Vadim Volkov is Chair of Sociology Department at The Higher School of Economics, St. Petersburg Branch, and Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Political Science and Sociology at the European University in St. Petersburg (EUSP). In 1999-2001, he was Social Science Research Council/MacArthur Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow for the International Peace and Security Program. In 1998 he was a visiting professor in history at the University of Chicago. He is the author of Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism (Cornell University Press, 2002) and articles focusing on social research, politics and society, and Europe-Asia studies. His research interests include economic sociology, problems of state and violence, public and private security, comparative mafia, sociology of everyday life, and politics in cultural contexts. He earned a PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, and Higher Education Degree from Leningrad State University.