• Corruption and Informality
• Socio-Legal Approaches to Migration
• Muslim Identities in Prison Contexts
• Islamic Public Administration
• Central Asian Studies
• Russian and Post-Soviet Studies

Current Research

Rustam is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar with area studies interest in Russia, Central Asia and Turkey. He works at the intersection of socio-legal studies, migration studies, legal pluralism, informality and governance scholarships. He is currently working on the following projects:

1) Legal Pluralism, Informality and Everyday Life in Multicultural Prisons: A Case Study of Central Asian Muslim Prisoners in the Russian Penal System (to be published by the University of California Press, under contract, forthcoming 2023)

A book project on the daily experiences of Central Asian Muslim prisoners in the Russian penal system. Drawing on extensive fieldwork among migrants from Uzbekistan who have served prison sentences in the Russian Federation, the book analyses the everyday practices of Central Asian Muslim prisoners in Russian penal institutions. The special emphasis is placed on Muslim prisoners’ religious practices, ethnic identities and their interaction with the traditional Russian prison sub-cultures.

2) Law, Society and Corruption: Lessons from the Post-Soviet Context, Abingdon: Routledge (contract signed, forthcoming 2023)

A book project on the role of society’s informal norms and ‘non-monetary currencies’ in the emergence, explanation, persistence and ubiquitousness of corruption. These questions will be explored in the context of Uzbekistan, a post-Soviet country with the hybrid legal culture which embodies the peculiar mixture of Soviet, Western and Islamic legal cultures.

Second and third authors on this book project: Måns Svensson and Tolibjon Mustafoev

3) ADLAW: Administrative Law Reform and Legal Integration in Hybrid Political Regimes (2021-2025)

The ADLAW project, entailing international collaboration between Lund University and the University of Manchester, aims to produce a new framework for interpreting processes of constitutional legitimation in hybrid political regimes. It analyses two constitutional orders in the former Soviet sphere of influence, in Tatarstan and Uzbekistan. These constitutional orders are representative examples of an increasingly frequent type of hybrid constitutionalism. This type is marked by the fact that: (1) it provides relatively strong guarantees for access to law; for claims against administrative agencies; and for protecting individual rights against violation by public bodies; (2) it does not provide strong mechanisms for competitive democracy or for rotation of governmental office. Consequently, responsibility for the construction of recognition for law and of legitimacy for the polity as a whole is partly displaced into legal institutions.

The Co-PI of the project is Dr. Chris Thornhill, Professor of Law at the University of Manchester, UK

The ADLAW project is funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet)

4) Central Asian Law: Legal Cultures and Business Environments in Central Asia (2020-2024)

The main aim of the Central Asian Law project is to promote greater understanding and explanation of the interconnections between legal cultures, local business environments and governance in Central Asia. More specifically, the project aims to: 1) produce new empirical knowledge on legal cultures and business ethics in the region; 2) engage with, and challenge, existing theoretical paradigms within socio-legal studies, law, economic and business sciences, Central Asian studies (post-Soviet studies, more generally) and governance scholarship; 3) provide strategic intelligence for business actors interested or already operating in the region; 4) inform international organizations and decision-makers in the EU and Central Asia on possible ways to improve the business and investment climate, the rule of law and governance in the region

The project is funded by the European Commission H2020 MSCA - RISE Programme. Project budget: € 1.1 million)