Organised Crime & Corruption in Post-Soviet Eurasia

Pushkin House invites to join the talk about organized crime and corruption. The masterclass will look at the developments in organized crime and political corruption in the countries of post-Soviet Eurasia trying to account for the variations in political‒criminal collusion.

It will look at how geographical location, types of political leadership, presence or absence of natural resources, and the engagement of international actors produce different forms of collusion. It then will discuss the purposes for which criminal leaders are usually enlisted by politicians and provides specific examples. It will be argued that the political‒criminal nexus is not a passing stage in state development and proves to be resilient even under the conditions of increasing government capacity and the formalizing state.

Dr Alexander Kupatadze is a lecturer at King’s College London and Associate Fellow at Extra-legal Governance Institute, Oxford University. His regional expertise is post-Soviet Eurasia. His work has appeared in the Journal of Democracy, Theoretical Criminology, Non-proliferation Review, British Journal of Political Science and other leading journals. His research has been funded by Russell Trust (St Andrews University), British Academy and Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. He has also been regularly consulting private companies and international organizations on crime and corruption-related issues in post-Soviet Eurasia.

The talk will be in English.