IngentaConnect The Russian mafia: Expulsion of law

Author: Shvarts A.¹

Source: Contemporary Justice Review, Volume 6, Number 4, December 2003 , pp. 363-382(20)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

Abstract:

The purpose of this paper will be to determine whether the conditions that exist in present-day Russia are congruent with Foucault's claim that power in modern societies is not ensured by law and punishment but by normalization and control, which go beyond the state and its apparatuses, and that law plays an increasingly subordinate role within contemporary disciplinary society. I will also see what conclusions can be drawn from the Russian-Soviet case that are relevant to evaluating the paradigms supplied by Foucault in deciphering the modalities of power in the modern world. In what sense can he help us understand how discipline and law in Imperial and Soviet Russia created the necessary conditions for the emergence of the Russian Mafia? Law has been transformed in the hands of the Russian Mafia and has expanded its spheres of influence rather than being displaced. The conditions that exist in present-day Russia can be applied to Foucault's claim that power in modern societies is not ensured by law and punishment but by normalization and control which go beyond the state and its apparatuses. But it is not the case that law plays an increasingly subordinate role in present-day Russia. Rather, it is no longer controlled by the sovereign power of the monarchy or by the Soviet state and its apparatuses, but is now predominately controlled by the Russian Mafia.

Keywords: Imperial and Soviet Russia; Michel Foucault; Discipline and law; Russian Mafia; Power; State

Document Type: Research article

DOI: 10.1080/1028258032000144811

Affiliations: 1: University of Toronto

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