Primary questions about the ability of the complaint mechanism to modernize and about its compatibility with processes of legal modernization arose from observations of the contemporary modification of the mechanism. My data
covers the period of Putin’s presidency, from 2001 to the present (about 20 years). Acknowledging the importance of historical background, and seeing multiple instances of continuity between Soviet and contemporary forms of application to the authorities, I compare the institutional aspects of the Soviet version of the complaint mechanism to those of the contemporary period.
Additionally, I analyzed the practice of complaint in the late Soviet period, when under Khruchshev’s reforms the rules of complaining to the authorities were stabilized and universalized. To extend a space for historical comparison I also provide a brief overview of the pre-Soviet imperial modification of the complaint mechanism on the basis of scientific historical issues. Overall, the research covers about a century of the complaint mechanism’s existence in Russia, in three manifestations: imperial, Soviet, and post-socialist.
Empirically, I consider the complaint mechanism and its connection to the judiciary on the levels of institutions, rhetoric and ideology. An overview of the institutional (normative) frame of the Soviet and contemporary modifications of the complaint mechanism is of great importance. By design the mechanism had in Soviet times, and has today, multiple connections with executive departmental authorities, supervisory bodies (especially procuracy), and the judiciary. A retrospective overview of the extended and very complicated normative frame was necessary to show the formal side of the complaint mechanism, its place in the system of the state governance and judiciary, and the changes to its role over time.
An attentive overview of the normative and ideological documents provides a basic understanding of the institutional arrangement of the mechanism.
To answer the question of how institutional opportunities were applied by complainants, or how the mechanism actually worked, I analyzed data about usage of the mechanism. I draw on archival documents, ideological documents, correspondence between complainants and addressees, statistical reports. In this part of research, I applied method of qualitative analysis of documents (Flick 2010:255–262; Bowen 2009:27–40). I analyzed all the legal and normative documents, regulating process of complaints making, since the beginning of the Soviet epoch in 1917 till nowadays. Making selection of ideological documents for analysis I used method of targeted thematic sampling. There were analyzed ideological documents, discussing main
principals of state-and-society relations and justice. Ideological documents related thematically to problems of complaints and processes of complaining were also selected for analysis.
It was important to obtain reflexive opinions from people, having their own experience of participation in the process of complaining. There were conducted traditional semi-structured interviews with people involved in work with complaints or who made complaints themselves in the late Soviet and contemporary periods, and the texts of complaints published in the newspapers. There was developed a questionnaire in accordance with the main purpose of the research. The interviews were conducted in the form of open conversation, when informants were asked to answer the questions in a free manner. This data allowed me to enrich my analysis of the normative formal dimension of the complaint mechanism with informal rules and strategies of complaining, which played an outstandingly important role in the functioning of the mechanism in all periods. Analysis of formal and informal rules of complaint showed the general set of addressees and identified the most influential ones. The interviews were analyzed in accordance with the method of thematic coding (Flick 2010:318–323). Simultaneous consideration of formal and informal sides of complaining helped me to evaluate the efficiency and functionality of the mechanism in its late Soviet and contemporary manifestations. It also showed how the boundary between the complaint mechanism and the system of state governance and judiciary manifests itself in practice.
I paid special attention to the rhetorics of complaints. I considered texts as an important aspect of the practice of complaining, when an author herself, or with assistance, selected a set of arguments that would have weight in her eyes and in the eyes of the addressee. This part of the research showed the transformation of a social contract and a request for justice, and role of law in these parts, from the late Soviet period until the present. Analysis of the texts of complaints revealed connections between judiciary and complaint mechanism at the level of language. A method of qualitative analysis of documents was complemented by a critical approach applied to study of the argumentation and justifications (see details in chapter 2).
The empirical data of the thesis consists of:
• More than 100 normative documents from the first days of the Soviet power up to the present day, regulating the mechanism of complaints:
decrees, provisions, amendments, laws, open and internal orders, and sectoral regulations.
• About 200 original archival documents of the late Soviet period from the State Archive of the Russian Federation (GARF), Leningrad Region-al State Archive in Vyborg (LOGAV), the Russian Government Archive of Economic History (RGAE), Central State Archive of Saint Petersburg (TsGA SPb). The archival documents include complaints addressed to different addressees, responses, and cover letters.
• Sampling of local newspapers Leningradskaia Pravda and Vechernii Len-ingrad, published during the period 1960–1988. Altogether I analyzed 85 texts of complaints and responses published in the newspapers.
• 250 texts of complaints representing the contemporary modification of the complaint mechanism. These complaints were collected from 2006 until the present from the administration of one of the districts of Saint Petersburg, from public reception offices of the chairman of the party
“United Russia,” and from websites. A number of websites contain col-lections of complaints addressed to different levels of authorities. Some of them are civil initiatives, inviting people to bring their complaints to the public space (for example http://medvedevu.ru, http://presidentu.ru, or https://open-letter.livejournal.com). Some others are initiated by the authorities themselves to provide the citizens with proper samples of complaints. All the official websites of governmental and executive bodies have the option for feedback, providing forms and samples of the com-plaints. Strategy of collecting complaints is also used by lawyers looking for potential clients (for example: http://письмапрезиденту.рф, https://
владимиру-путину.рф, https://napisat-pismo-putinu.ru/, https://pravo.
media/otkrytye-pisma/, etc.). Knowing about the popularity of complain-ing to different authorities, especially to the president, law companies set up websites that promise direct connection with the authorities, invite people to submit complaints, and recruit promising clients. These web-sites contain not only forms for submissions, but collections of original
complaints (by tens thousands), samples of complaints and responses, recommendations how and where to apply. In spite of the tricky nature of the websites, many people use these channels, believing in the op-portunity to apply directly to the representatives of top-level authorities, or just trying to make their complaints public and visible. Websites with large numbers of visitors also attract attention of the authorities. In my research I used texts of complaints and responses publicly available on the following websites: https://письмапрезиденту.рф, http://medvede-vu.ru, and https://pravo.media/otkrytye-pisma. Furthermore, between 2006 and 2018 I used the mechanism of complaint to solve problems of communal servicing of the house where I live. My personal archive of
“complaint” correspondence consists of 32 documents.
• Statistical reports presenting results of work with complaints on local, city, and presidential levels. These reports are available on the official sites of a district administration, the city administration of Saint Peters-burg, and the website of the Administrative Office of the President of the Russian Federation on Work with Applications of Citizens and Or-ganizations (http://www.letters.kremlin.ru).
• 17 semi-structured interviews with officials belonging to the Soviet and post-Soviet bureaucracies dealing with complaints, and with people who had the experience of complaining.
Research was performed primarily in Saint Petersburg (known as Leningrad until September 6, 1991). Some data from the Central Russian archives were also used. Interviews with heads of the Public Reception Offices of the chairman of the party “United Russia” were conducted in three different cities, since only one Reception Office is available per city.
In accordance with the methodology of qualitative social research, I established the validity of the sample through detailed description of the process of data collection, making possible the replication of the same research in other contexts. With the intention of strengthening the validity of the results I used triangulated methods. The analyses of normative documents in combination with the interviews and analyses of ideological documents were designed to answer the general research questions (Golafshani 2003).
Investigating complaints over 17 years, I have collected an extended corpus of data related to both the Soviet and post-Soviet periods. In thinking about the design of the thesis I faced the challenge of selection. First, I had too many materials to discuss in a single thesis. The very process of selecting texts for analysis influenced the content of the thesis. As I dealt with the data, I thought about the specificity of the genre of complaint, and realized the need to explain in detail what it is, and why, out of the whole variety of genres of appeals to the authorities, the complaint so directly reveals problems of legal modernization. Secondly, the materials representing different epochs, and available to me, turned out to be quite diverse and fragmented. It could not have been otherwise. The transition from the Soviet to the post-Soviet era influenced essentially the functions and role of the complaint mechanism. My idea of tracking the transformation of the complaint mechanism in the post-Soviet context demanded serious work to “balance” the data and carefully think through common grounds of analysis, without which the comparison of the post-Soviet mechanism with its earlier modifications became meaningless. The popularity of solving problems through complaints was defined as the common ground for selection of the complaints for analysis. Thematic continuity of complaints was maintained only partially. If in the late Soviet years consumer complaints lead in popularity, in the post-Soviet period consumer issues moved almost entirely to the courts. Therefore, consumer issues are richly represented among the Soviet examples, but much less among contemporary ones. Meanwhile, complaints about housing, public services, and social welfare, common in the late Soviet years, remain popular today.