Ruling Russia: Law, Crime, and Justice in a Changing Society

(Paperback)

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Description

Law, crime, and justice are among the most salient issues in any country. This is especially true for a transitional nation like Russia that is facing tremendous social, political, and economic changes, many of which create conditions conducive to crime. These ongoing changes have had profound effects on every major social institution in the country, and the transition from totalitarianism and a command economy toward rule of law and a free market is resulting in shifts in fundamental cultural values. In this environment, governmental agencies are often left without a clear mission, especially given their sometimes dubious roles during the Soviet era, and are rarely provided with the resources necessary to fulfill the difficult duties that are so vital to a functional democracy. This volume, with chapters by highly respected scholars in several disciplines, provides a comprehensive sourcebook of scholarly analysis of the effects of these changes on legal developments and rule of law in Russia, its changing patterns and nature of crime, and its criminal justice system.

Contributions by: Adrian Beck, William E. Butler, Linda J. Cook, Galina N. Evdokushkina, Leonid A. Gavrilov, Natalia S. Gavrilova, Alla E. Ivanova, Janet Elise Johnson, Roy King, Robert W. Orttung, Letizia Paoli, Laura Piacentini, William Alex Pridemore, Annette Robertson, Daniel G. Rodeheaver, Richard Sakwa, Olga Schwartz, Victoria G. Semyonova, Louise I. Shelley, Peter H. Solomon Jr., Janine R. Wedel, and James L. Williams

Reviews

A mine of information about the evolution of crime and the justice system in Russia over the past fifteen years. . . . Highly recommended. * Choice Reviews *
A brave attempt to synthesize many important themes and topics into one volume. . . . The volume as a whole is rewarding. * Stanford Journal of International Law *
A comprehensive look at Russian society in flux as reflected in the development of the law, crime, and judicial reform. -- Thomas S. Pearson * International Criminal Justice Review *
Pridemore has provided a great service to the English-speaking reader interested in crime and punishment in today's Russia. -- Peter B. Maggs, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign * Slavic Review *
This collection is an ambitious undertaking. . . . This is a collection with a broad remit, and succeeds in providing a comprehensive and insightful overview. * Seer *
This book shows how hard the transition from dictatorship to democracy really is. It is not just a transition from seventy years of communism but from more than one thousand years of Russia's past. -- Sergei Khruschev, Brown University
This collection provides a wealth of analysis and food for thought on one of the most puzzling problems in Russia's post-communist transition. The huge increase in crime rates after the collapse of the Soviet system was a challenge to the new regime and is an intellectual challenge to us all. As the chapters in the volume show, in a variety of ways, building rule of law and rebuilding the state are as complex and many-sided a task as the more oft-studied processes of moving to market economics and democratic forms of government. -- Timothy J. Colton, Harvard University

Author Bio

William Alex Pridemore is associate professor of criminal justice at Indiana University.