Acknowledgements
Research for this book was very generously funded by the European Research Council (ERC) (Advanced Grant 323656-STC). I owe a great debt of gratitude to the ERC for this funding, which made it possible for me to conduct extensive research in different countries and in some of the world's great cities, notably Bogotá, Brasilia, Frankfurt, La Paz, London, Moscow, Nairobi and Saint Petersburg. Additionally, I wish to thank everyone who has assisted me with my research in connection with this book. In particular, my thanks are due to Maria Smirnova and Carina Calabria, who for several years provided both excellent company and extensive information concerning Russian law and the legal systems of different Latin American countries. All analysis of Russian law set out in the book is indebted to Maria Smirnova, who has been a truly magnificent co-researcher over recent years. Some aspects of Chilean and Colombian case law were explained to me by Rodrigo Cespedes, and Dominic Dagbanja and Elizabeth O'Loughlin helped me with questions concerning Ghanaian and Kenyan law. In Bogotá, Juan Barrero, Jorge González and Julieta Lemaitre showed great generosity in taking time to clarify for me the finer points and broader implications of Colombian constitutional law. Colleagues at the Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation in Moscow were extremely helpful in sharing their knowledge of the complexities of Russian public law. Also very fruitful were discussions in which I participated at conferences and colloquia held in Aarhus, Bogotá, Bremen, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Moscow and Tel Aviv, and I am grateful to all participants in these events. Discussions in my postgraduate seminars at the University of Brasilia in October 2016 will stay in my mind for a long time, and I am grateful to all the students there for their intellectual company. Students who took my course on the Sociology of Law at Manchester University in 2017 also contributed immeasurably to the book, as their questions forced me to rethink many of my claims. In November 2016, I spent a month at the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte in Frankfurt, where I wrote some of the historical sections of the book. The Institute in Frankfurt was always a wonderful place to work, and I am grateful for the opportunities it offered me over many years, up to 2016. More informal discussions with Guilherme de Azevedo, Paul Blokker, Hauke Brunkhorst, Emilios Christodoulidis, Jean d'Aspremont, Pierre Guibentif, Gorm Harste, Poul Kjaer, Aldo Mascareño, Ben Morris, Jiri Priban, Darrow Schecter, Gunther Teubner and Neil Walker were also very enlightening, and they fed into the book indirectly. Atina Krajewska discussed many of the ideas in the book with me, and she put me right on many points. As ever, I am extremely grateful to Finola O'Sullivan and other colleagues at Cambridge University Press for supporting my research.
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