Rules of Law, with Egor Lazarev

Political analysts are thinking a lot these days about the rule of law: where it comes from, what sustains it, how it can break down. Those are hard enough questions in themselves. And, yet — they simplify away an important complexity. They assume that there is only one law that rules. As our guest today, Dr. Egor Lazarev – assistant professor of political science at Yale – points out to us, in many parts of the world, the question is not just whether the law will rule – it’s also which of many legal orders will prevail. In his recent book State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya , Egor studies a setting in which different legal systems have evolved over time and coexist side by side – with matters like marriage, divorce, and murder sometimes being adjudicated by state judges, sometimes by religious courts, and sometimes under customary rules. Egor first gives us a helpful primer on the Chechnyan civil wars and their central role in the making of Putin’s Russia. We then talk with him about how customary law, Sharia law, and state law operate alongside each other in Chechnya and how those seeking the protection of the law decide which legal order to turn to. As Egor explains, Chechnya is far from unique in displaying what he calls “legal pluralism.” Scholars estimate, for instance, that over 60 countries formally recognize some form of customary or traditional law alongside state law. For the most part, this is a conversation about two things. First, we might expect that government actors would do all they can to suppress competing legal systems and ensure the primacy of state law. Why, then, do we sometimes see state leaders doing exactly the opposite? Egor tells us about the strategic conditions under which government officials will choose to intentionally strengthen customary or religious law relative to state law – and why a strategy that looks like it would diminish the power of state actors can actually enhance their legitimacy and authority. This is also a conversation about gender and the law. In his book, Egor argues that the core social divide at the center of legal pluralism is a gender cleavage. Many struggles over social control often revolve around the regulation of female sexuality, around marriage and divorce, property inheritance, and honor and shame – and the different legal orders handle these issues very differently. We talk with Egor about the gendered impacts of state, customary, and Sharia law and about why Chechen women – particularly in the wake of two brutal, socially disruptive civil wars – have been turning to the state judiciary far more than Chechen men. We hope you enjoy this conversation. To stay informed about future episodes,

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Rules of Law, with Egor Lazarev is an episode from Scope Conditions Podcast by Alan Jacobs and Yang-Yang Zhou.

This episode is 80:33 long.

This episode was published on Jun 17, 2025.

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