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Professor Svetlana Stephenson
Svetlana Stephenson is a Senior Professor, Head of Research and Knowledge Exchange in the School of Social Sciences and Professions.
 
Svetlana Stephenson

Svetlana Stephenson

Professor Stephenson began her career at the Russian Centre for Public Opinion Research (now the Levada Centre) and as a Leverhulme Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Essex. She joined London Metropolitan University in 2002.

Professor Stephenson researches social transformation and social control in a comparative context. Svetlana currently studies the rituals of public shaming in the Soviet Union and modern-day Russia. This research combines anthropological, sociological and criminological theory to address the use of public shaming as a tool of social control. She is a member of the Global Diversities and Inequalities Centre.
 
Professor Stephenson teaches in the School of Social Sciences on sociology and criminology modules, including "Self and Society", "Youth Resistance and Social Control", and "Sociology Dissertations".
 

Selected publications

Books

- Stephenson, S. Theatres of Outrage: Public Shaming in Russia (under contract with Cornell University Press).

- Stephenson, S. (2015) Gangs of Russia: From the Streets to the Corridors of Power. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. Winner of the Alexander Nove Prize; published in Russian as Zhizn’ po poniatiiam (Moscow: Strana OZ, 2017).

- Walker, C. and Stephenson, S. (eds) (2012) Youth and Social Change in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. London and New York: Routledge.

- Stephenson, S. (2006) Crossing the Line: Vagrancy, Homelessness and Social Displacement in Russia. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Articles

- Lerner, J. and Stephenson, S. (2026) ‘From moral indignation to affective citizenship: Public shaming of celebrity emigration from Russia during the war against Ukraine’, American Behavioral Scientist, 70(7), pp. 1003–1021.

- Hallsworth, S. and Stephenson, S. (2025) ‘Vile sovereignty: The carnival of power’, Crime, Media, Culture, 21(1), pp. 119–136.

- Stephenson, S. and Safin, R. (2025) ‘The end of the “time of the streets”: Temporality in the life course of a Russian ex-gangster’, International Sociology, 40(3), pp. 416–435.

- Stephenson, S. (2023) ‘“What was the meaning of this theatre of absurdity”: Public shaming meetings in the late USSR’, Versus, 2(5), pp. 15–40.

- Hallsworth, S. and Stephenson, S. (2022) ‘Zones of entrapment and impunity: On the constitution of vague and strange regimes of power’, Critical Criminology, 30(3), pp. 665–678.

- Stephenson, S. (2021) ‘“A ritual civil execution”: Public shaming meetings in the post-Stalin Soviet Union’, Journal of Applied Social Theory, 1(3), pp. 112–133.

  • 2020–2022 Rescaling Fund, London Metropolitan University: £5,000 to collate interview data on public shaming and to conduct a workshop with scholars from HSE (Russia) and UK universities
  • 2019-2024 Member of the project team, “Gangs, Gangsters and Ganglands” ERC advanced grant (PI – Dennis Rodgers, University of Geneva, €2.5 million) April 2022 Short-Term Research Fellowship, the Jordan Centre for Advanced Study of Russia, New York University
  • May-July 2021 International Visiting Fellowship, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
  • 2019-2024 Member of the project team, “Gangs, Gangsters and Ganglands” ERC advanced grant (PI – Dennis Rodgers, University of Geneva, €2.5 million) May-July 2021 International Visiting Fellowship, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
  • Jan 2019 REF internal funding, School of Social Sciences, London Metropolitan University (£1,520): Preparation of an impact case, and research in Russia on project on “Rituals of social shaming: understanding the intersection of formal and informal social control”.
  • Aug-Sep. 2018 Visiting Research Fellowship at the Russian and East European Institute, University of Indiana, Bloomington
  • Jan 2018 Selected as the “Sociologist of the month” by Current Sociology for the article “It takes two to tango: the state and organized crime in Russia”.
  • 2017 Winner of the Alexander Nove Prize, awarded by the British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies (BASEES) for scholarly work of high quality in Russian, Soviet and post-Soviet studies, for “Gangs of Russia: from the streets to the corridors of power”, Cornell University Press.
  • 2017 Honorary mention of “Gangs of Russia” by the BASEES Women’s Forum.
  • 2016 - 2017 Grant from the Russian Khamovniki Foundation to translate and publish a Russian edition of “Gangs of Russia: from the streets to the corridors of power”, Cornell University Press, £24,000 (award holder).
  • Aug-Sep. 2012 International Visiting Fellowship, Aleksanteri Institute, University of Helsinki
  • 2010 Grant from C-SAP: Subject Network for Sociology, Anthropology and Politics to conduct a project of “5P Feedback: principles, problems, perceptions, practices, prescriptions”, £19,000 (CoI).
  • 2008 - 2009 Responding to systematic human rights violations: an analysis of ‘Pilot Judgements’ of the European Court of Human Rights and their impact within national systems, The Leverhulme Trust, £65,000 (CoI)
  • 2005 - 2007 Violent street groups and organized crime in Russia. The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, $57,000 (PI) 1999 - 2000 Neglected and abandoned children in Russia: causes and consequences. The MacArthur Foundation, £15,000 (PI)
  • 1996 - 1999 Changing perceptions of poverty in Russia, World Bank, £30,000 (CoI)
  • 1996 - 1997 Moscow street children. The Ford Foundation, Social Policy at the End of the 20th Century programme, £30,000 (PI) 1996 - 1997 Leverhulme Trust Visiting Research Fellow, University of Essex
  • 1995 - 1996 Perceptions of social justice in Russia and Estonia. Open Society Institute, Research Support Scheme, $60,000 (CoI)
  • 1994 British Council Visiting Fellow, University of Bath & Nuffield College, Oxford
  • From 2018 Member of the Advisory Board, ERC GULAGECHO project (PI - Prof.Judith Pallot, University of Helsinki)
  • From 2018 - Member of the National Committee, the British Association of Slavonic and East European Studies
  • Nov 2019 – Invited to participate in a workshop on “The Political Economy of Law Enforcement”, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne.
  • Oct 2019 – Invited talk: Living by the Code. Street Gangs in Russia, The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.
  • Sep 2018 – Invited talk: Gangs of Russia, Russian and East European Institute, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA.
  • Aug 2018 – Invited workshop presentation: Conducting Interviews on Sensitive Issues, Russian Studies Research Network, Indiana University, Bloomington IN.
  • Feb 2018 – Invited presentation: Gangs and Governance in Russia, at conference on Criminal Governance in Comparative Perspective at Barnard College, Columbia University, New York.
  • Aug 2017 – Criminal Entrepreneurs and the Development of Capitalism in Russia. Semi-plenary speech at the 13th Conference of the European Sociological Association, Athens.
  • July 2017 – Invited presentation: Organised crime and the development of capitalism in Russia at ECPR Standing Group on Organised Crime 2nd General Conference: “Organised Crime Today: Networks, Routes and Criminal Partnerships”, University of Bath.
  • May 2017 – Street and Criminal Culture, and its Social Influence in Russian Society. Keynote speech at XI Yuri Levada Memorial Conference, Higher School of Economics, Moscow.
  • Mar 2017 – Invited talk on Russian gangs at Department of Criminology and Sociology, Kingston University May 2016 interviewed by Prof Laurie Taylor on the Thinking Allowed programme, BBC4.
  • 23 May 2016. BBC programme.
  • May 2016 – Joining the Old Guard: Patrimonial Networks and Young People in Russia. Keynote speech at the 16th Aleksanteri Conference: “Life and Death in Russia: Perspectives on Russian Social Policy”, University of Helsinki.