Vadim Volkov

Academic Director, PhD (Cantab)

Interests: Sociology of Law, Economic Sociology, Organized Crime

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Profile on Google Scholar here.

Academic supervisor at the Institute for the Rule of Law

S.A. Muromtsev Professor of Sociology of Law, The European University at St. Petersburg

Academic Director, Institute for the Rule of Law (Институт проблем правоприменения)

Education and training

1992-1995 University of Cambridge (UK), Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, Ph.D. programme
1991-1992 University of Cambridge(UK), Faculty of Social and Political Sciences, M.Phil. programme
1989-1991 Institute of Philosophy of the Academy of Sciences, Moscow. Graduate schoolSummer
1990 Summer School in Sociology at University of Kent, Canterbury (UK)
1982-1987 Leningrad State University, Faculty of Economics, Higher Education

Degrees

2005 Doctor of Sociological Sciences (Russian equivalent to Habilitation Thesis) defended at the Higher School of Economics, Moscow
1995 Doctor of Philosophy, PhD, Sociology from University of Cambridge, UK
1992 Master of Philosophy, MPhil, Social Theory from University of Cambridge, UK
1987 Higher Education Degree, Political Economy from Leningrad State University, Faculty of Economics

Professional experience

Academic

2008-2013 Vice-Rector for International Affairs, The European University at St. Petersburg
2002 – 2006 Professor and Chair of Sociology Department, The Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg Branch
1995 -1999, Founding Dean, The Faculty of Political Science and Sociology, The European University at St. Petersburg
1992-1995 Regular tutorials on Soviet politics and history, Modern Revolutions, and Social Theory at University of Cambridge
1987-1989 Assistant Lecturer at the Department of Political Economy, Leningrad Institute of Mechanics

Visiting professorship

February – March 2005 Central European University, Department of Political Science
October – December 1998 University of Chicago, Department of History
January 1998 University of Joensu, Finland.

Policy and Consultancy

2009 – present, Founder and Academic Director, Institute for the Rule of Law (research and policy advise on the Russian legal and law enforcement reform)
2006 – 2008, Research and Consultancy management as Director of Technologies of Development Foundation
2004 – 2007 Consultant to the International Policy Fellowship Program, Open Society Institute, Budapest
1999 – Member of the Program on New Approaches to Russian Security (PONARS), Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC (1999-2000 – Member of the Executive Committee)

Classes taught

At the European University:
Contemporary Social Theory (Fall 1995, Fall 1996); Sociological Classics (Spring 1998, 1999, 2000); The State, Violence, and the Mafia in Comparative Perspective (Spring 1999 - 2005); Problems of Civil Society and the Public Sphere (Spring 1996); Sociological Imagination (Fall 2001-2004). Advanced seminar series: The Sociology of Everyday Life. Theory and History of Practices (Spring 1998-1999; 2002); Economic Sociology (Spring 2004).
At the Higher School of Economics: Introduction to Sociology (Fall 2002-2005).
University of Chicago: Stalinist Culture; Advanced seminar in Soviet History (Fall 1998)

Major Scholarships and Awards

1991 Joint Soros Foundation/Cambridge Overseas Trust Scholarship
1992 Ribbands Award from Wolfson College, Cambridge
1992-1994 Allen-Meek-Read Scholarship from University of Cambridge
May, October and November 1997 Visiting Fellowship at King’s College, Cambridge, sponsored by the Ford Foundation
1998 – 2000 SSRC-MacArthur Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Program on International Peace and Security)
Autumn 2000 – Carnegie Corporation Fellowship at The University of California, Berkeley
2004 –2005 – Carnegie Corporation Research Grant to study comparative early capitalism
2005 – 2006 – Marie-Curie Fellowship from the European Union to work at Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

Research interests

Economic sociology; history and theory of the state and state building; state – business relations; organized crime and the mafia; sociology of everyday life; studies of Russia’s regions.

Other: 1 st Dan (black belt) Yoshinkan Aikido

Major publications

In English

Vadim Volkov, Aryna Dzmitryieva. Recruitment patterns, gender, and professional subcultures of the judiciary in Russia. International Journal of the Legal Profession. Vol.22. Issue 1, 2015. P. 1-27.
Vadim Volkov. Legal and Extralegal Origins of Sentencing Disparities: Evidence from Russia's Criminal Courts. Social Science Research Network. 2015.
Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002 (Reviewed in the New York Review of Books, December 4, 2003)
State Failure and State Building in Russia, 1992-2004. In D. Kostovicova and V. Boijicic-Dzelilovic (eds), Persistent State Weakness in A Global Age, London: Ashgate, 2008, p. 99-116
Standard Oil and Yukos in the Context of the Early Capitalism in USA and Russia, Demokratizatsiya, 2008, vol.16, No 3, p. 240-264
Hostile Enterprise Takeovers: Russia’s Economy in 1998-2002. Review of Central and East European Law, 2004, No 4, 527-548
The Resources and Tactics of Terrorism: A View from Russia. In A. Bailes and I. Frommelt, eds. Business and Security: Public-Private Sector Relationships in a New Security Environment. SIPRI, Oxford University Press, 2004, pp. 111-120
The Selective Use of State Capacity in Russia’s Economy: Property Disputes and Enterprise Takeovers, 1998-2002, in: Janos Kornai, Bo Rothstein, and Susan Rose-Ackerman, eds., Creating Social Trust: Problems of Post-Socialist Transition. New York: Palgrave, 2004, p.126-147
Obshchestvennost’: Russia’s Lost Concept of Civil Society. In Norbert Gotz and Jorg Hackmann, eds., Civil Society in the Baltic Sea Region. London: Ashgate, 2003, pp. 63-74
Who Is Strong When the State Is Weak: Violent Entrepreneurship in Russia’s Emerging Markets. In M. Beissinger and C. Young (Eds.), Beyond The State Crisis: Postcolonial Africa and Post-Soviet Eurasia in Comparative Perspective, Washington: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 2002, pp. 81-104
Security and Enforcement as Private Business: The Conversion of Russia’s Power Ministries and Its Institutional Consequences. In V. Bonnell and T. Gold (Eds) The New Entrepreneurs of Europe and Asia, New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2002, pp. 83-103
The Political Economy of Protection Rackets in the Past and the Present. Social Research, (Fall 2000), Vol. 67, # 3, pp. 709-744
Between Society and the State: Private Security and Rule-Enforcement in Russia. Politics and Society, (December 2000), Vol. 28 No 4, pp. 483-501
Patrimonialism versus Rational Bureaucracy: On the Historical Relativity of Corruption. In S. Lovell, A. Ledeneva, and A. Rogachevskii (Eds) Bribery and Blat in Russia, London: MacMillan Press, 2000, pp. 35-47
Organized Violence, Market Building, and State Formation in Post-Communist Russia. In A. Ledeneva and M. Kurkchiyan (Eds) Economic Crime in Russia, London: Kluwer, 2000, pp. 43-61
Violent Entrepreneurship in Post-Communist Russia. Europe-Asia Studies, (July 1999), Vol. 51 # 5, pp. 741-754
The Concept of Kul’turnost’: Notes on the Stalinist Civilizing Process. In S. Fitzpatrick (Ed) Stalinism: New Directions, London: Routledge, 1999, pp. 210-230
Limits to Propaganda: Soviet Power and the Peasant Reader in the 1920s. In J. Raven (Ed.) Free Print and Non-Commercial Publishing Since 1700, Aldershot: Ashgate, 2000, pp. 177-193
General Introduction (in co-authorship). In C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (Eds.) Introduction to Russian Cultural Studies, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998
Directed Desires: Kul'turnost' and Consumption (In co-authorship with C. Kelly). In C. Kelly and D. Shepherd (Eds) Constructing Russian Culture, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998

In Russian

How Judges make Decisions: Empirical Studies in Law (Editor). Moscow: Statut, 2012
A Theory of Practices. St. Petersburg: The European University Publishing House, 2008 (in co-authorship with Oleg Kharkhordin)
Violent Entrepreneurship: Economic-Sociological Analysis. Moscow: Higher School of Economics, 2005
State Corporations: Another Institutional Experiment, Pro & Contra, 2008, September – December, p. 75-88
Rules of the Game for Business: Regional Variations, Top Manager, 2007, February, p. 44-49
The Case of Standard Oil and YUKOS in the Context of the Early Capitalism, Pro et Contra, 2005, vol. 29, № 2, pp. 66-91
Norms and Values of Illegal Security Agencies. The Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology, 1999, Vol. 2, # 3, pp. 78-86
The Political Economy of Violence, Economic Growth, Consolidation of the State, Questions of Economics, 1999, # 10, pp. 44-59
The Monopoly of Violence and the Covert Fragmentation of the Russian State, Polis,1998, # 4, pp. 39-47
Violent Entrepreneurship in Today's Russia, Questions of Sociology, 1999, # 1, pp. 56-65
Rule-following as A Sociological Problem, The Journal of Sociology, 1998, # 3/4, pp. 157-170
On the Concept of Practices in the Social Sciences, Questions of Sociology, No 6, 1997, p. 9-23
Obshchestvennost': Russia's Lost Concept of Civil Society, Pro et Contra, Vol. 2, No 4, Autumn 1997, p. 77-91
The Concept of Culturedness: The Soviet Civilization and Everyday Life in the Times of Stalin, The Journal of Sociology, 1/2, 1996, p. 203-221
The New Culture of Senses: How Illiteracy Was Liquidated in the USSR, Chelovek, 1992, No 1, p.96-102.
The Country That Talks and The Country That Writes, Chelovek, 1993, No 3, p.119-126.
Glasnost As Practice: Towards the History of Political Communication in the USSR, Chelovek, 1994, No 1, p.120-129

In Other Languages

“Imprenditori della violenza e formazione dello Stato nella Russia di oggi”, Ventunesimo Secolo, 2002, Ottobre, p. 85-116
Les enterprises de violence dans la Russie postcommuniste. Politix, 2000, Vol. 13, # 49, pp. 57-75
Gewaltunternehmer im postkommunistischen Russland. Leviathan, 2000, 28. Jahrgang, Heft 2, pp. 173-191

You can download CV in PDF here.