The project aims to provide a "thick description" of Russian legal culture - incl. local understandings of the term corruption - and its impact on law-enforcement in Russia.
Corruption has been singled out as the major challenge to the rule of law and socio-economic development in Russia - including by both Presidents Medvedev and Putin. Quite a lot is known about public perceptions of corruption, formal and informal mechanisms facilitating corruption, sector-specific corruption, the views of the ruling elites on the problem of corruption, and Russian anti-corruption strategies. We know much less about contemporary Russian legal culture; local notions of what does and does not constitute corruption; and the interplay between legal culture, corruption and law-enforcement.
