Staff Profiles

Leslie Holmes Phone: 8344 7293 Email: leslieth@unimelb.edu.au Office: Medley Building Room 434   Please click to download Leslie Holmes' Curriculum Vitae (requires Adobe Acrobat)

Background

Leslie Holmes was born in London, and educated at the Universities of Hull (where he studied modern languages), Essex, Berlin (Free) and Leningrad. He has been Professor of Political Science at the University of Melbourne since 1988. He was President of the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES) 2000-2005, President of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies (AACaPS) 2005-2007, and Co-President of the Contemporary European Studies Association of Australia (CESAA) 2001-2. He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia in 1995.

Research

Post-communism, especially in Central and Eastern Europe; comparative corruption, organised crime and corporate crime; human trafficking; legitimation theories.

• The corruption-organised crime nexus in four European states, with particular reference to people.
  
  
• Official Corruption and the Corporate Sector: Two European Case-Studies
  The primary aims of this pilot project are twofold. The first is to provide concrete evidence on and analysis of improper collusion between representatives of major transnational corporations and state officials. The second, on the basis of two case-studies (Siemens in Slovakia; Unilever in Bulgaria), is to begin to formulate detailed theoretical hypotheses on the nature of and reasons for such collusion, and why some corporations resist the temptation. The theorisation will critically engage with rational choice and neo-liberal theories.
  
  

Subjects Taught

• Not Available in 2008

Supervision

Post-communism, especially in Central and Eastern Europe; comparative corruption, organised crime and corporate crime; human trafficking; legitimation theories

Recent Publications

Books

L. Holmes, Rotten States?: Corruption, Post-Communism, and Neoliberalism (Hardback and Paperback)(Durham NC: Duke University Press: 2006), 419 pp. plus xvi

L. Holmes (ed.) Terrorism, Organised Crime and Corruption: Networks and Linkages (Cheltenham: Elgar, 2007), 302 pp. plus xvi

Book Chapters

L. Holmes, ‘Vietnam from a Comparative Communist and Post-Communist Perspective’ in S. Balme and M. Sidel (eds.), Vietnam’s New Order: International Perspectives on the State and Reform in Vietnam (New York: Palgrave Macmillan: 2007): 11-27

L. Holmes, ‘Menschenhandel und Korruption in Mittel- und Osteuropa’ (‘Trafficking and Corruption in Central and Eastern Europe’)(in German) in J. Nautz and B. Sauer (eds.), Frauenhandel: Diskurse und Praktiken (Göttingen: Vandenhoek & Ruprecht Unipress, 2008): 69-83

L. Holmes, ‘Political Corruption Scandals and Public Attitudes towards Party Financing: Poland and Germany Compared’ in S. Eliaeson (ed.), Building Civil Society and Democracy in New Europe (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2008): 314-335

Journal Articles

L. Holmes, ‘Lithuania’s Prospects after Joining NATO and the EU’, Lithuanian Papers, 18 (2004): 5-9

Conference Papers

L. Holmes, ‘Networks and Linkages: Corruption, Organised Crime, Corporate Crime and Terrorism’, Paper presented at the 12th International Anti-Corruption Conference (IACC), Guatemala City, November 2006, 18 pp. http://www.12iacc.org/archivos/WS_4.2_HOLMES.PDF