Law enforcement and civil society in Russia

Europe - Asia Studies

Volumn 58, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 193-213

  Taylor, Brian D ^a  

^a SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

CIVIL SOCIETY; LEGAL SYSTEM; REGULATORY APPROACH;

EURASIA; RUSSIAN FEDERATION;

EID: 33244458030     PISSN: 09668136     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09668130500481352     Document Type: Article

References (151)

1. See, for example: Freedom House, Nations in Transit 2005, available at: www.freedomhouse.org/.
2. V. Putin (2004) 'Poslaniye Federal'nomu Sobraniyu Rossiiskoi Federatsii', 26 May, available at: www.president.kremlin.ru/text/appears/ 2004/05/64870.shtml;
3. A. Voronina (2004) 'Fil'tr dlya grantov', Vedomosti, 23 July;
4. F. Weir (2005) 'Russian Government Sets Sights on "Subversion"', Christian Science Monitor, 1 June;
5. L. Romanova (2005) 'Kremlevskaya partitura', Gazeta, 20 July.
6. A. Ostrovsky (2004) 'Is Russian Democracy Becoming an Illusion?', Financial Times, 24 February;
7. N. Petrov (2004) '4 Years of Reforming the Federal System', Moscow Times, 17 February.
8. P. Finn (2005) 'For Russians, Police Rampage Fuels Fear', Washington Post, 27 March;
9. Amnesty International (2003) Rough Justice: The Law and Human Rights in the Russian Federation (London, Amnesty International Publications);
10. Amnesty International (2002) The Russian Federation: Denial of Justice (London, Amnesty International Publications).
11. The current state of Russian democracy is obviously controversial, but this debate is beyond the scope of this article. Two recent assessments are: M. McFaul, N. Petrov & A. Ryabov (eds) (2005) Between Dictatorship and Democracy: Russian Post-Communist Political Reform (Washington, DC, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace);
12. M.S. Fish (2005) Democracy Derailed in Russia: The Failure of Open Politics (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press).
13. This article makes no effort to assess the general health of Russian civil society. In addition to annual surveys such as Freedom House, book length assessments include: A.B. Evans, L.A. Henry & L. McIntosh Sundstrom (eds) (2005) Russian Civil Society: A Critical Assessment (Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe);
14. M. Morjé Howard (2003) The Weakness of Civil Society in Post-Communist Europe (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press);
15. C. Marsh & N.K. Gvosdev (eds) (2002) Civil Society and the Search for Justice in Russia (Lanham, MD, Lexington Books);
16. M.A. Weigle (2000) Russia's Liberal Project: State - Society Relations in the Transition from Communism (Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania University Press).
17. L. Diamond (1999) Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 218 - 260.
18. For an important dissenting view, see: S. Berman (1997) 'Civil Society and the Collapse of the Weimar Republic', World Politics, 49, 3, pp. 401 - 429.
19. J.J. Linz & A. Stepan (1996) Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation: Southern Europe, South America, and Post-Communist Europe (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press), pp. 7 - 15.
20. Howard, Weakness of Civil Society, pp. 32 - 38.
21. Ibid., pp. 45 - 47, 151 - 152.
22. R.D. Putnam (1993) Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, Princeton University Press);
23. R.D. Putnam (2000) Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community (New York, Simon & Schuster);
24. M.W. Foley & B. Edwards (1996) 'The Paradox of Civil Society', Journal of Democracy, 7, 3, pp. 38 - 52.
25. On Civil Society I in Russia and postcommunist Europe, see: Howard, Weakness of Civil Society;
26. J.L. Gibson (2001) 'Social Networks, Civil Society, and the Prospects for Consolidating Russia's Democratic Transition', American Journal of Political Science, 45, 1, pp. 51 - 68
27. R. Rose (2001) 'When Government Fails: Social Capital in an Antimodern Russia', in B. Edwards, M.W. Foley & M. Diani (eds) (2001) Beyond Tocqueville: Civil Society and the Social Capital Debate in Comparative Perspective (Hanover, NH, University Press of New England), pp. 56 - 69
28. N. Letki & G. Evans (2005) 'Endogenizing Social Trust: Democratization in East-Central Europe', British Journal of Political Science, 35, pp. 515 - 529.
29. Foley & Edwards, 'The Paradox of Civil Society'.
30. M. E. Keck & K. Sikkink (1998) Activists Beyond Borders: Advocacy Networks in International Politics (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).
31. J. Levy (1999) Tocqueville's Revenge: State, Society, and Economy in Contemporary France (Cambridge, Harvard University Press);
32. S. Mettler (2005) Soldiers To Citizens: The G.I. Bill and The Making of The Greatest Generation (Oxford, Oxford University Press);
33. T. Skocpol, M. Ganz & Z. Munson (2000) 'A Nation of Organizers: The Institutional Origins of Civic Voluntarism in the United States', American Political Science Review, 94, 3, pp. 527 - 546.
34. T. Carothers (1999) Aiding Democracy Abroad: The Learning Curve (Washington, DC, Carnegie Endowment for Peace), p. 250
35. N. Ball (2000) Good Practices in Security Sector Reform, Security Sector Reform: Brief 15 (Bonn, Bonn International Centre for Conversion), pp. 16 - 17.
36. M.A. Weigle (2002) 'On the Road to the Civic Forum: State and Civil Society from Yel'tsin to Putin', Demokratizatsiya, 10, 2, p. 127.
37. Contributions to this discussion beyond Weigle and Howard include: A.N. Domrin (2003) 'Ten Years Later: Society, "Civil Society", and the Russian State', The Russian Review, 62, 2, pp. 193 - 211
38. A.B. Evans Jr (2002) 'Recent Assessments of Social Organizations in Russia', Demokratizatsiya, 10, 3, pp. 322 - 342
39. H.E. Hale (2002) 'Civil Society from Above? Statist and Liberal Models of State-Building in Russia', Demokratizatsiya, 10, 3, pp. 306 - 321
40. G.E. Hudson (2003) 'Civil Society in Russia: Models and Prospects for Development', The Russian Review, 62, 2, pp. 212 - 222
41. T. Narozhna (2004) 'Civil Society in the Post-Communist Context: Linking Theoretical Concept and Social Transformation', Demokratizatsiya, 12, 2, pp. 294 - 310
42. V. Shlapentokh (2003) 'Hobbes and Locke at Odds in Putin's Russia', Europe-Asia Studies, 55, 7, pp. 981 - 1007
43. J. Squier (2002) 'Civil Society and the Challenge of Russian Gosudarstvennost', Demokratizatsiya, 10, 2, pp. 166 - 182.
44. On the importance of causal mechanisms to scientific explanation, see: A.L. George & A. Bennett (2005) Case Studies and Theory Development in the Social Sciences (Cambridge, MIT Press), pp. 131 - 149.
45. Street-level bureaucrats are those who provide government services directly to the public, and therefore frequently interact with average citizens: M. Lipsky (1980) Street-Level Bureaucracy: Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services (New York, Russell Sage Foundation).
46. Of course, rational-legal bureaucratic norms can exist in non-democratic and illiberal settings, but all modern, consolidated liberal democracies operate with a strong, if not exclusive, reliance on rational-legal norms. The classic discussion is: M. Weber (1956) Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (page references are to the 1978 edition) (Berkeley, University of California Press), pp. 217 - 226.
47. On framing, see: R.A. Payne (2001) 'Persuasion, Frames, and Norm Construction', European Journal of International Relations, 7, 1, pp. 37 - 61.
48. Keck and Sikkink discuss both framing and shaming: Keck & Sikkink, Activists Beyond Borders.
49. I thank Stephen Hanson for this phrase.
50. W. Jacoby (2000) Imitation and Politics: Redesigning Modern Germany (Ithaca, Cornell University Press).
51. Many Russian human rights NGOs do valuable work of this nature; one particularly noteworthy example is 'Public Verdict': www.publicverdict.org/.
52. J. Chanaa (2002) 'Security Sector Reform: Issues, Challenges and Prospects', Adelphi Paper 344 (London, International Institute for Strategic Studies);
53. C. Smith (2001) 'Security-Sector Reform: Development Breakthrough or Institutional Engineering?', Journal of Conflict, Security, & Development, 1, 1, pp. 5 - 19.
54. Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, pp. 170 - 176
55. K. Hendley (1999) 'Rewriting the Rules of the Game in Russia: The Neglected Issue of the Demand for Law', East European Constitutional Review, 8, 4.
56. For a brief introduction, see: B.D. Taylor (2005) 'Russia's Regions and Law Enforcement', in P. Reddaway & R.W. Orttung (eds) (2005) The Dynamics of Russian Politics: Putin's Reform of Federal - Regional Relations, Vol. II (Boulder, Rowman & Littlefield).
57. The procuracy is responsible for criminal investigation and prosecution, and for monitoring state agencies' compliance with the law.
58. Of course, beginning under President Boris Yel'tsin in the late 1990s, and gathering speed under Vladimir Putin, the FSB has witnessed a remarkable resurgence: A. Knight (2000) 'The Enduring Legacy of the KGB in Russian Politics', Problems of Post-Communism, 47, 4, pp. 3 - 15
59. O. Kryshtanovskaya & S. White (2003) 'Putin's Militocracy', Post-Soviet Affairs, 19, 4, pp. 289 - 306.
60. Several NGO representatives noted that the police were more open than the procuracy, and no one discussed NGO projects with the FSB: Georgii Satarov (INDEM), personal interview, 22 December 2004
61. Ivan Komaritskii (INDEM/CJA), personal interview, 22 December 2004
62. Boris Pustintsev (Citizens' Watch), personal interview, 19 December 2002.
63. On mixed motives for individual behaviour, see: Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 24 - 26
64. J. Elster (1989) The Cement of Society: A Study of Social Order (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press);
65. S.E. Hanson (2003) 'Instrumental Democracy: The End of Ideology and the Decline of Russian Political Parties', in V.L. Hesli & W.M. Reisinger (eds) (2003) The 1999 - 2000 Elections in Russia: Their Impact and Legacy (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press), pp. 163 - 185.
66. See www.wplus.net/pp/citwatch/index.htm.
67. Pustintsev, interview, 19 December 2002
68. Pustintsev, personal interview, 24 December 2004. All further comments attributed to Pustintsev are from these two interviews.
69. Grazhdanskii Kontrol' (2000) 'Naseleniye i militsiya v bol'shom gorode': Kruglyi stol (St Petersburg, prezentatsiya issledovaniya, stenograficheskii otchet), pp. 12 - 13.
70. Ibid., p. 19.
71. (2004) 'Problemy zashchity prav cheloveka v uchebnykh programmakh Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta MVD Rossii: Kruglyy stol (Sbornik materialov) (St Petersburg, Sankt-Petersburgskiy universitet MVD Rossii i Grazhdanskiy Kontrol').
72. Regular police are sent to Chechnya for several reasons, including the need for personnel and also the desire to depict the operation as a law enforcement task, rather than a counter-insurgency war. S.B. Glasser (2003) 'Chechnya Duty Hardens Russian Police', Washington Post, 28 November;
73. V. Mite (2002) 'Russia: Police Who Serve in Chechnya Bring Trauma of War Back Home', Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 27 June, available at: www.rferl.org/features/2002/06/27062002154422.asp.
74. Mikhail Rodionov (Citizens' Watch), personal interview, 21 December 2002.
75. Satarov, interview. CJA's website is at: www.cja.ru/pages/index2.htm. Vera's website is at: www.vera.org/.
76. P.H. Solomon Jr & T.S. Fogelsong (2000) Courts and Transition in Russia: The Challenge of Judicial Reform (Boulder, Westview Press), pp. 151 - 157.
77. The description of the project that follows is based on: NSNP, Itogi i perspektivy. metodicheskii material po sokrashcheniyu srokov soderzhaniya v SIZO (n.d.), available at: www.cja.ru/pages/publications/ npsp-itogi.htm;
78. Nizhegorodskii proekt sodeistviya pravosudiyu (Nizhnii Novgorod) 2002, brochure; Marchenko, interview;
79. Melanie Peyser (Director of CJA), personal interview, 16 December 2002.
80. J. Trone (2003) 'For the Police, a Good First Impression Could be Crucial', Just Cause (Newsletter of the Vera Institute of Justice), 10, 4, p. 3.
81. Other materials used in the description of the project include: K.K. Goryainov (ed.) (2004) Uluchshenie vzaimootnoshenii grazhdan i militsii: rezul'taty eksperimenta 'Pervyi Kontakt' (Moscow, Fond INDEM); Peyser, interview;
82. Valentina Kosyreva ('First Contact' project coordinator), personal interview, 28 April 2003.
83. On this problem, see: K.K. Goryainov, V.S. Ovchinskii & L.V. Kondratyuk (2001) Uluchshenie vzaimootnoshenii grazhdan i militsii: Dostup k pravosudiyu i sistema vyyavleniya, registratsii i ucheta prestuplenii (Moscow, INFRA-M);
84. A. Beck & A. Robertson (2002) Public Attitudes to Crime and Policing in Russia (Leicester, Scarman Centre, University of Leicester).
85. Carothers, Aiding Democracy Abroad, pp. 219 - 221.
86. Goryainov (ed.) Uluchshenie vzaimootnoshenii grazhdan i militsii: rezul'taty eksperimenta 'Pervyi Kontakt', p. 119.
87. Satarov, interview.
88. J. Weiler (2004) Human Rights in Russia: A Darker Side of Reform (Boulder, Lynne Rienner), p. 73.
89. N.A. Latygina (Novosibirsk Women's Crisis Centre), phone interview, 25 June.
90. Krizisnyi tsentr 'Yekaterina', 1998 - 2003, brochure, n.d., in possession of author.
91. Other sources for this section are: Zhizn' bez strakha: Prakticheskoye posobiye (Yekaterinburg, Krizisnyi tsentr dlya zhenshchin 'Yekaterina', 2002);
92. Yelena Makey (Yekaterina Crisis Centre), personal interview, 20 June 2003.
93. Project Harmony Community Policing website: http://cpti.projectharmony.ru/;
94. Moscow Centre for Prison Reform website: www.prison.org/;
95. Valeriy Abramkin (Director of the Moscow Centre for Prison Reform), personal interview, 20 March 2003
96. A. Sangurov ('Strategy' Centre), personal interview, 24 December 2004
97. A. Konstantinov (Agency for Journalistic Investigations), personal interview, 17 December 2002
98. I. Gall-Saval'skii (Director, Novosibirsk Oblast' Branch of the All-Russian Society of Invalids), personal interview, 25 June 2003
99. T. Firestone (2003) 'The Russian Connection: Sex Trafficking into the United States and What the United States and Russia Are Doing About It', International Organized Crime, 51, 5, pp. 39 - 42
100. T. Firestone (Department of Justice, US Embassy, Moscow), personal interview, 18 March 2003
101. S. Lindemann-Komarova, I. Baradachev & T. Babanova (Siberian Civic Initiatives Support Centre), personal interview, 24 June 2003.
102. A. Urikhanjan (2003) 'Mironov: People do not Tolerate Humiliation', Vremya MN, 22 April [in Johnson's Russia List (hereafter JRL), #7151, 22 April];
103. K. Latukhina (2004) 'Lukin ne khochet nachinat' s "uzhastikov"', Nezavisimaya gazeta, 9 April;
104. A. Kolesnichenko, (2004) 'Glavnyi narushitel' u nas -MVD', Novye izvestiya, 17 June;
105. V. Gavryushenko (2004) 'Stanet li MVD Ministerstvom prav cheloveka?' Novaya gazeta, 16 December;
106. Prav cheloveka i grazhdanskoe obshchestvo: Programma mezhdunarodnoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii (Moskva, 23 November (2004));
107. R. Simonyan (Deputy Chief of Staff, Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights in the Russian Federation), personal interview, 21 December 2004.
108. Taylor, 'Russia's Regions and Law Enforcement';
109. Finn, 'For Russians, Police Rampage Fuels Fear'.
110. See, for example: Human Rights Watch (2003) 'Human Rights Situation in Chechnya', Human Rights Watch Briefing Paper to the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights', April;
111. Médicins Sans Frontières (2000) Chechnya: The Politics of Terror, November.
112. V. Sperling (1999) Organizing Women in Contemporary Russia: Engendering Transition (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press);
113. S.E. Mendelson & J.K. Glenn (eds) (2002) The Power and Limits of NGOs: A Critical Look at Building Democracy in Eastern Europe and Eurasia (New York, Columbia University Press);
114. S.L. Henderson (2003) Building Democracy in Contemporary Russia: Western Support for Grassroots Organizations (Ithaca, Cornell University Press);
115. J. Hemment (2004) 'The Riddle of the Third Sector: Civil Society, International Aid, and NGOs in Russia', Anthropological Quarterly, 77, 2, pp. 215 - 241.
116. On the Council of Europe, which has made rule of law and security sector reform key aspects of its relationship with Russia, see: P.A. Jordan (2003) 'Russia's Accession to the Council of Europe and Compliance with European Human Rights Norms', Demokratizatsiya, 11, 2, pp. 281 - 296.
117. On the influence of transnational actors on postcommunist political and economic reform, see: W. Jacoby (2005) 'External Influences on Postcommunist Transformations: A Review Essay', manuscript, Brigham Young University.
118. For an alternative view, see: A.N. Domrin (2004) 'Controls over Foreign Funding of NGOs: What Do They Have to Do with Development of Civil Society in Russia?', Untimely Thoughts, available at: www.untimely-thoughts.com, 3 August (in JRL #8315, 5 August 2004).
119. Abramkin, interview; Lindemann-Komarova, interview; Komaritskiy, interview; Sangurov, interview; Pustintsev, interviews.
120. Gavryushenko, 'Stanet li MVD Ministerstvom prav cheloveka?';
121. Yu. Stroganov (2004), 'Muskulistaya demokratiya', Trud, 18 May.
122. S. Chambers & J. Kopstein (2001) 'Bad Civil Society', Political Theory, 29, 6, pp. 837 - 865
123. P. Kopecký & C. Mudde (eds) (2003) Uncivil Society?: Contentious Politics in Post-communist Europe (London, Routledge).
124. Diamond, Developing Democracy, p. 223
125. Howard, Weakness of Civil Society, pp. 40 - 41.
126. Y. Zarakhovich (2004) 'From Russia With Hate', Time Europe, 9 August.
127. More generally, see: A. Umland (2002) 'Toward an Uncivil Society? Contextualizing the Decline of Post-Soviet Russian Parties of the Extreme Right Wing', Demokratizatsiya, 10, 3, pp. 362 - 391
128. S.E. Hanson & J.S. Kopstein (1997) 'The Weimar/Russian Comparison', Post-Soviet Affairs, 13, 3, pp. 252 - 283.
129. Weiler, Human Rights in Russia, pp. 89 - 95.
130. Zarakhovich, 'From Russia With Hate';
131. S.B. Glasser (2002) 'Immigrants Feeling Russians' Wrath', Washington Post, 12 June;
132. A. Naryshkina & Y. Rotkevich (2004) 'V 85 gorodakh strany deistvuyut fashistkie organizatsii', Izvestiya, 20 February;
133. A. Terekhov & A. Berseneva (2005) 'Obyknovennyi rossizm-2', Novye izvestiya, 5 July;
134. J.B. Dunlop (2001) 'Barkashov and the Russian Power Ministries, 1994 - 2000', Demokratizatsiya, 9, 1, pp. 60 - 74.
135. Ye. Vyshenkov (Agency for Journalistic Investigations), personal interview, 17 December 2002
136. Anonymous MVD Colonel, Moscow, personal interview, April 2003
137. Anonymous MVD Colonel, Nizhnii Novgorod, personal interview, April 2003.
138. Dunlop, 'Barkashov and the Russian Power Ministries', p. 62
139. Chambers & Kopstein, 'Bad Civil Society', pp. 845 - 848.
140. Citizens' Watch is beginning comparative research on recruiting members of ethnic minorities to serve in the police, which some European countries have done more successfully (Great Britain) than others (France, Germany), with the hope of drawing lessons for Russia. Pustintsev, interview, 2004.
141. Pustintsev, interview, 2004.
142. T. Landau (2000) 'Back to the Future: The Death of Civilian Review of Public Complaints Against the Police in Ontario, Canada', in A. Goldsmith & C. Lewis (eds) (2000) Civilian Oversight of Policing: Governance, Democracy and Human Rights (Oxford, Hart Publishers);
143. M.A. Gissiner (2001) 'The Role of NGOs in Civilian Oversight of the Police', in A. Kadar (ed.) (2001) Police in Transition: Essays on the Police Forces in Transition Countries (Budapest, Central European University Press), pp. 187 - 195.
144. G. O'Donnell (1993) 'On the State, Democratization, and Some Conceptual Problems: A Latin American View with Glances at Some Postcommunist Countries', World Development, 21, pp. 1355 - 1369
145. M. Ungar (2002) Elusive Reform: Democracy and the Rule of Law in Latin America (Boulder, Lynne Rienner).
146. Explanations for this gap between Russia and Central and Eastern Europe vary from relatively short term factors, such as European Union conditionality, to very long term issues, such as culture and religion. The general literature on explaining postcommunist change is enormous. On the specific topic of civil society, in addition to the sources cited above, many of which touch on these issues, see two stimulating discussions of deeper cultural influences in: O. Kharkhordin (1998) 'Civil Society and Orthodox Christianity', Europe-Asia Studies, 50, 6, pp. 949 - 968
147. J. Szucs (1988) 'Three Historical Regions of Europe: An Outline', in J. Keane (ed.) (1988) Civil Society and the State: New European Perspectives (London, Verso), pp. 291 - 332.
148. A. Kremplewski (2001) 'The Police and Non-Governmental Organizations in Poland', in Kadar (ed.) (2001) Police in Transition;
149. and F. Koszeg (2001) 'Monitoring Police Detention: Experiences with Civilian Oversight of Law Enforcement Agencies', in Kadar (ed.) (2001) Police in Transition, pp. 197 - 219 (quote p. 213).
150. S. Holmes (1999) 'Can Foreign Aid Promote the Rule of Law?', East European Constitutional Review, 8, 4.
151. B.D. Taylor (2003) 'Putin's State Building Project: Issues for the Second Term', Program on New Approaches to Russian Security Policy Memo Series, Memo No. 323, November.