Autocratic Pluralism: Why the Chechen Government Promotes Custom and Sharia

• In Event: States, Local Communities and Informal Institutions in Eastern Europe and Russia

Abstract

When and why do authoritarian governments in the post-colonial states promote non-state legal orders, such as customary law and Sharia, that seemingly undermine state monopoly on rule-making and enforcement? The conventional wisdom is that non-state legal orders persist in the post-colonial settings due to weak state capacity or cultural demands from the population. In contrast, I argue that promotion of non-state legal orders is a rational political strategy pursued by some political leaders who aim for 1) gaining additional legitimacy; 2) increasing discretion – potential for cherry-picking of norms from different legal orders; 3) coalition-building – cooptation of non-state authorities and beneficiaries of non-state law; and 4) signaling autonomy vis-à-vis the metropole. If the benefits are so appealing, why then do some political leaders pursue this strategy, while others don’t? I assume that the major costs for a ruler are that non-state legal forums might be hijacked by the challengers to their rule and that the metropole might punish the peripheral leaders for undermining the established legal order. Therefore, I argue that promotion of non-state legal orders depends on the relative strength of the authoritarian ruler vis-à-vis the potential local opposition and the metropole If the authoritarian rule is consolidated and there are no viable challengers, a ruler will promote non-state legal orders to increase its autonomy from the metropole. If the ruler dominates the potential challengers in terms of power resources, but the potential challenge is still viable, the ruler would not promote non-state legal institutions out of a fear that these alternatives forums of power might be hijacked by the challenger. However, when the ruler becomes severely weakened and the power is likely to switch to the challenger the ruler might promote non-state legal orders in order to get additional legitimacy or build an alternative power structure. These logics suggest a U-shaped relationship between the promotion of legal pluralism and a ruler’s power.
I develop this argument with an in-depth analysis of Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov’s rule (2007-present). First I show that promotion of customary law and Sharia in Chechnya are not artifacts of weak state capacity or popular demand, but rather a sophisticated political strategy. Second, I test my argument about the impact of the ruler’s power resources on the promotion of legal pluralism by putting contemporary Chechnya in historical and comparative perspectives. I gain analytical leverage to test my argument through cross-temporal comparison of postwar Chechnya (2007-2017) with the de facto independent Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (1991-1999), as well as the cross-regional comparison of Chechnya with neighboring regions of Ingushetia and Dagestan. The analysis highlights the political logic of informal institution-building.

Author

• Egor Lazarev, Columbia University