Living law, legal pluralism, and corruption in post-Soviet Uzbekistan

The Affordances of Social Networking Sites for Relational Maintenance in a Distrustful Society: The Case of Azerbaijan

“…The author received gifts frequently and without occasion. Gift giving is also part of reciprocity as gift-giving transactions “enact the ties of obligations and expectations within networks of kinship and friendship” (Urinboyev & Svensson, 2013b, pp. 273-274).…”

Corruption in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan

“…At the same time, the government took a series of severe measures to liquidate, or formalize, informal economic activities (bazaars and petty cross-border trade), which provided alternative means of survival for hundreds of thousands of people (Ilkhamov 2013). Although the Uzbek economy is said to have been experiencing above-trend rates of growth (7-8%) since 2004 (IMF 2012), these indicators hardly reflect the everyday realities in Uzbekistan in which many people, especially in rural areas, are compelled to secure their livelihood needs through alternative sources of income and a social safety net (Rasanayagam 2011;Urinboyev 2013).…”

“…As the state retreated from its social welfare obligations and failed to provide formal income-earning opportunities, citizens reacted to these changes by devising informal coping strategies (Urinboyev and Svensson 2017). Many commentators now argue that Uzbekistan has made little progress in promoting the rule of law and good governance, and that corruption has become a part and parcel of everyday life (Ilkhamov 2017;Kandiyoti 2007;Lewis 2016;Markowitz 2008;Rasanayagam 2011;Trevisani 2007;Urinboyev and Svensson 2013). According to the Corruption Perceptions Index, released annually by Transparency International, Uzbekistan has regularly been ranked among the most corrupt countries in the world (TI 2016).…”

“…Corruption is one of the main problems in this respect. There have been extensive discussions in academic and policy circles of why corruption remains a persistent and pervasive phenomenon in post-Soviet societies (e.g., Karklins 2002;Knack 2006;Polese 2008;Rivkin-Fish 2005;Urinboyev and Svensson 2013;Wanner 2005;Werner 2000). This chapter presents a further study in this direction and focuses on the case of post-Soviet Uzbekistan, about which, due to the authoritarian nature of the political regime, only a limited amount of information and data are available.…”

Multiple narratives of il/legality and im/morality: The case of small-scale hashish harvesting in Kyrgyzstan

“…Alternative viewpoints towards what was defined as il/legal allow us to understand the multifaceted morality of illegal transactions (Humphrey, 2002), acceptance of informal practices (Ledeneva, 2006) and the discrepancies between local, cultural and state understandings of bribery (Polese, 2008; Werner, 2000). This literature demonstrates that some activities defined as illegal by the state could be defined as appropriate and ethical according to the ‘living law’ guiding quotidian perceptions and moral codes (Urinboyev and Svensson, 2013).…”