Rights Consciousness in the CEE Region: Lessons from Earlier Studies

Abstract

This paper is devoted to some earlier studies discussing rights consciousness in Central and East Europe. Three pioneering studies are discussed in the first part: (i.) András Sajó’s comprehensive empirical study on the role of rights in the socialist Hungarian legal culture in 1986; (ii.) James L. Gibson and Raymond M. Duch’s paper which compared the level of general social support for rights in Western Europe and in the USSR in 1988 and 1990; and (iii) Marina Kurkchiyan’s analysis of the role of law in transitory Russia, Armenia and Georgia between 1997 and 2001. The second part presents certain methodological and substantive lessons in order to guide the future research as for this issue. In conclusion, it is argued that the development of a suitable research design could be as challenging as the fieldwork and the subsequent data analysis added together.

Keywords: legal culture, rights consciousness, CEE region, empirical studies