Elena Denisova-Schmidt

The paper discusses electoral integrity and malpractice in Russia from the point of view of the people who make it happen: political strategists, CEOs, and government representatives. The original dataset, encompassing 75 in-depth interviews collected in selected Russian regions in 2018-19, suggests that a wide range of practices are employed to maintain the power of the ruling elite, from legal and ethical ones to morally gray and completely unethical ones. The techniques used have evolved with the general political situation in the country and can be clustered into five periods: 1991−1995, 1996−1999, 2000−2010, 2010−2017, and since 2018.

Lacuna research directs its attention to gaps in understanding that may occur in areas of intercultural communication. By revealing and explaining these gaps, lacuna research has the potential to optimize all areas of intercultural communication. In comparison with dimensional approaches-such as Gert Hofstede's theory, Charles Hampden-Turner and Fons Trompenaars' theory, Alexander Thomas cultural standards, and Erin Meyer's map of cultural differenceslacuna theory analyzes cross-cultural interactions at the micro-level. Originally developed and still widely used as a linguistic instrument, lacuna theory can also be applied to empirical investigations in social research. This paper focuses on the applied aspects of lacuna theory, from more established applications such as translation studies and foreign language pedagogy to suggestions for new applications such as film studies and international management.

This edited volume was published in 2020 as part of the ‘Elgar Research Agendas’ series by Edward Elgar Publishing. As the publisher states: ‘Elgar Research Agendas outline the future of research in a given area. Leading scholars are given the space to explore their subject in provocative ways and map out the potential directions of travel. They are relevant but also visionary. Forward-looking and innovative, Elgar Research Agendas are an essential resource for PhD students, scholars and anybody who wants to be at the forefront of research’. This is true with regard to the research agenda on academic integrity: twenty-four authors – scholars, practitioners, and policymakers, including Tracey Bretag, the editor and an authority in the field – describe the status quo in this volume and set an agenda for future research.

The problem of academic dishonesty at Russian universities is often foregrounded in discussions of contemporary academia, but it is not new. Only its scope, complexity, and pressure from various stakeholders to mitigate or—on the contrary—completely ignore this growing challenge are new. This paper presents a historical overview of corruption at Russian universities, demonstrating that the lack of academic integrity, in many forms, existed in Tsarist Russia and the Soviet Union. In addition to drawing from interviews with experts, the paper examines memoirs about student life edited by Russian historian Vasilii Klyuchevsky, the movies Operation Y and Shurik’s Other Adventures (dir. Leonid Gaidai, 1965) and Balamut (dir. Sergei Bodrov Sr., 1979), and literature by Ivan Kuprin (‘A Clump of Lilacs’, 1894), Lev Kassil (The Black Book and Schwambrania, 1928–1931), and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (The First Circle, 1978).

This paper discusses one approach to investigating the concept of racism and related concepts in the linguistic image of the world of Russian language users. It focuses on the collection of data (associative experiments) and its psycholinguistic interpretation as well as on the theories behind the experiments, including the theory of linguistic consciousness (teoriia iazykovogo soznaniia). The study outcomes suggest that Russians condemn racism but express this condemnation in a culturally specific way, which might lead to significant misunderstandings and conflicts in the international context.

Based on expert interviews (n = 75) conducted between October 2018 and July 2019 in selected Russian regions, the authors identify several types of strategies used by businesses while dealing with the government. These include collusion, revolving-door affiliations, conflict of interest, ‘voluntary’ donations and other forms of support to the ruling party (and sometimes the opposition parties) in exchange for public contracts or preferential treatment. The study outcomes suggest that it is almost impossible to do business in Russia without using these types of strategies. The authors trace some of these forms back to the Soviet period and discuss possible remedies.

This paper presents the outcomes of an online coin-tossing experiment evaluating cheating behaviour among Ukrainian students. Over 1,500 participants were asked to make ten coin tosses and were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups tossing coins (1) online, (2) manually, or (3) having the choice between tossing manually or online. The study outcomes suggest that students are more inclined to cheat when they perceive the coin toss to be more ‘private’. Moreover, the students’ attitudes towards corruption appear to matter for the extent of their cheating, while socio-demographic characteristics were less important.

This study examines differences in experiences with petty corruption and attitudes toward it among residents of four major urban centers in Russia’s Far East, the country’s largest but understudied macro-region. Analyzing our own survey data, we find that one subregion stands out from the other three considered in the study. Residents of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) demonstrate more negative attitudes toward corruption and report less frequent occurrences of petty corruption. Our qualitative findings confirm the existence of a distinct subregional pattern in perceived petty corruption. We hypothesize that the detected difference in attitudes may be rooted in the national composition of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia), which, in contrast to the other regions under study, is dominated by native people. As an extension of our main analysis, we explore the conditional correlations between individual characteristics and perceptions of corruption (while accounting for region of residence) and observe several interesting patterns.