Vadim Volkov is the Academic Director of the Institute for the Rule of Law of the European University at Saint-Petersburg and S.A. Muromtsev Professor of Sociology of Law. In 2005 he defended his Doctor of Science thesis in economic sociology in the Higher School of Economics, Moscow.

Dr. Volkov received a Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Cambridge (UK) in 1995 and the Higher Education Degree from The Leningrad State University, Faculty of Economics in 1987. He is the author of Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002, co-author of Russian Judges: A Sociological Study of Profession, Moscow: Norma, 2016 (in Russian) and of articles in Social Research, Politics and Society, Europe-Asia Studies, International Journal of the Legal Profession and other journals.

His research interests include: the sociology of law, empirical legal studies, economic sociology, problems of state and violence, organized crime and comparative mafia.