ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the important contested position occupied by social rights within the broader concept of contemporary human rights. It examines this category of human rights within the framework of the European human rights system and the role that understandings of these rights play within Russian policy processes in institutional and political contexts. In the post-Soviet context the Russian experience of market reform and liberalisation has been very different to that of the majority of other European countries, including those postcommunist Central and East European countries which are now members of the European Union. The chapter also examines the extent to which what a number of Russian respondents called the 'Soviet legacy' of official rhetoric which emphasised a strong state and social rights and provisions has influenced these understandings. The Russian public generally continues to see a range of social rights as the most important 'human rights', even in the aftermath of the post-election political protests of 2011-2012.
