Political Science Law
| Open Access |
DOI: Understanding Corruption Through Eugen Ehrlich’s ‘Living Law’: A Socio-Legal Study Of Informal Practices In Post-Soviet Uzbekistan
Rustamjon Urinboyev , Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of Law of Lund University, UzbekistanAbstract
This chapter focuses on Eugen Ehrlich’s concept of “living law”, one of the key theoretical perspectives in sociology of law. The aim of this chapter is to illustrate how the contemporary issues can be understood and analyzed by using the concept of living law. Empirically, the case study of corruption in Uzbekistan is presented and analysed through the lens of the concept of living law. The chapter concludes that the concept of living law provides useful theoretical and methodological insights for the study of contemporary socio-legal issues.
Keywords
Decriminalise, ultra-liberalisation, corruption
References
Baier, M., Svensson, M. and Nafstad I. (2019). Understanding Sociology of Law. Studentlitteratur: Lund
Ehrlich, E., Pound, R., and Ziegert, K.A. (2002). Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law. New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers.
Humphrey, C. (2002). The Unmaking of Soviet Life: Everyday Economies after Socialism. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
ILO (2002). Decent Work and the Informal Economy. International Labour Conference, 90st Session, International Labour Office, Geneva.
Ledeneva, A. (2009). From Russia with Blat: Can Informal Networks Help Modernize Russia? Social Research: An International Quarterly, 76 (1), 257–288.
Nelken, David (1984), Law in Action or Living Law? Back to the Beginning in Sociology of Law. Legal Studies 4:157–174.
Nuijten, M. and Anders, G., 2007. Corruption and the Secret of Law: A Legal Anthropological Perspective. Farnham: Ashgate.
Polese, A. (2008). “If I receive it, it is a gift; if I demand it, then it is a bribe”: On the Local Meaning of Economic Transactions in Post-Soviet Ukraine. Anthropology in Action, 15 (3), 47–60.
Rasanayagam, J. (2011). Informal Economy, Informal State: The Case of Uzbekistan. International Journal of Sociology and Social Policy., 31 (11/12), 681–696.
Tanzi, V. (1998). Corruption Around the World: Causes, Consequences, Scopes and Cures. (Washington DC: International Monetary Fund).
TI (2017). Corruption Perceptions Index 2018, Transparency International [online]. Available from: https://www.transparency.org/news/feature/corruption_perceptions_index_2017 [Accessed 23 Jan 2019].
Unni, J. (2001). Gender and Informality in Labour Market in South Asia. Economic and Political Weekly, 2360–2377.
Urinboyev, R. and Svensson, M. (2013). Corruption in a Culture of Money: Understanding Social Norms in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan. In: M. Baier, ed. Social and Legal Norms. Farnham: Ashgate, 267–284.
Werner, C.A. (2000). Gifts, Bribes, and Development in Post-Soviet Kazakstan. Human Organization, 59 (1), 11–22.
World Bank (2012). Workers in the Informal Economy
World Bank, 2013. World Bank Governance Studies: Corruption
Ziegert, K.A. (2010). On Eugen Ehrlich, Fundamental Principles of the Sociology of Law. Classic Writings in Law and Society.
Download and View Statistics
Copyright License
Copyright (c) 2025 Rustamjon Urinboyev
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Authors retain the copyright of their manuscripts, and all Open Access articles are disseminated under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 (CC-BY), which licenses unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided that the original work is appropriately cited. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, and so forth in this publication, even if not specifically identified, does not imply that these names are not protected by the relevant laws and regulations.