Constructing Legal Culture through Institutional Reforms: The Russian Experience

Marina Kurkchiyan, Law Foundation Fellow in Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford.

Focusing on the post-Communist transition in Russia, this workshop will examine to what extent institutional reforms can transform legal practices and change what people expect of  the law.

Participants will discuss the intentions behind the legal reforms in Russia and assess what they achieved. Forms of judicial dependency in contemporary Russia will be scrutinised. The bases for discussion will be two papers on "The Impact of the Transition on the Role of Law in Russia" (2008) in Law in Action and "What can be expected from institutional transplants?" in The International Journal of Law in Context, 2011.