ALENA LEDENEVA
Social Sciences Department, SSEES
Senate House, Malet Street
London, WC1E 2HU
Phone - 0207 862 8605
Fax - 0207 862 8642
email: a.ledeneva@ssees.ac.uk
Alena V. Ledeneva is Lecturer in Russian Politics and Society at the School of Slavonic and
East European Studies, University College London. She studied Economics at the
Novosibirsk State University (1986) and Social and Political Theory at the University of
Cambridge (M.Phil.1992; Ph.D.1996). She’s been a Research Fellow at New Hall, Cambridge
till 1999. She is author of Russia’s Economy of Favours (CUP, 1998), and co-editor of
Bribery and Blat in Russia (Macmillan, 2000) and Economic Crime in Russia (Kluwer Law
International, 2000).
Her expertise is in post-Soviet Russian affairs: Russia in the global order; informal economy,
industrial barter, and economic crime in Russia; social and political implications of networks
and patron-client relationships.
Publications relevant to the project “Honestry and Trust”
Published Work
(i) Books
Economic Crime in Russia. Kluwer Law International, 2000. Co-edited with M. Kurkchiyan.
Bribery and Blat in Russia. Macmillan, 2000. Co-edited with S. Lovell and A. Rogatchevsii.
Russia’s Economy of Favours: Blat, Networking and Informal Exchange.Cambridge and New
York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
(ii) Articles
“Barter in post-socialist societies: what does it look like and why does it matter?” (with Paul
Seabright) in Seabright, P. (ed.) The Vanishing Rouble: Barter Networks and Non-monetary
Transactions in Post-Soviet Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 93113.
“Shadow barter: economic necessity or economic crime?” in Seabright, P. (ed.) The
Vanishing Rouble: Barter Networks and Non-monetary Transactions in Post-Soviet Societies.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000, pp. 298-317.
“The subversion of democracy in Russia: an informal practice perspective” in Harter, S. and
Easter, G. (eds.) Shaping the Economic Space in Russia. Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing,
2000.
2
“Introduction: economic crime in the new Russian economy” in Economic Crime in Russia
(see above), pp. 1-17.
“Russian hackers and virtual crime” in Economic Crime in Russia (see above), pp. 162-176.
“Continuity and change of blat practices in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia” in Bribery and
Blat in Russia (see above), pp. 181-204.
“Blat and Market: the Transformation of Blat in Post-Soviet Society” in Shanin T. (ed.)
Informal Economy, Moskva, Logos, 1999, pp. 111-125 (in Russian).
“Shadow Barter: the Daily Life of Small Business” in Shanin T. (ed.) Informal Economy,
Moskva, Logos, 1999, pp. 292-310 (in Russian).
“Russia’s Noxious Network”, The Review: the Journal of the Social Market Foundation.
September 1999, pp.3-4.
“Organised crime in Russia today”, Prism: a bi-weekly on the post-Soviet states. April 17,
1998. Vol. IV, No.8., pp.3-15, and in electronic version.
“Between gift and commodity: the phenomenon of blat”, Cambridge Anthropology, 1996/7,
Vol. 19, No.3, pp. 43-67.
“Practices of exchange and networking in Russia”, Soziale Welt, 1997, Vol. 48, No.2. pp.
151-170.
“Personal connections and informal networks: transformation of blat in Russia”, Mir Rossii,
Vol. 4, 1997 (in Russian), pp. 89-106.
“Informal sphere and blat: civil society or post-Soviet corporatism”, Pro I Contra, 1997, No.9
(in Russian), pp. 113-124.
‘Language and symbolic power in the works of Pierre Bourdieu’, Occasional Papers, No. 41,
University of Manchester, 1994.
(b) Forthcoming
(i) Books
Unwritten Rules: How Russia Really Works. London: Centre for European Reform,
publication date May 2001.
(ii) Articles to be published in a book
“The network economy: global and local implications” in Segbers, K. (ed.) Explaining PostSoviet Patchworks: Pathways From the Past to the Global, Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing,
publication date April 2001.
Two articles in Galeotti, M. (ed.) Russian and Post-Soviet Organised Crime. Aldershot:
Ashgate Publishing, publication date October 2001.