This book presents new socio-legal perspectives and insights on the social life of corruption and anticorruption in authoritarian regimes. This book takes up the case of Uzbekistan-an authoritarian regime in Central Asia and one of the most corrupt countries in the world according to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index-and examines the corruption that developed in a tightly closed authoritarian regime permeated by a large-scale shadow economy, a weak rule of law, and a collectivist legal culture. Building on socio-legal frameworks of legal compliance, living law and legal pluralism, the central argument of the book is that the roles, meanings, and logics of corruption are fluid, and depend on a myriad of structural variables, and contextual and situational factors. This book will be of value to researchers, academics, and students in the fields of sociology of law, legal anthropology, and Central Asian studies, especially those with an interest in the intersection of law, society, and corruption in authoritarian regime contexts. © 2025 Rustamjon Urinboyev and Måns Svensson. All rights reserved.

Esports is a wide spread cultural phenomenon in the 21stcentury. It is a dominant youth cultural expression in many countries, from east to west, and the industry’s revenues increases exponentially each year. In 2018 the sum for that, only in the US, was $100 millions. Piggybacking on the sport phenomenon, at least nominally, it differs greatly from its elder sibling as to some decisive (arguably paradoxical) aspects: Its capitalist preconditions, its fundamental grassroots and community culture, and its conspicuous lack of, or inconsistencies regarding formalization, regulation and organization. In connection to this, and which this paper will delve into, another area in which esports hasn’t been thoroughly established is Higher education. There are numerous instances of how esports and Higher education have begun to mire during the last two decades. However, there is no comprehensive discussion yet on the conditions and arguments for their fusion based on the values it could create, supplementing the literature of how to meet the needs of the industry. Firstly, we will make a brief scan of its analogue counterpart sport to see how that phenomenon and cultural practice has fared in combination with Higher education. Secondly, we will look into the examples of how esport and Higher education have begun to mire by a state of the art review of the literature, and also the suggestions which relations they still might and ought to develop. Thirdly, we will discuss education in relation to the terminology and metaphors used to comprehend the whole phenomenon of esport scholarly. Here, concepts like ecosystem, industry, ecology, party, community, and culture will be focused. This terminological discussion is crucial for a sustainable relation between Higher education and esport and thus to secure a sustainable existence for esport in general. We suggest that, contrary to what have been case before, higher education should be regarded as a part of the esport ecosystem. The paper is concluded with some remarks and what the combination of education and esport has displayed, what it could develop into, and, perhaps what it shouldn’t do and become. This discussion is based the examples of collabaration with esports actors at Halmstad University, such as esports federations, esports high schools, and non profit organizations focussing young people and children with disabilities.

This systematic literature review investigates the extent to which recent anti-corruption literature goes beyond the established paradigms (i.e., principal-agent perspective, macro-level, structural, and legal centralistic approaches) to focus on society’s informal norms, everyday micro-level power relations and non-monetary currencies (e.g. respect, prestige, social status and trust). By reconceptualising the various meanings and morality of informal, non-legal practices and transactions in the frame of the ’multi-level orders of corruption’ perspective, the paper also assesses the extent to which the current canon focuses on the complex articulation and interdependencies between (1) global, transnational anti-corruption laws, initiatives, discourses, and institutions, (2) national/central level initiatives, policies, and laws, and (3) local, micro-level social norms and practices. Based on one-hundred and three systematically gathered peer-reviewed journal articles published between 2015 and 2020, we found that most studies conducted within this period focus on anti-corruption at the national level and mostly employ analytical and quantitative methods. However, the local level received scant attention, and qualitative methods were employed in a few studies. Also, even though a significant number of studies focus on anti-corruption at multiple levels, these are mostly either the global-national level or national-local level. None of the articles gathered for this review studies anti-corruption in a complete multi-level approach that explores the global-national-local level. Lastly, we found that most of the studies across the levels are shaped by the principal-agent perspective and indicate a predominance of the perspective within anti-corruption policy and practice across the world. Consequently, irrespective of the entity of focus (i.e., country or institution), method (quantitative, qualitative, analytical or experimental) or level of analysis (i.e., global, national, or local or multi-level), most of the studies attribute the ineffectiveness of anti-corruption interventions to the inability of ”principals” to be principled, and hence call for increased sanctioning, supervision, monitoring and political commitment towards combatting corruption. Thus, there is the need for more qualitative anti-corruption studies at the local level and alternative theoretical perspectives that go beyond the aforementioned established paradigms.

This research report presents empirical findings from an ethnographic study of the role of informal social norms in reducing corruption in public and private schools in Hanoi. The study begins by building a theoretical framework that inculcates the significance of local informal social norms in analysing/understanding corruption and designing counteraction strategies, especially at the sub-national or local level. After a two-month ethnographic study in Hanoi, a rich stock of ethnographic data was collected through observations and informal interviews. The informal social norm and practices found in various public and private schools in Hanoi included parents’ payment of teachers for extra classes to ensure better school results for their children, showing gratitude and respect to teachers by providing them with gifts on 5-6 occasions per school year, and parents’ contribution of money towards the provision of equipment in school classrooms. Our findings suggest that within the context of the school system, these informal norms persist as pragmatic responses to the weaknesses in the country’s educational system. Consequently, they are not in themselves dysfunctional or corrupt, and are widely accepted as the "normal things to do". Notwithstanding, some of the parents and teachers also admitted that these informal norms and practices sometimes result in unequal and discriminatory treatment of students whose parents cannot afford to conform to them. Consequently, they sometimes become dysfunctional and/or corrupt practices that hinder the quality of education. Hence, from a collective action perspective, we argue that efforts to reduce the levels of corruption resulting from the dysfunctional aspects of these informal norms and practices must acknowledge them as institutionalised social practices that are part and parcel of everyday life. Therefore, anti-corruption interventions must not focus on eradicating/suppressing these informal social norms entirely, as this might threaten social fabrics. Instead, anti-corruption interventions should actively engage teachers, parents and school administrators in reforming the dysfunctional aspects into functional norms and practices in line with educational quality. 

In recent decades, modern (Western) law’s anthropocentric nature has been increasingly questioned from at least two contemporary scholarly fields: ‘science and technology’ and ‘nature and animal rights’. In this paper, we intend to explore the potential for the discipline of sociology of law to contribute to the ongoing discussion in animal-focused legal scholarship on the need for a more-than-human perspective on law. At first glance, there is no evidence that such a potential exists. However, Irus Braverman, professor of law at the University at Buffalo, argues that there is indeed a need for more-than-human legalities and that socio-legal scholarship could greatly benefit from a serious consideration of non-human. The challenge of such a shift should not be underestimated. Traditionally, the discipline of sociology has been as human-centred as the discipline of law. A commonly used definition of sociology as a scientific discipline is that it represents the study of human behaviour and societies. Thus, taking a turn towards a non-anthropocentric approach to law would be somewhat of a paradigm shift, including for the sociology of law. 

Rätten att uttrycka åsikter, att kritisera och att ifrågasätta är en del av en levande demokrati. Ett demokratiskt samhälle måste vara öppet för olika röster och ge alla möjlighet att komma till tals. Demokratin är beroende av att människor deltar och engagerar sig i samhällsfrågor. Med rätten till yttrandefrihet kommer också ett ansvar. Var och en bör skydda, värna och bevara yttrandefriheten genom att respektera andra och bidra till en samhällsdebatt fri från hot och hat. Tystas människor tystnar demokratin. Den digitala utvecklingen gör det möjligt för fler att göra sin röst hörd. Det är positivt men för också med sig utmaningar. Att föra fram och sprida hot och hat har blivit enklare. Uttalanden kan få snabb spridning i sociala medier och på så sätt få större genomslagskraft i dag än tidigare. Det kan missbrukas av personer som inte vill bevara det demokratiska samhället. Personer som engagerar sig i samhällsfrågor är särskilt utsatta för hot och hat. Det gäller till exempel förtroendevalda, journalister, konstnärer, opinionsbildare, forskare och representanter för det civila samhället. Utsatthet kan också vara kopplat till exempelvis en persons kön, könsidentitet, hudfärg, sexuella läggning eller ålder. När kvinnor och hbtqi-personer får hot och hat riktat mot sig har det ofta att göra med kön och sexualitet. På uppdrag av Brottsoffermyndigheten har forskare vid Lunds universitet och Högskolan i Halmstad genomfört en enkätundersökning som visade att mer än hälften av de tillfrågade har känt sig kränkta av sådant som andra skriver om dem på nätet. Särskilt utsatta är unga och personer med utländsk bakgrund, och följden blir omfattande nivåer av självcensur bland dessa grupper. Det innebär att de anpassar hur de uttrycker sig för att undvika hot och hat, eller helt avstår från att publicera och delta i samhällsdebatten. Det demokratiska samtalet begränsas och viktiga röster riskerar att tystna. Även denna kunskapsöversikt är ett resultat av samarbetet mellan Brottsoffermyndigheten, Lunds universitet och Högskolan i Halmstad. Den belyser olika frågor om näthat och demokratiskt deltagande, såsom vilka områden som genererar hot och hat, vilka samhälls- och yrkesgrupper som är särskilt utsatta och vilka konsekvenser näthat leder till. Genom att uppmärksamma frågan om hot och hat på internet vill Brottsoffermyndigheten belysa vilka konsekvenser det kan få för vår demokrati. Myndigheten vill också synliggöra de personer som utsätts för näthat och bidra till en levande samhällsdebatt. 

This policy brief looks into the role of social norms to fight corruption in the school system in the Cau Giay district in Hanoi. An ongoing research project has conducted multiple ethnographic field studies in schools and included parents, teachers, and other school personnel in the research data. Their experiences and reflections are the core of this brief. The results show the existence of informal transactions to ensure good care and schools results backed up on social norms such as the celebration of national holidays throughout the school year, but also exist on an everyday basis with the practices of home teaching, and the recruitment of new teachers to schools. By applying a socio-legal anti-corruption perspective to the findings, we suggest a list of actions that could be implemented by local school administrators and headmasters to ensure that no child experiences corruption nor the impact of corruption on his/her schooling.