Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya

Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya Egor Lazarev Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2018 © 2018 Egor Lazarev All rights reserved ABSTRACT Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya Egor Lazarev This dissertation explores how the social and political consequences of armed conflict affect legal pluralism; specifically, the coexistence of Russian state law, Sharia, and customary law in Chechnya. The study draws on qualitative and quantitative data gathered during seven months of fieldwork in Chechnya. The data include over one hundred semistructured interviews with legal authorities and religious and traditional leaders; an original survey of the population; and a novel dataset of all civil and criminal cases heard in state courts. First, the dissertation argues that armed conflict disrupted traditional social hierarchies in Chechnya, which paved the way for state penetration into Chechen society. The conflict particularly disrupted gender hierarchies. As a result of the highly gendered nature of the conflict, women in Chechnya became breadwinners in their families and gained experience in serving important social roles, most notably as interlocutors between communities and different armed groups. This change in women’s bargaining power within households and increase in their social status came into conflict with the patriarchal social order, which was based on men’s rigid interpretations of religious and customary norms. In response, women started utilizing the state legal system, a system that at least formally acknowledges gender equality, in contrast to customary law and Sharia. State law is corrupt, inefficient, slow, and its use is associated with community and family ostracism. Nevertheless, this dissertation shows that many Chechen women use and support state law. Second, the dissertation establishes that the political context of the conflict moderates the effect of war on legal pluralism. The penetration of state law through disruption of social hierarchies is driven by the Second Chechen War (1999-2009). In contrast, communities that were exposed to violence during the First Chechen War (1994-1996) ultimately rejected Russian state law and rely predominantly on Sharia and customary law. In these communities, the structural effects of disrupted hierarchies were overpowered by alienation from the Russian state. The study explains this discrepancy by showing how communities victimized during the First War developed strong collective identities that filtered blame for the war. Third, the dissertation shows that war-induced female empowerment in Chechnya faced a strong backlash from the Chechen government. The most notorious manifestations of the neotraditionalist policies of the Chechen government are the semiformal introduction of polygamy, support for the practice of honor killings, and a restrictive female dress code. Furthermore, the officials in charge of state law actively disrupt its functioning in gendered cases. The study finds that state officials in Chechnya are less supportive of state law than the average Chechen. This is the result of the incorporation of former rebels into the government, which is a structural legacy of the conflict. In addition, the dissertation argues that the Chechen regional government promotes legal pluralism and undermines state law strategically, as part of its coalition-building effort. The government allows men to keep control over their families, relying on custom and religion in exchange for their political loyalty. Finally, the dissertation suggests that government promotion of legal pluralism is a political strategy that has several objectives: (1) it allows the government to borrow legitimacy from tradition and religion, which both have large appeal among the Chechen population; (2) it increases the government’s discretion and allows it to cherry-pick norms across alternative orders while avoiding regulations embedded in them; and (3) it gives the regional government additional leverage vis-à-vis the federal center by signaling to the Kremlin that it cannot rule Chechnya directly and that its local intermediaries are indispensable. Overall, the dissertation shows that legal pluralism is not just a reflection of ‘political culture’ or ‘weak state capacity,’ but rather is an inherently political phenomenon, an arena for the pursuit of interests by the government and individuals alike. Table of Contents Acknowledgements ii Preface viii Chapter 1: Introduction 1 Chapter 2: The Theory 30 Chapter 3: The Field 55 Chapter 4: The History of Legal Pluralism in Chechnya 101 Chapter 5: Legal Pluralism in Contemporary Chechnya 124 Chapter 6: The Impact of Conflict on Preferences for Alternative Orders 147 Chapter 7: War, Gender, and Legal Mobilization 175 Chapter 8: Why Does the Chechen Government Promote Custom and Sharia? 201 Chapter 9: Conclusion 233 References 249 Appendix: Figures and Tables 262 i Acknowledgements When I first started reading academic books, I always skipped the acknowledgements section – why care about all these thank you to people I didn’t know? However, over time acknowledgements became my favorite section because it allows one to trace the intellectual trajectory of a research project. In my case, I have to thank first and foremost Tim Frye, my main academic advisor at Columbia University. Tim has always been an immensely helpful and supportive advisor. Even though elders and imams are perhaps not the type of political actors Tim is used to dealing with, our shared interest in how individuals and groups maintain social order led to many productive discussions. Tim has read countless number of drafts of research and grant proposals, articles, job market presentations, and finally this dissertation, and always offered valuable and helpful advice. I am also very thankful to my other advisors at Columbia – Jack Snyder and Tonya Putnam. Jack helped me to think about big picture questions and encouraged me to explore the relationship between conflict and legal pluralism, which ultimately became the central focus of the dissertation. Tonya led the dissertation seminar where she guided me in the process of the development of the rough idea into an actual research project. Tonya always carefully read all my drafts and offered super helpful advice, especially on matters of law and gender. The study also benefited a lot from the advice of other Columbia professors, in particular, Daniel Corstange, Nikhar Gaikwad, Don Green, Kimuli Kasara, John Marshall, and Vicky Murillo. Beyond my dissertation advisors and professors, I would like to thank my graduate student colleagues and friends at Columbia University. I owe a lot to Clava Brodsky’s advice and help with this study. I am also very thankful to David Szakonyi, who read numerous research proposals and drafts and always provided insightful criticisms. The project benefited a lot from conversations with Ashraf Ahmed, Jerome Doyon, Anselm Rink, and Kunaal Sharma. I often relied on advice and support ii from Gosha Syunyaev. I also got very helpful feedback from Tom Leavitt, Mike Rubin, Jorge Mangonnet, Tamar Mitts, and Aslihan Saygili. Strong friendships made time in graduate school a very rewarding experience! Outside of Columbia, I want to first of all thank Georgi Derluguian. His “Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus” originally inspired me to go to the North Caucasus and remains my favorite academic book. First the book and subsequently conversations with Georgi during feasts in his homes in Chicago, Abu Dhabi, and D.C. taught me how to do fieldwork in ethical and insightful way, how to talk and relate to people, which details of the social context to pay attention to, and how to link ethnographic observations to big theoretical questions. From my very first trip to the Caucasus in 2010 to all my subsequent trips, Georgi always read my field diaries. A habit of writing the diaries became a very useful self-reflecting experience. Georgi also became an advisor beyond purely academic things, teaching me, for example, how to choose good boots for walking around mountainous villages. In my early steps in academia I was also very privileged to learn from Vladimir Gel’man. When I was still an undergrad in St. Petersburg State University, I took Vladimir’s class on social science methodology at the European University in St. Petersburg. This class taught me the nuts and bolts of social science and fundamentally shaped my way of thinking. Most importantly, Vladimir taught me how to ask important questions. Since then Vladimir read all drafts of my writing, including parts of this dissertation, and always provides great suggestions about how to improve them. My study of legal pluralism benefited a lot from the class on legal anthropology I took at NYU with Sally Merry. Legal pluralism hasn’t yet received much attention in political science, therefore it was especially important to learn the wisdom from other disciplines. Sally also provided great feedback on my writings based on the early stages of fieldwork. iii I spent a large part of the writing stage of this study as a pre-doctoral fellow at the Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence at Yale University. I am very thankful to Stathis Kalyvas for this opportunity. At OCV, I benefited a lot from the great scholarly environment and especially from conversations with Consuelo Amat, Kate Baldwin, Josh

Load more