Dr Marina Kurkchiyan

Dr Marina Kurkchiyan is Law Foundation Fellow in Socio-Legal Studies and Research Fellow of Wolfson College.  She is a sociologist who specialises in comparative legal cultures, the post-communist transition, and the impact of development issues on the rule of law. 

She has conducted research in many European and Central Asian countries, with particular emphasis on Russia and the roles of law, mediation and informal practices in resolving conflicts there. As a consultant to the World Bank, the EU, the DfID, the Open Society Institute and the UNDP she has completed a number of official reports on the interaction between law and society in relation to development. 

Since 2007 she has been working on ‘Legal Cultures in Transition: The Impact of European Integration,'  a large-scale international project sponsored by the Norwegian Research Council. Together with partners from Bergen and Glasgow she is analysing the extent to which legal cultures in Europe are adjusting to each other as integration proceeds.   Data are being gathered from the UK, Norway, Poland, Bulgaria, and Ukraine as an EU  'near-neighbour'. Research in each society will be focused on the operation of the legal institutions, the impact of the EU requirements and the resultant changes in public attitudes and practices.

Qualifications

• BSc, then MSc, in physics and mathematics, Yerevan State University, 1974, 1976
• PhD in sociology, Lithuanian Institute of Philosophy, Sociology and Law, Vilnius 1988
• Post-doctoral studies in social policy, London School of Economics, 1992-1993  

Research Interests

• Comparative legal cultures  
• Legal and institutional transplants
• Rule of law and development
• Relations between the free market, the state and civil society in transitional countries

Current Projects

• Legal Culture: The Impact of European Integration in Poland, Bulgaria, Ukraine, UK and Norway
• Comparative Studies of Institutional Transplants
• Civil justice in Comparative Perspective
• Mediation and Cultures of Dispute Resolution in Russia. 

Teaching Areas

• The sociology of transition
• The sociology of law
• Research methodology
• Comparative legal cultures
• Law and development

Publications

Books:

The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity. 
Edited with Edmund Herzig.   London: Routledge-Curzon, 2005. 

Law and Informal Practices: The Post-Communist Experience.  Edited with Denis J. Galligan.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Economic Crime in Russia.  Edited with Alena Ledeneva., London:  Kluwer Law International Publishers, 2000.  

Papers and chapters in books:

“Learning about Russian Legal Culture by Researching the Responses to an Institutional Transplant.”, manuscript. 2008. 24pp

“What Should We Expect from Institutional Transplants:  Case Studies in Bosnia and Russia”, with Danilo Leonardi, manuscript, 2008 18pp.

“The Impact of the Transition on the Role of Law in Russia.”
In Exploration in Legal Cultures, edited by Fred Bruinsma and David Nelken, Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2007, pp 75-95.

“Contractual Control: Business Regulation of Business.” with Doreen McBarnet.
In The New Corporate Accountability: Corporate Social Responsibility and the Law, edited by Doreen McBarnet and others, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007, pp. 59-93 

“The Legal Cultures of Russia and China: A Comparative Perspective.”
 FLJS  Working Paper No.1, 35 pp.   Oxford: Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, 2007.    

“Judicial Corruption in the Context of Legal Culture.”
 In Corruption and Judicial Systems.  Cambridge: Transparency International, 2007, pp 99-107

“The Armenian Media in Context:  Soviet Heritage, the Politics of Transition, and the Rule of Law.” Demokratizatsiya: The Journal of Post-Soviet Democratization, vol. 14, no. 2, 2006. pp 266-283.  

"Armenia and the Armenians” (with E. Herzig) in The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity.  Edmund Herzig and Marina Kyrkchiyan (eds).  London: Routledge-Curzon, 2005. pp 1-22.

“The Karabagh Conflict: from Soviet Past to Post-Soviet Uncertainty,” in The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity.  Edmund Herzig and Marina Kyrkchiyan (eds).  London: Routledge-Curzon, 2005 pp 147-165.

“Society beyond Statistics,” in The Armenians: Past and Present in the Making of National Identity.  Edmund Herzig and Marina Kyrkchiyan (eds).  London: Routledge-Curzon, 2005pp 211-228.

“Researching Russian Legal Culture.”  
In Theory and Method in Socio-Legal Research, edited by Reza Banakar and Max Travers, London: Hart, 2005, pp 259-277.

“The Illegitimacy of Law in Post-Soviet Societies”, in Law and Informal Practices: The Post-Communist Experience.  Denis J. Galligan and Marina Kurkchiyan .(eds)  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Also author of the chapter:
  pp 25-47.

“The Non-Regulated Transformation of Health Care in Post-Soviet Countries and its Consequences.”
Health Management (Moscow),  no.7,  2003, pp 7-22. 

“The Transformation of the Second Economy into the Informal Economy”, in Economic Crime in Russia.   A. Ledeneva and M. Kurkchiyan. (eds) London:  Kluwer Law International Publishers, 2000. pp 83-99.