How Russia Really Works: The Informal Practices That Shaped Post-Soviet Politics and Business (Culture and Society after Socialism) - Softcover

Ledeneva, Alena V.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0801473527 ISBN 13: 9780801473524

Publisher: Cornell University Press, 2006

Synopsis

During the Soviet era, blat―the use of personal networks for obtaining goods and services in short supply and for circumventing formal procedures―was necessary to compensate for the inefficiencies of socialism. The collapse of the Soviet Union produced a new generation of informal practices. In How Russia Really Works, Alena V. Ledeneva explores practices in politics, business, media, and the legal sphere in Russia in the 1990s―from the hiring of firms to create negative publicity about one's competitors, to inventing novel schemes of tax evasion and engaging in "alternative" techniques of contract and law enforcement.

Ledeneva discovers ingenuity, wit, and vigor in these activities and argues that they simultaneously support and subvert formal institutions. They enable corporations, the media, politicians, and businessmen to operate in the post-Soviet labyrinth of legal and practical constraints but consistently undermine the spirit, if not the letter, of the law. The "know-how" Ledeneva describes in this book continues to operate today and is crucial to understanding contemporary Russia.

About this title

From the Back Cover

"How Russia Really Works covers a fascinating topic—a cultural analysis of the transformation of economic activity in Russia since the collapse of the Soviet state. Alena V. Ledeneva focuses specifically on the nature and implications of informal practices. This book is important and innovative, providing a unique ethnographic perspective on rarely visible informal economic activity and dispelling a number of commonly held stereotypes about corruption and illegality."—Alexei Yurchak, University of California, Berkeley

About the Author

Alena V. Ledeneva is a Reader in Russian Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University College London. She is the author of Russia's Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking, and Informal Exchange and the coeditor of Economic Crime in Russia and Bribery and Blat in Russia.

Edition details

• Publisher: Cornell University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0801473527
• ISBN 13: 9780801473524
• Binding: Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 288