Soviet Union during his career, but had settled in
Saratov to be closer to their children. One of Galina’s adult children suffers from epilepsy and
requires special care. Galina had been an army nurse, but when we spoke she was working for
miserly wages at a warehouse. In the18 months since her husband’s death, she had been given
the run-around when she tried to get his pension.
... after the death of my husband, I wanted to receive his pension. He used to joke
with me ‘Dasha, when I die, you’ll get my pension ... it should be sufficient.’ But
for a year and half, I haven’t been able to obtain the right certificate for the court.
... I was dependent on my husband – oh how could I not have been dependent on
him if his pension was three times more than mine. He supported the family plus
running a small business on the side. ... I need more money. Somehow I can’t get
the certificate. Two weeks ago, I was crying ... I feel like I’m beating my head
against a wall ... What can I rely on. I don’t know.
I asked whether she had considered hiring a lawyer to help her through this thicket of
bureaucracy. She scoffed at the idea, telling me that she barely had enough money to feed herself
and that hiring a lawyer was well beyond her means. Her solution was to cut her expenses to the
bone and hope that the problem with her husband’s pension would somehow sort itself out.
What explains the difference between the experiences of these two women? With a
university education, Galina might have been better situated to research the law. She was clearly
more web-literate than Daria. Galina also had a bit more experience with the legal system,
having had to resolve an inheritance issue after her father’s death.25 Daria seemed completely
flummoxed by having to pull together the appropriate documents to prove her right to her
husband’s pension. On a deeper level, however, the real contrast lay in their expectations of the
law. Daria was undone by every obstacle, dissolving into tears whenever things failed to go her
way. Galina expected the law to work in her favor and did the spadework necessary to ensure a
favorable outcome. Though she did not see herself as exceptional in any way, her assumption
that the formal rules were meaningful marks her as exceptional among my respondents.
Legal Dualism as a Constraint on Mobilizing Law in Russia
Explaining Avoidance of Law
The more typical story is one of avoiding the law. Underlying this choice is a lack of
trust in the power of law. Most saw side-payments or appeals to powerful friends as preferable to
invoking their legal rights. These were not second-best choices resorted to when disappointed by
25
Lidia took her husband’s name after her marriage. Her father inadvertently misspelled her last
name in his will. After his death in 1999, she had to prove that she was, in fact, his daughter by taking
her birth certificate and marriage certificate to court. Though she did not hire a lawyer to navigate this
process, she did have to work through a notary.
22

the legal system. Relying on law was more the exception than the rule. The reliance on
connections and bribery reflected a pragmatic approach to problem-solving.
Teasing out the reasons why my respondents shied away from law is difficult. The small
sample size makes generalizations problematic. It is tempting to blame the past. As Ledeneva
(1998) documents, people learned how to use their connections to obtain shortage goods or
services in the Soviet era. Such habits die hard. Monetary payments may now have taken the
place of the “gifts” that powered the blat networks of the past, but the marginal role of law
remains unchanged. The fact that the tendency to shy away from law spanned all generations
undercuts the power of the Soviet legacy as the key explanation.
Personal experience is also a possible explanation. Perhaps those who have tangled with
the legal system in some form are reluctant to repeat the experience. Or vice versa. My data are
inconclusive. While several of the respondents who were open to relying on law, namely
Liudmila and Galina, had been to court, others (like Ella) had no experience with the formal legal
system. Likewise, some of those most dismissive of the potential of law, such as Svetlana,
Stella, and Bela, had never been to court. Others (like Ivan) who doubted Russia’s chances to
become a pravovoe gosdarstvo were chronic litigants.
Part of the appeal of avoidance is its simplicity. Paying a bribe or drawing on powerful
connections is quicker and easier than working through formal legal channels. Throughout my
conversations respondents repeatedly emphasized that seeking legal remedies would be too much
trouble. As I found in my earlier work on Russians’ willingness to use courts, they feared the
time, money, and emotional energy required to pursue legal claims. Part of their calculus,
however, was their expectation that the other side would be able to blunt any effort to mobilize
law by drawing on its own network of connections. This, in turn, reflects an assumption that law
is malleable and that officialdom itself does not respect the law. Such beliefs are reinforced by
the Russian media’s unrelenting negativity as to the legal system. In his 2008 campaign,
President Medvedev vowed to battle against this sort of legal nihilism, but it has proven resistant
to his efforts.
Explaining Engagement With the Law
Russians’ propensity to avoid the law is a familiar story. My research suggests that it is
far from the whole story. Notwithstanding the societal lack of trust in the capacity of law and
those entrusted with its enforcement to stand up to bribery and connections, some are still willing
to work through formal channels. Not surprisingly, some who do so are neophytes like Ella,
whose optimism has yet to be fully tested. But even within my small sample, several of those
who were willing to rely on law, such as Galina and Liudmila, had previously been frustrated by
their interactions with the formal legal system.
Particularly surprising was the respondents’ use of law to challenge the state and other
powerful interests. When I analyzed the transcripts of the focus groups and interviews to
23

understand litigation behavior, the consensus was clear. Many respondents were receptive to the
idea of suing those similarly situated, but were skittish about litigating with the state or with
those more powerful than them. Interestingly, this study of mobilizing law in non-litigation
settings shows a greater willingness to challenge the powerful. Such efforts were not always
successful, but the fact that these ordinary citizens were willing to stand up to the powerful was
unexpected, especially in the increasingly authoritarian environment of post-Soviet Russia.
Asking my respondents to explain their willingness to rely on law was not terribly
helpful. Although I framed their choice as one of law versus legal avoidance, this was not how
they saw their behavior. Rather, they told stories of problem-solving and justified their strategies
in terms of what felt right or logical to them. Law entered their calculus primarily as a means to
an end. They would likely resist any characterization as law-abiders or law-avoiders. They used
law when doing so was easier than avoiding law. Few saw this choice as raising any sort of
moral dilemma.
The small sample size makes general explanations impossible. Those who invoked law
were of many different ages; they had different educational backgrounds, religious preferences,
and levels of financial resources. The sorts of situations in which they were willing to challenge
officialdom were likewise varied, though most involved little direct risk to themselves or their
families. Compare the behavior of those affected by the leather factory in Kushchevskaia with
the parents who refused to blow the whistle on kindergarten administrators who were lining their
pockets. The Kushchevskaia residents likely felt they had nothing to lose by trying to limit
emissions. The collective nature of the protest gave them cover against individual retribution.
The parents of pre-schoolers, by contrast, risked the black-balling of their children.
The Absence of Lawyers
Viewed in a comparative context, the absence of lawyers from my respondents’ stories is

striking. Once again, the role of connections helps explain their reticence. Few of them had
friends (or friends of friends) who were lawyers. As a result, they were distrustful of lawyers,
being unsure of how to assess their competence and fearful of their cost. For my purposes, the
lack of lawyers meant that my respondents were making their own choices. They had not been
cajoled into mobilizing by lawyers with their own agendas. It also meant that they had to
shoulder the burden of learning the relevant rules and that they typically faced opponents who
were more experienced.
Irrelevance of “Telephone Law” for Ordinary Russians
Notwithstanding the steady drumbeat of the media about the grip of “telephone law” on
the Russian legal system, my respondents saw such machinations as remote from their daily
lives. As I noted when analyzing their attitudes toward law generally, they are painfully aware of
the state’s capacity to reach out to punish its enemies. But they saw this as a battle among the
powerful within Russian society to which they were mere spectators. Few worried that the wrath
24

of the state would be brought down on them. This is not to suggest that the Russian legal system
is unblemished. “Telephone law” remains a fact of life for those who come within the cross-
hairs of the Kremlin or regional leaders. Curtailing such practices is essential if Russia is to
make progress towards the “rule of law.” But the assumption that “telephone law” has made the
legal system unuseable for ordinary Russians overstates the case.
Implications of the Russian Case
Indeed, doing so obscures the larger challenge for Russian policy-makers. My findings
suggest that the preference for solving problems by relying on connections or making side-
payments are more likely to cause Russians to avoid law. Trying to stamp out “old-boy
networks” and/or corruption entirely is futile. But when they trump the formal legal system, as in
Russia and in many other post-authoritarian settings, some effort to bring them to heel is in order.
Efforts to curtail corruption have proven remarkably unsuccessful in Russia. Most believe that
such campaigns have been half-hearted at best, due to the vested interest of officialdom in
perpetuating the existing system. Convincing rent-seeking officials to change their ways is a tall
order. It requires a larger commitment on the part of both state and society to enhance the respect
for law. Understandably, society is cautious about making that leap before being convinced that
its political leaders have put rent-seeking behind them. Few, if any, post-authoritarian countries
have succeeded in this sort of remaking of the social compact.
25

References
Gianmaria Ajani, “The Rise and Fall of the Law-Based State in the Experience of Russian Legal
Scholarship: Foreign Patterns and Domestic Style,” pp. 3-17, in Toward the “Rule of Law” in
Russia” Political and Legal Reform in the Transition Period, edited by Donald D. Barry.
Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.
Berliner, Joseph S. Factory and Manager in the USSR. Cambridge: Harvard University Press,
1957.
Burbank, Jane. Russian Peasants Go to Court: Legal Culture in the Countryside: 1905-1917.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004.
Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007.
Crankshaw, Edward. Russia Without Stalin. London: Michael Joseph, 1956.
Feifer, George. Justice in Moscow. New York: Delta Publishing, 1964.
Felstiner, William L.F. “Influences of Social Organizations on Dispute Processing,” Law &
Society Review, vol 9, no. 1, pp. 63-94, 1974-1975
Figes, Orlando. The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin’s Russia. New York: Metropolitan
Books, 2007.
Fraenkel, Ernst. The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. Translated by
E.A. Shils. New York: Octagon Books, 1969.
Fuller, Lon L. The Morality of Law, revised edition. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1964.
Galanter, Marc. “Why the ‘Haves’ Come Out Ahead: Speculations on the Limits of Legal
Change,” Law & Society Review, vol. 9, no. 1, pp. 114-119, 1974.
Gorbachev, Mikhail. Documents and Materials: Report and Speeches by Mikhail Gorbachev,
General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing
House, 1988.
Gorlizki, Yoram. “Rules, Incentives and Soviet Campaign Justice After World War II.” Europe-
Asia Studies, vol. 51, no. 7, pp. 1245-1265, 1999.
Granick, David. The Red Executive: A Study of the Organization Man in Russia. Garden City,
N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960.
26

Hale, Henry. Why Not Parties in Russia? Democracy, Federalism, and the State. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Hay, Jonathon R., and Andrei Shleifer, “Private Enforcement of Public Laws: A Theory of Legal
Reform,” American Economic Review, 88:2, pp. 398-403, 1998.
Hendley, Kathryn. Trying To Make Law Matter: Labor Law and Legal Reform in Russia,
University of Michigan Press, 1996.
Hendley, Kathryn. “Assessing the Rule of Law in Russia,” Cardozo Journal of International &
Comparative Law, vol. 14, no. 2, pp. 347-91, 2006.
Hendley, Kathryn. “‘Telephone Law’ and the ‘Rule of Law:’ The Russian Case,” Hague Journal
on the Rule of Law, vol. 1, no. 2, pp. 241-264, 2009.
Hendley, Kathryn. “Mobilizing Law in Contemporary Russia: The Evolution of Disputes Over
Home Repair Projects,” American Journal of Comparative Law, vol. 58, no. 4, 2010,
forthcoming.
Huskey, Eugene. “From Legal Nihilism to Pravovoe Gosudarstvo: Soviet Legal Development:
1917-1990,” pp. 23-42, in Toward the “Rule of Law” in Russia” Political and Legal Reform in
the Transition Period, edited by Donald D. Barry. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1992.
Jayasuriya, Kanishka. “The Exception Becomes the Norm: Law and Regimes of Exception in
East Asia.” Asian-Pacific Law & Policy Journal, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 108-124, 2001.
Kakum dolzhen byt’ pravovoe gosudarstvo, Literaturnaia gazeta, 8 June 1988, p. 11
Kewinbuk, Katerina P. “Russia’s Labor Pains: The Slow Creation of a Culture of Enforcement.
Fordham International Law Journal, vol. 32, no. 3, pp. 846-887, 2009.
Kudriavtsev, V.N., and E.A. Lukasheva, "Sotsialisticheskoe pravovoe gosudarstvo," Kommunist,

no. 11, pp. 44-55, 1988.
Kurkchiyan, Marina. “The Illegitimacy of Law in Post-Soviet Societies,” in Law and Informal
Practices: The Post-Communist Experience, pp. 25-46, edited by Denis J. Galligan and Marina
Kurkchiyan. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Ledeneva, Alena. Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
Ledeneva, Alena V. “Telephone Justice in Russia.” Post-Soviet Affairs, 24:4, pp. 324-350,
2008.
27

Manov, G.N. “Sotialisticheskoe pravovoe gosudarstvo: Problemy i perspectivy,” Sovetskoe
gosudarstvo i pravo, no. 6, pp. 3-10, 1989.
Meierhenrich, Jens. The Legacies of Law: Long-Run Consequences of Legal Development in

South Africa, 1652-2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Pomorski, Stanislaw. “Crimes Against the Central Planner: ‘Ochkovtiratel’stvo’,” in Soviet Law
After Stalin: Part II Social Engineering Through Law, pp. 291-330, edited by Donald D. Barry,
George Ginsburgs, and Peter B. Maggs. Alphen aan den Rijn: Sijthoff & Noordhoff, 1978.
Sakwa, Richard. The Quality of Freedom: Khodokorsky, Putin and the Yukos Affair. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2009.
Schapiro, Leonard. The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.
Sharlet, Robert. “Stalinism and Soviet Legal Culture,” in Stalinism: Essays in Historical
Interpretation, pp. 155-179, edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: W.W. Norton, 1977.
Simis, Konstantin M. USSR: The Corrupt Society: The Secret World of Soviet Caputalism.
Translated by Jacqueline Edwards and Mitchell Schneider. New York: Simon and Schuster,
1982.
Sixsmith, Martin. Putin’s Oil: The Yukos Affair and the Struggle for Russia. New York:
Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010.
Smith, Hedrick. The Russians. London: Sphere Books, 1976.
Solomon, Jr., Peter H. “Soviet Politicians and Criminal Prosecutions: The Logic of Party
Intervention,” pp. 3-32, in Cracks in the Monolith: Party Power in the Brezhnev Era. Edited by
James R. Millar. Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992.
Varese, Federico. The Russian Mafia: Private Protection in a New Market Economy. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001.
Wortman, Richard S. The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness. Chicago: University

of Chicago Press, 1976.
Yakovlev, Alexander M. Striving for Law in a Lawless Land: Memoirs of a Russian Reformer.
Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, 1996.
28

Table 1: Background Information on Research Sites as of the End of 2007(1)
Population Average Unemployment Direct Foreign

Monthly Wage Rate Investment
(2)
Moscow 10,470,300 23,623 rubles 0.8% $7.4 billion
Saratov 836,100 10,601 rubles 1.17%
(Saratov oblast’) (2,583,800) (9,103 rubles) (8%) ($25 million)
Tomsk 496,500 16,091 rubles 0.66%
(Tomsk oblast’) (1,035,000) (14,429 rubles) (6.9%) ($219 million)
Shumerlia 34,100
(Republic of (1,282,600) (8,703 rubles) (6.5%) ($30 million)
Chuvashia)
Kushchevskaia
(Krasnodarskii (5,121,800) (10,260 rubles) (8.8%) ($251 million)
krai)
(1) Data are generally available for the regional sub-units of Russia. These have various
names, e.g., oblast’, republic, or krai, but all are equal members of the Russian
Federation. Where possible, I have provided data for both the city and the
surrounding region. Saratov and Tomsk are the capitals of their respective regions
and, therefore, more information was available.
(2) The exchange rate at the close of 2007 was 24.55 rubles to the U.S. dollar, according
to the Central Bank of Russia.
(3) Because the amounts of investment can fluctuate wildly from year to year, I have taken
the average of three years in an effort to provide a more accurate picture.
Sources: Sem’ia (2008); Regiony (2008a); Regiony (2008b); Regiony (2008c).
29

Table 2: Background Information on Respondents Referenced
Name Age Residence Education Occupation Court

Experience?
Anatolii 38 Shumerlia University Chief financial Yes
degree officer
Angelina 22 Shumerlia High school Hospital No
degree attendant
Arkadina 27 Kushchevskaia University Office worker No
degree
Bela 43 Shumerlia University Unemployed No
degree
Daria 55 Saratov High school Pensioner No
degree
David 24 Kushchevskaia University Computer No
degree programmer
Dmitrii 21 Moscow University Travel Agent Yes
student
Ella 32 Shumerlia University Manager No
degree
Fedor 61 Moscow University Unemployed Yes
degree
Galina 56 Moscow University College Yes
degree teacher
Georgii 58 Tomsk High school Factory No
degree worker
Inessa 45 Saratov University Teacher Yes
degree
Ivan 61 Moscow University Pensioner Yes
degree
Karina 42 Saratov University Doctor Yes
degree
30

Kirill 58 Shumerlia High school Factory No
degree manager
Klavdia 35 Shumerlia High school Inspector Yes
degree
Konstantin 45 Moscow University Security guard No
degree
Liudmila 40 Saratov University Museum Yes
degree worker
Maksim 28 Tomsk University Manager in
degree health care
sector
Mikhail 21 Saratov University Student No
student
Miroslava 58 Tomsk University Economist Yes
degree
Oleg 55 Tomsk High school Entrepreneur No
degree
Polina 25 Moscow University Social worker No
degree
Regina 60 Kushchevskaia University Hospital Yes
degree attendant
Rufina 61 Kushchevskaia High school Security guard No
degree
Sara 45 Saratov University Manager No
degree
Simon 35 Shumerlia High school Unemployed Yes
degree
Stella 19 Shumerlia High school Seamstress No
degree
Svetlana 38 Saratov University Doctor No
degree
Tatiana 52 Moscow High school X-ray Yes
degree Technician
31

Valentina 43 Moscow University Administrator Yes
degree
Vassa 56 Kushchevskaia High school Cashier No
degree
32

Varieties of Legal Dualism: Making Sense of The Role of Law in Contemporary Russia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

You might also like

Varieties of Legal Dualism: Making Sense of The Role of Law in Contemporary Russia

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Description:

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Varieties of Legal Dualism: Making Sense of The Role of Law in Contemporary Russia

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

“Ìû íå çàêîíîñëóøíûå ãðàæäàíå ...” “We aren’t law-abiding citizens”

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Historical Legacy of Legal Dualism

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Gorbachev’s speech embracing a rule-of-law based state marked a turning point in

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Attitudes Toward Law in Contemporary Russia

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Before participating in this exercise, few of my respondents had thought systematically

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Mobilizing Law in Contemporary Russia

Young people felt themselves to be particularly vulnerable. Many times my younger

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

The experience of Mikhail, a 21-year-old Saratov student, is illustrative. Thanks to the

The potency of connections is demonstrated by an example from Kushchevskaia. Rufina,

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

A number of my respondents faced housing-related problems. In Shumerlia, Ella told me

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Regina, a 60-year old Kushchevskaia grandmother, likewise paid money to secure a

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Fighting Environmental Damage. Claims against local administration were often

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Legal Dualism as a Constraint on Mobilizing Law in Russia

Explaining Avoidance of Law

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Explaining Engagement With the Law

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

The Absence of Lawyers

Viewed in a comparative context, the absence of lawyers from my respondents’ stories is

Irrelevance of “Telephone Law” for Ordinary Russians

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Implications of the Russian Case

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Crankshaw, Edward. Russia Without Stalin. London: Michael Joseph, 1956.

Feifer, George. Justice in Moscow. New York: Delta Publishing, 1964.

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Kakum dolzhen byt’ pravovoe gosudarstvo, Literaturnaia gazeta, 8 June 1988, p. 11

Kudriavtsev, V.N., and E.A. Lukasheva, "Sotsialisticheskoe pravovoe gosudarstvo," Kommunist,

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Meierhenrich, Jens. The Legacies of Law: Long-Run Consequences of Legal Development in

Smith, Hedrick. The Russians. London: Sphere Books, 1976.

Wortman, Richard S. The Development of a Russian Legal Consciousness. Chicago: University

Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1619478

Population Average Unemployment Direct Foreign