The search for the Russian Mafia

After the fall of communism in the Soviet Union, newspapers, films, academic researchers and intelligence agencies warned against a new phenomenon in organized crime: the “Russian mafiya.” In fact, since the fall of the Berlin Wall, Western European countries have noted an increase in the number of criminals from Central and Eastern Europe. In the mid-1990s, the Dutch judicial authorities made the issue a priority and established a special team to investigate crime with links to Eastern Europe. From 1999 to 2005, the KT NON crime team published several studies and reports on serious crime of this nature. In this paper, the authors, who were assigned to the KT NON crime team, discuss the findings of the two most recent publications on the “causes, nature, scale and threat of Central and Eastern European crime” and “mobile banditry,” respectively. They come to the conclusion that among other forms of crime, the phenomenon of mobile banditry seems to be the most serious manifestation of crime from post-communist countries. The Russian mafia was not found.

A plurality of total institutions: towards a comparative penology

Data were collected in five countries, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Canada and France between 1996 and 2003. This was used to compare and assess prison social climates. A taxonomy of social climates based on different configurations of institutional and personalized trust is proposed. Relationships between, on the one hand, assessments of the social climate by inmates and staff, and, on the other hand, the overall stability of prison as a social institution are explored. It is argued that criteria for assessment do not have an absolute character; they depend on the external context, values and norms shared by inmates. Prison reforms might destabilize the situation if they fail to take into account mutual expectations of staff and inmates. This article is written as the significantly revisited and updated version of a section in the book ([21], pp. 138–150). Previously published materials are reprinted with a kind permission of Ashgate Publishing Ltd. I am grateful to the anonymous reviewer for a number of very helpful comments and suggestions. The author also thanks Sheryl Curtis, Theresa Heath-Rodgers and Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal for helpful suggestions in editing. However, remaining inaccuracies and mistakes are only my own.     

Privatization, Competition, and Budget Constraints: Disciplining Enterprises in Russia

We investigate whether privatization, competitive forces, and the hardening of budget constraints played efficiency-enhancing roles in Russia in the immediate post-privatization period. We find evidence of a positive impact of privatization on labor productivity: a 10% point increase in private share ownership raises real sales per employee by 3–5%. The evidence on product market competition is weaker, depending on model specification. Soft budget constraints are usually found to reduce restructuring but the effect is small and insignificant. We find that in terms of their impacts on productivity, privatization and subsidy reduction are substitutes; privatization and competition (measured as the geographic scope of markets) are complements; and that competition and subsidy reduction are independent.     

Should I stay,or should I go? self-legitimacy of attorneys in an authoritarian state

Crime, Law and Social Change - In non-democracies, lawyers face various constraints ranging from the absence of acquittals or violations of their clients’ rights to threats and criminal...     

Re-enacting “Cossack roots:” embodiment of memory,history, and tradition among young people in southern Russia

This article draws upon ethnographic research which was conducted among young Cossacks (members of officially registered and informal Cossack clubs) in southern Russia. It presents young people’s participation in the Cossack “nativism” as a physical and material mode of socialization into the mnemonic community. The research puts forward an argument that such corporal and sensorial experiences is effective in recruiting some young members to the Cossack movement. At the same time, the performative character of neo-Cossack identity destabilizes contemporary Cossacks’ claims of authenticity related to the status of the legitimate heirs of historical Cossackdom. At the more general level of discussion this paper juxtaposes bodily activities, social memory, and revivalist discourses.