How the Law Really Works: The New Sociology of Law in Russia

Russia presents a vast fertile ground for empirical studies in the sociology of law. The condition whereby laws and courts, law enforcement organizations do exist, while the rule of law does not obtain, or when practical, informal laws prevail over formal laws, or, equally, laws are used instrumentally by powerful interest groups requires sociological approach. Legal research can tell us important things about the legal doctrine, reveal inconsistencies in statutes, and identify loopholes that enable the abuse of law. But legal research can give us little knowledge of what happens when law meets real life, when it actually affects or fails to affect human behaviour or produces effects unintended by legislators. The Russian legal realm is much more law in action than law on paper – a condition that invites sociological inquiry of social practice rather than normative analysis of legal texts. The sociological turn in legal studies in Russia is long overdue, and international scholarship can both help to make this turn and benefit from it.

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