Crime, Law & Social Change 40: 295–320, 2003. © 2003 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands. 295 Legacies of a culture of inequality: The Janus face of crime in post-communist countries SUSANNE KARSTEDT Keele University, Department of Criminology, Keele, UK (e-mail: s.karstedt@crim.keele.ac.uk) Abstract. This paper explores the role of the specific structure and culture of inequality of the communist and post-communist countries in the simultaneous wave of elite crime and violent crime in Central and East Europe. Under the layer of homogeneity, which had been imposed on the region by ethnic cleansing during and after World War II and by the continuous policies of communist regimes, a substructure and subculture of inequality emerged, which became dominant during the transition phase. Among the consequences of the “hour-glass” society (Rose) and feudalization of society are closely knit networks at the top and the bottom of society, clientelism as a pattern of linking them, and non-egalitarian and collectivist value patterns. This specific cluster combines factors that contribute to both high-level corruption and violence. Pathways of development during the transition period indicate a bi-partition of the “geography of crime” in the region. The relative “success stories” of Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic with both declining rates of corruption and lethal violent crime (homicide) are in stark contrast to many of the successor states of the Soviet Union. It is argued that strong institutions based on civil rights and the rule of law are important factors responsible for this difference. Peaceful transitions and tumultuous societies Looking back at the transitions to democracy in the 1980s and 1990s, it is striking how peaceful they were. The term “Velvet Revolution” captures the essential characteristics of these transitions in the communist states of Central-East Europe. At the midst of this “amazing feat of world-historical change” (Sztompka, 1993: 85), the transition to democracy, market and “civil society” led to rather exaggerated expectations as to the depth and speed of change. These expectations have been disappointed. Democracy has not been firmly established, the transition to market societies has been much more difficult than the “economic utopianism” (Bryant, 1994) assumed, and civil society has failed to materialise because of what Sztompka (1993) de- scribed as the post-communist countries’ “civilizational incompetence.” He attributed this “civilizational incompetence” to several deficiencies, including those related to “entrepreneurial culture” and “everyday culture” (Sztompka, 1996).