Resisting Multiple Narratives of Law in Transition Countries: Russia and Beyond

Abstract

The literature on the role of law in countries with so‐called hybrid regimes that are stuck somewhere between democracy and authoritarianism tends to dwell on the politicization of law and the courts. This has the effect of discounting the importance of the vast majority of cases that are decided in accord with the law. Taking Russia as a case study, this essay reviews a cross‐section of the literature on its courts in order to document this tendency and explore why alternative narratives of law have failed to gain traction: Burbank's Russian Peasants Go to Court (2004); Feifer's Justice in Moscow (1964); Kaminskaya's Final Judgment (1982); Ledeneva's Can Russia Modernise? (2013); McDonald's Face to the Village (2011); Politkovskaya's Putin's Russia (2004); Popova's Politicized Justice in Emerging Democracies (2012); and Romanova's Butyrka (2010).

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