The contributors to this volume - all specialists on Soviet law and politics - offer a comprehensive examination of the effort to create a "law-based" state in the Gorbachev-era U.S.S.R., thus effecting a fundamental change in the relationship between the state and private groups and individuals. Gianmaria Ajani, Donald Barry, Harold Berman, Frances Foster-Simons, George Ginsburgs, John Hazard, Kathryn Hendley, Eugene Huskey, Dietrich Loeber, Peter Maggs, Hiroshi Oda, Nicolai Petro, Robert Sharlet, Louise Shelley, Will Simons and Peter Solomon, with commentary by Soviet scholars, discuss conceptual, historical, social, cultural, and institutional aspects of Soviet legal development, and supply detailed analysis of recent developments in the areas of civil, criminal, and labour law and the rights of individuals, economic organizations, and political and social groups.

This collection of essays examines how Russia's distinctive traditions of law-and lawlessness-are shaping the current struggle for economic reform in the country.

What impact has Russia's chosen path of reform had on the development of law after the collapse of the communist regime? This collection of essays examines how Russia's distinctive traditions of law-and lawlessness-are shaping the current struggle for economic reform in the country. Nine renowned scholars, chosen from specialties in history, politi

"How and why do the rule of law ideas shape the origins and functioning of the Russian state and society? This book explores how, over two centuries, the Russian meaning of the rule of law has been reflected in the legal doctrine, legislation, formal and informal practices of legal and political institutions, and also everyday life and the perceptions of Russian citizens at large and certain minority groups. The authors argue that legal dualism - the tension between constitutionalism and political expediency - explains the rise and fall of multiple ways in which the parts of the Russian state interact with each other and with citizens, and in which citizens and businesses interact among themselves both at home and abroad. Explaining the peaceful co-existence of these multiple ways of law, this book goes beyond the mainstream accounts of instrumental uses of law and lawlessness in Russia and offers novel ways of understanding the myriad ways in which law may matter in authoritarian regimes."--

During the last two decades Russia has gone through a process of radical political and socio-economic transformation. The legal system has reflected the various stages of this process and has also been a major agent in moving it forward. The country is at a crossroads now. External observers are sharply divided in evaluating the performance and intentions of the Russian leadership. Russia itself is involved in finding out where it stands. What sort of federation does it want to be? How will it define its relationship to Europe and to its former sister republics? The answers to such questions fundamentally affect the future shape of Russian law. At the same time, existing legal structures may predetermine the course Russia will take.

Combining the approaches of three fields of scholarship - political science, law and Russian area- tudies - the author explores the foundations and future of the Russian Federation. Russia's political elite have struggled to build an extraordinarily complex federal system, one that incorporates eighty-nine different units and scores of different ethnic groups, which sometimes harbor long histories of resentment against Russian imperial and Soviet legacies. This book examines the public debates, official documents and political deals that built Russia's federal house on very unsteady foundations, often out of the ideological, conceptual and physical rubble of the ancien régime. One of the major goals of this book is, where appropriate, to bring together the insights of comparative law and comparative politics in the study of the development of Russia's attempts to create - as its constitution states in the very first article - a 'Democratic, federal, rule-of-law state'

Everyday Law in Russia challenges the prevailing common wisdom that Russians cannot rely on their law and that Russian courts are hopelessly politicized and corrupt. While acknowledging the persistence of verdicts dictated by the Kremlin in politically charged cases, Kathryn Hendley explores how ordinary Russian citizens experience law. Relying on her own extensive observational research in Russia’s new justice-of-the-peace courts as well as her analysis of a series of focus groups, she documents Russians’ complicated attitudes regarding law. The same Russian citizen who might shy away from taking a dispute with a state agency or powerful individual to court might be willing to sue her insurance company if it refuses to compensate her for damages following an auto accident. Hendley finds that Russian judges pay close attention to the law in mundane disputes, which account for the vast majority of the cases brought to the Russian courts. Any reluctance on the part of ordinary Russian citizens to use the courts is driven primarily by their fear of the time and cost—measured in both financial and emotional terms—of the judicial process. Like their American counterparts, Russians grow more willing to pursue disputes as the social distance between them and their opponents increases; Russians are loath to sue friends and neighbors, but are less reluctant when it comes to strangers or acquaintances. Hendley concludes that the "rule of law" rubric is ill suited to Russia and other authoritarian polities where law matters most—but not all—of the time.