Agnieszka Kubal
Biographic Data
| ID | 386697 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Agnieszka Kubal |
| GIVEN NAMES | Agnieszka |
| FAMILY NAME | Kubal |
| SIGNATURE | KUBAL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Oxford |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0264-7740 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 114 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 18 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2012 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Inter Arma, Judicialis
This paper investigates how Ukrainian judges respond to the challenges of wartime adjudication following Russia's invasion. Based on 17 interviews with judges across Ukraine, it explores their adaptive legal strategies amid uncertainty and institutional strain. The study conceptualises judges as legal bricoleurs, who drawing on international human rights norms – such as the Namibia exception and the European Court of Human Rights caselaw – balanc…
Resisting illiberal politics
Pushback or Backlash against the European Court of Human Rights
This article uses the theoretical model of ‘pushback-backlash’ developed by Madsen, Cebulak and Wiebusch (2018) for a comparative analysis of the differing patterns of reaction to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by two Eastern European countries – Russia, and Poland. We argue that Russian Constitutional Court’s ( RCC ) rejection of ECtHR authority, while extraordinary and legislated by the Duma, was in fact self-limiting, as observed i…
Queer Coalition? The Crisis of Justice in Poland and LGBTQ+ Rights Before the Polish Courts
Did the political pressures judges found themselves under in Poland under authoritarian backsliding influence their attitudes towards other marginalised groups? I address this question with reference to a particular case study: the rights of the LGBTQ+ population. While no clear pattern of solidarity can be detected, I make use of the term ‘queer coalition’, originally developed by Alexander Kondakov to account for the new complexities injected i…
Judicial relational legal consciousness
Between 2015 and 2023, authoritarian backsliding triggered significant changes in the Polish judiciary, prompting some judges to adopt a new approach in their interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, both on and off bench, taking a more explicit stance as individual applicants against the Polish government in the European Court of Human Rights. This article employs the paradigm of relational legal consciousness, attributing this…
The Women’s Complaint
The decision of the Constitutional Tribunal in October 2020 has severely curtailed women’s reproductive rights in Poland. Mass protests ensued. This article focuses on the untold story of a productive rupture that channelled the protesters’ efforts into a mass legal mobilization against the tribunal’s judgement to the European Court of Human Rights. These applications, known as the “Women’s Complaint,” were filed by over one thousand Polish women…
Crimmigrant Nations
Can statelessness be legally productive? The struggle for the rights of noncitizens in Russia
Nearly 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there are still people who have never in their lives held any passport other than that of the Soviet Union. They are de jure stateless. However, their statelessness can also be legally productive if strategically challenged. This legal productivity arises from the mobilization of human rights protections embedded in de jure statelessness by local legal actors in a given, national immigration …
Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia
Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia confronts the issue of access to justice and the realisation of human rights for migrants and refugees in Russia. It focuses on everyday experiences of immigration and refugee laws and how they work 'in action' in Russia. This investigation presupposes that the reality is much more complex than is generally assumed, as it is mediated by peoples' varied positionalities. Agnieszka Kubal's primary focus is on pe…
A Sociology of Justice in Russia
Much of the media coverage and academic literature on Russia suggests that the justice system is unreliable, ineffective and corrupt. But what if we look beyond the stereotypes and preconceptions? This volume features contributions from a number of scholars who studied Russia empirically and in-depth, through extensive field research, observations in courts, and interviews with judges and other legal professionals as well as lay actors. A number …
Spiral effect of the law
Through an ethnographic study of the immigration law system in Russia, and interviews with legal professionals and Central Asian migrants themselves, this paper asks: What are the lived experiences of the highly complex, though ambiguous immigration law regime of Russia? According to what ‘rules of the game’ does it operate? Are they specific to Russia only? This paper develops the concept of ‘the spiral effect of the law’ to capture the image of…
Introduction
Among the diverse approaches to comparison in socio-legal studies, those that employ qualitative research, richness of detail and attention to context are the focus of this special issue. The Introduction draws on comparative law and social science literature to argue that comparison amongst studies of laws in contexts can follow different trajectories: the comparison may start from an assumption of similarity – in form, purposes or context – in …
Entry Bar as Surreptitious Deportation? Zapret na v'ezd in Russian Immigration Law and Practice
Since 2013, a three-year entry bar (zapret na v'ezd) has been issued in Russia to migrants with a record of two or more administrative offenses. This article examines the sociolegal characteristics of zapret na v'ezd by situating it in a global, comparative perspective, vis-à-vis the legal developments in the areas of deportation and removal in the United States and the United Kingdom. This article argues that the Russian entry bar law experience…
Legal consciousness as a form of social remittance? Studying return migrants' everyday practices of legality in Ukraine
How do return migrants’ experiences of legality abroad influence their attitudes and practices toward the law in their country of origin? Theoretically, I advance an argument that return migrants’ legal consciousness could be considered a form of social remittance. However, in response to valid criticisms of the concept, I innovate upon it in three ways. First, I give the social remittances a narrower focus by empirically examining the values, at…
Exploring the Role of Interwave Dynamics in Stagnating Migration Flows
Settled migrants’ influencing others to follow is considered to be an important explanation for sustaining migration. Migrants’ role in stagnating migration dynamics is however relatively underresearched. Migration from Ukraine to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands introduces valuable insights: while a relatively sizeable number of migrants have arrived in those destinations in the early 20th century, this migration has not developed into sel…
Conceptualizing Semi-Legality in Migration Research
What is semi-legality, and why does it offer a viable alternative to the legality-illegality binary divide? Semi-legality, as a heuristic device, is useful to frame the various "in-between" statuses and not resorting to illegality every time ambiguities arise as this casts the net of potential fraud far too wide. It could be viewed as a multidimensional space where migrants' formal relationships with the state interact with their various forms of…
Migrants' Relationship with Law in the Host Country
This paper asks how to study migrants' relationship with the legal system upon arrival in the host country? Concentrating on the issues of plurality, it articulates different ways of explaining migrants' legal adaptations to the new legal environment. To clarify the fragmented debates I organise the approaches around the relative importance of the main analytical perspectives: legal assimilation, legal pluralism and legal consciousness/culture. I…
Migration Systems, Pioneer Migrants and the Role of Agency
The notion of a migration system is often invoked but it is rarely clearly defined or conceptualized. De Haas recently provided a powerful critique of the current literature highlighting some important flaws that recur through it. In particular, migration systems tend to be identified as fully formed entities, and there is no theorization as to how they come into being and how they break down. The internal dynamics which drive such changes are no…
Theodoros Iosifides, Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies
(2012). Theodoros Iosifides, Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies: A Critical Realist Perspective. Journal of Critical Realism: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 401-406
Conceptualizing Semi-Legality in Migration Research
What is semi-legality, and why does it offer a viable alternative to the legality-illegality binary divide? Semi-legality, as a heuristic device, is useful to frame the various "in-between" statuses and not resorting to illegality every time ambiguities arise as this casts the net of potential fraud far too wide. It could be viewed as a multidimensional space where migrants' formal relationships with the state interact with their various forms of…
Crimmigrant Nations
Entry Bar as Surreptitious Deportation? Zapret na v'ezd in Russian Immigration Law and Practice
Since 2013, a three-year entry bar (zapret na v'ezd) has been issued in Russia to migrants with a record of two or more administrative offenses. This article examines the sociolegal characteristics of zapret na v'ezd by situating it in a global, comparative perspective, vis-à-vis the legal developments in the areas of deportation and removal in the United States and the United Kingdom. This article argues that the Russian entry bar law experience…
Legal consciousness as a form of social remittance? Studying return migrants' everyday practices of legality in Ukraine
How do return migrants’ experiences of legality abroad influence their attitudes and practices toward the law in their country of origin? Theoretically, I advance an argument that return migrants’ legal consciousness could be considered a form of social remittance. However, in response to valid criticisms of the concept, I innovate upon it in three ways. First, I give the social remittances a narrower focus by empirically examining the values, at…
Spiral effect of the law
Through an ethnographic study of the immigration law system in Russia, and interviews with legal professionals and Central Asian migrants themselves, this paper asks: What are the lived experiences of the highly complex, though ambiguous immigration law regime of Russia? According to what ‘rules of the game’ does it operate? Are they specific to Russia only? This paper develops the concept of ‘the spiral effect of the law’ to capture the image of…
Introduction
Among the diverse approaches to comparison in socio-legal studies, those that employ qualitative research, richness of detail and attention to context are the focus of this special issue. The Introduction draws on comparative law and social science literature to argue that comparison amongst studies of laws in contexts can follow different trajectories: the comparison may start from an assumption of similarity – in form, purposes or context – in …
Exploring the Role of Interwave Dynamics in Stagnating Migration Flows
Settled migrants’ influencing others to follow is considered to be an important explanation for sustaining migration. Migrants’ role in stagnating migration dynamics is however relatively underresearched. Migration from Ukraine to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands introduces valuable insights: while a relatively sizeable number of migrants have arrived in those destinations in the early 20th century, this migration has not developed into sel…
Can statelessness be legally productive? The struggle for the rights of noncitizens in Russia
Nearly 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there are still people who have never in their lives held any passport other than that of the Soviet Union. They are de jure stateless. However, their statelessness can also be legally productive if strategically challenged. This legal productivity arises from the mobilization of human rights protections embedded in de jure statelessness by local legal actors in a given, national immigration …
Migrants' Relationship with Law in the Host Country
This paper asks how to study migrants' relationship with the legal system upon arrival in the host country? Concentrating on the issues of plurality, it articulates different ways of explaining migrants' legal adaptations to the new legal environment. To clarify the fragmented debates I organise the approaches around the relative importance of the main analytical perspectives: legal assimilation, legal pluralism and legal consciousness/culture. I…
Queer Coalition? The Crisis of Justice in Poland and LGBTQ+ Rights Before the Polish Courts
Did the political pressures judges found themselves under in Poland under authoritarian backsliding influence their attitudes towards other marginalised groups? I address this question with reference to a particular case study: the rights of the LGBTQ+ population. While no clear pattern of solidarity can be detected, I make use of the term ‘queer coalition’, originally developed by Alexander Kondakov to account for the new complexities injected i…
Judicial relational legal consciousness
Between 2015 and 2023, authoritarian backsliding triggered significant changes in the Polish judiciary, prompting some judges to adopt a new approach in their interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, both on and off bench, taking a more explicit stance as individual applicants against the Polish government in the European Court of Human Rights. This article employs the paradigm of relational legal consciousness, attributing this…
Migration Systems, Pioneer Migrants and the Role of Agency
The notion of a migration system is often invoked but it is rarely clearly defined or conceptualized. De Haas recently provided a powerful critique of the current literature highlighting some important flaws that recur through it. In particular, migration systems tend to be identified as fully formed entities, and there is no theorization as to how they come into being and how they break down. The internal dynamics which drive such changes are no…
Theodoros Iosifides, Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies
(2012). Theodoros Iosifides, Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies: A Critical Realist Perspective. Journal of Critical Realism: Vol. 11, No. 3, pp. 401-406
Conceptualizing Semi-Legality in Migration Research
What is semi-legality, and why does it offer a viable alternative to the legality-illegality binary divide? Semi-legality, as a heuristic device, is useful to frame the various "in-between" statuses and not resorting to illegality every time ambiguities arise as this casts the net of potential fraud far too wide. It could be viewed as a multidimensional space where migrants' formal relationships with the state interact with their various forms of…
Migrants' Relationship with Law in the Host Country
This paper asks how to study migrants' relationship with the legal system upon arrival in the host country? Concentrating on the issues of plurality, it articulates different ways of explaining migrants' legal adaptations to the new legal environment. To clarify the fragmented debates I organise the approaches around the relative importance of the main analytical perspectives: legal assimilation, legal pluralism and legal consciousness/culture. I…
Legal consciousness as a form of social remittance? Studying return migrants' everyday practices of legality in Ukraine
How do return migrants’ experiences of legality abroad influence their attitudes and practices toward the law in their country of origin? Theoretically, I advance an argument that return migrants’ legal consciousness could be considered a form of social remittance. However, in response to valid criticisms of the concept, I innovate upon it in three ways. First, I give the social remittances a narrower focus by empirically examining the values, at…
Exploring the Role of Interwave Dynamics in Stagnating Migration Flows
Settled migrants’ influencing others to follow is considered to be an important explanation for sustaining migration. Migrants’ role in stagnating migration dynamics is however relatively underresearched. Migration from Ukraine to the United Kingdom and the Netherlands introduces valuable insights: while a relatively sizeable number of migrants have arrived in those destinations in the early 20th century, this migration has not developed into sel…
Spiral effect of the law
Through an ethnographic study of the immigration law system in Russia, and interviews with legal professionals and Central Asian migrants themselves, this paper asks: What are the lived experiences of the highly complex, though ambiguous immigration law regime of Russia? According to what ‘rules of the game’ does it operate? Are they specific to Russia only? This paper develops the concept of ‘the spiral effect of the law’ to capture the image of…
Introduction
Among the diverse approaches to comparison in socio-legal studies, those that employ qualitative research, richness of detail and attention to context are the focus of this special issue. The Introduction draws on comparative law and social science literature to argue that comparison amongst studies of laws in contexts can follow different trajectories: the comparison may start from an assumption of similarity – in form, purposes or context – in …
Entry Bar as Surreptitious Deportation? Zapret na v'ezd in Russian Immigration Law and Practice
Since 2013, a three-year entry bar (zapret na v'ezd) has been issued in Russia to migrants with a record of two or more administrative offenses. This article examines the sociolegal characteristics of zapret na v'ezd by situating it in a global, comparative perspective, vis-à-vis the legal developments in the areas of deportation and removal in the United States and the United Kingdom. This article argues that the Russian entry bar law experience…
A Sociology of Justice in Russia
Much of the media coverage and academic literature on Russia suggests that the justice system is unreliable, ineffective and corrupt. But what if we look beyond the stereotypes and preconceptions? This volume features contributions from a number of scholars who studied Russia empirically and in-depth, through extensive field research, observations in courts, and interviews with judges and other legal professionals as well as lay actors. A number …
Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia
Immigration and Refugee Law in Russia confronts the issue of access to justice and the realisation of human rights for migrants and refugees in Russia. It focuses on everyday experiences of immigration and refugee laws and how they work 'in action' in Russia. This investigation presupposes that the reality is much more complex than is generally assumed, as it is mediated by peoples' varied positionalities. Agnieszka Kubal's primary focus is on pe…
Crimmigrant Nations
Can statelessness be legally productive? The struggle for the rights of noncitizens in Russia
Nearly 30 years since the collapse of the Soviet bloc, there are still people who have never in their lives held any passport other than that of the Soviet Union. They are de jure stateless. However, their statelessness can also be legally productive if strategically challenged. This legal productivity arises from the mobilization of human rights protections embedded in de jure statelessness by local legal actors in a given, national immigration …
The Women’s Complaint
The decision of the Constitutional Tribunal in October 2020 has severely curtailed women’s reproductive rights in Poland. Mass protests ensued. This article focuses on the untold story of a productive rupture that channelled the protesters’ efforts into a mass legal mobilization against the tribunal’s judgement to the European Court of Human Rights. These applications, known as the “Women’s Complaint,” were filed by over one thousand Polish women…
Pushback or Backlash against the European Court of Human Rights
This article uses the theoretical model of ‘pushback-backlash’ developed by Madsen, Cebulak and Wiebusch (2018) for a comparative analysis of the differing patterns of reaction to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) by two Eastern European countries – Russia, and Poland. We argue that Russian Constitutional Court’s ( RCC ) rejection of ECtHR authority, while extraordinary and legislated by the Duma, was in fact self-limiting, as observed i…
Queer Coalition? The Crisis of Justice in Poland and LGBTQ+ Rights Before the Polish Courts
Did the political pressures judges found themselves under in Poland under authoritarian backsliding influence their attitudes towards other marginalised groups? I address this question with reference to a particular case study: the rights of the LGBTQ+ population. While no clear pattern of solidarity can be detected, I make use of the term ‘queer coalition’, originally developed by Alexander Kondakov to account for the new complexities injected i…
Judicial relational legal consciousness
Between 2015 and 2023, authoritarian backsliding triggered significant changes in the Polish judiciary, prompting some judges to adopt a new approach in their interpretation of the European Convention on Human Rights, both on and off bench, taking a more explicit stance as individual applicants against the Polish government in the European Court of Human Rights. This article employs the paradigm of relational legal consciousness, attributing this…
Inter Arma, Judicialis
This paper investigates how Ukrainian judges respond to the challenges of wartime adjudication following Russia's invasion. Based on 17 interviews with judges across Ukraine, it explores their adaptive legal strategies amid uncertainty and institutional strain. The study conceptualises judges as legal bricoleurs, who drawing on international human rights norms – such as the Namibia exception and the European Court of Human Rights caselaw – balanc…
Resisting illiberal politics
Political science (13 works) · Sociology (12 works) · Law (11 works) · Law (7 works) · Migration, Refugees, and Integration (7 works) · Migration and Labor Dynamics (6 works) · European and International Law Studies (5 works) · Human rights (5 works) · Immigration (5 works) · Politics (5 works)