9602031 Reisinger This project is designed to create and analyze a dataset of legal orientations among legal specialists and the mass public in two societies, Russia and the United States. Russia seeks to create a law-governed state through fundamental changes in Soviet-era legal institutions and norms, The United States has a long record of comparatively successful rule of law. Democratic institutions, a market economy, or a pattern of peaceful conflict resolution have little chance of surviving without a general respect for the rule of law running throughout a society, from the highest officials down, and without a properly functioning judiciary. Judicial institutions will fall short of such fundamental goals as peacefully resolving interpersonal conflicts and protecting the citizenry from violence unless the cases they handle form only a tiny percentage of the potential cases. This in turn depends on most citizens respecting judicial institutions and the law. Although much research has been conducted into the American public's support for judicial institutions, systematic empirical evidence of other aspects of the broader concept of legal orientations, especially with regard to legal specialists and elites, is scanty. Methodologically, this project entails collecting and analyzing information about Russians' and Americans' legal orientations through a combination of quantitative and qualitative content analytic techniques. The documents analyzed will come from three periods: 1) 1980-81; 2) from mid-1988 through 1990; and 3) 1992-95. %%%%
