Russian Legal Culture: An Analysis of Adaptive Response to an Institutional Transplant

Abstract

This article is an inquiry into Russian legal culture and is based on the assumption that any institution transplanted from one social environment to another will be reinterpreted and reshaped, so that it can be accepted into the receiving society. The process of adaptation creates an opportunity to examine the receiving society's established practices and way of thinking. To demonstrate their effects, this article explores the author's research findings carried out in two Russian towns where institutions of media self‐regulation were set up. The findings are analyzed comparatively in order to identify how the key players in the two towns interpreted the initial ideas, established procedures and rules for the newly set up institutions, and defined the roles that were attributed to them. The results of the two‐city case study are then used to interpret some specifics of the internal logic of the local legal culture.