This project sought to broaden understanding of the role of legislatures in contemporary states by investigating oversight in two post-Soviet cases, Russia and Ukraine, where the state can usefully be conceptualized as neopatrimonial because of the fusion of patrimonial relations (such as clientelism, patronage and rent-seeking) into the legal-rational state structure. The objectives were to:(1) explore and compare the practical application of oversight in Russia and Ukraine, considering both process and output; (2) investigate the incentives for deputies to engage in oversight activities and the responses such activities engender from the executive organs and to identify meanings attached to such oversight by political actors; (3) evaluate the trajectory of parliamentary oversight – is it becoming more or less important for the operation of the legislatures; (4) broaden understanding of the nature of parliamentary oversight by adding new case studies outside ‘the West’ and contribute to theory concerning deputies’ motivations for engaging in oversight in post-Soviet contexts. The focus of the research is the experience of developing parliamentary oversight capacity in new, non-consolidated democracies, using as study cases Russia and Ukraine. Both legislatures have been developing mechanisms to check the executive's behavior – hearings, interpellations, parliamentary investigations, audit chambers and so on. The research seeks to explore the nature of oversight conducted in these states, assessing how far parliamentarians engage in oversight activities and their motivations for doing so. The research is based on a recognition of the broader neo-patrimonial political context in the post-Soviet space, and the concomitant gap between the pays legal and the pays reel. Therefore, it is important to investigate actual day-to-day activities as opposed to formal institutions, and to explore the meanings actors attach to oversight practices, which may be similar or quite distinct from those in established Western democracies.

32 semi-structured interviews were conducted in Moscow during January-March 2006, (with four follow-up telephone interviews in October 2007) and a further 30 in Kyiv during October-December 2006.The data collection process involved face-to-face interviews, telephone interviews and observation, as part of a (one-time) cross-sectional study. The subjects of the interviews were the result of non-random, purposive selection and consists of members of the Russian Federal Assembly: ; and members of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine: People’s Deputies - 10; state officials -13; experts and journalists - 4. The data was collected in the periods: 14.1.2006 – 30.3.2006 (Moscow) 1.10.2006- 22.11.2006 (Kyiv) The project used a multi-method qualitative approach, beginning with an extensive survey of Russian and Ukrainian national newspapers from 2000-2006 accessed via the Eastview database. This facilitated the contextualization of oversight activities within the broader political and parliamentary setting over time, background detail on the unfolding of salient processes (for example, the Beslan parliamentary investigation in Russia and the privatisation of the Komsomol’ Iron Ore factory in Ukraine) and the identification of actors interested in the theme of parliamentary oversight.