Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-m42fx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-17T04:54:11.089Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 August 2019

Egor Lazarev*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science at the University of Torontoegor.lazarev@utoronto.ca
Get access

Abstract

How do legacies of conflict affect choices between state and nonstate legal institutions? This article studies this question in Chechnya, where state law coexists with Sharia and customary law. The author focuses on the effect of conflict-induced disruption of gender hierarchies because the dominant interpretations of religious and customary norms are discriminatory against women. The author finds that women in Chechnya are more likely than men to rely on state law and that this gender gap in legal preferences and behavior is especially large in more-victimized communities. The author infers from this finding that the conflict created the conditions for women in Chechnya to pursue their interests through state law—albeit not without resistance. Women’s legal mobilization has generated a backlash from the Chechen government, which has attempted to reinstate a patriarchal order. The author concludes that conflict may induce legal mobilization among the weak and that gender may become a central cleavage during state-building processes in postconflict environments.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arjona, Ana. 2016. Rebelocracy: Social Order in the Colombian Civil War. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balcells, Laia. 2012. “The Consequences of Victimization on Political Identities: Evidence from Spain.” Politics & Society 40, no. 3: 311–47. doi: 10.1177/0032329211424721.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balcells, Laia, and Justino, Patricia. 2014. “Bridging Micro and Macro Approaches on Civil Wars and Political Violence: Issues, Challenges, and the Way Forward.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 58, no. 8: 1343–59. doi: 10.1177/0022002714547905.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baldwin, Kate. 2015. The Paradox of Traditional Leaders in Democratic Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bateson, Regina. 2013. Order and Violence in Postwar Guatemala. Ph.D. diss., Yale University.Google Scholar
Baysayev, Usam, and Grushkin, Dmitriy. 2003–2010. Zdes Zhivut Ludi. Chechnya: Khronika Nasiliya [People Live Here. Chechnya: The Chronicles of Violence]. Parts 1–5. Moscow, Russia: Memorial Publishing Program.Google Scholar
Berkowitz, Daniel, Pistor, Katharina, and Richard, Jean-Francois. 2003. “The Transplant Effect.” American Journal of Comparative Law 51, no. 1: 163204. doi: 10.2307/3649143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Marie E. 2018. War, Women, and Power: From Violence to Mobilization in Rwanda and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berry, Marie E, and Lake, Milli. 2017. “Thematic Review: Gender Politics after War: Mobilizing Opportunity in Post-Conflict Africa.” Politics & Gender 13, no. 2: 336–49. doi: 10.1017/S1743923X1700006X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blair, Robert A. 2019. “International Intervention and the Rule of Law after Civil War: Evidence from Liberia.” International Organization 73, no. 2: 365–98. doi: 10.1017/S0020818319000031.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bobrovnikov, Vladimir. 2002. Musulmane Severnogo Kavkaza: Obychai, Pravo, Nasiliye [Muslims of the North Caucasus: Custom, Law, and Violence]. Moscow, Russia: Vostochnaia literatura.Google Scholar
Chanock, Martin. 1985. Law, Custom, and Social Order: The Colonial Experience in Malawi and Zambia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Cockburn, Cynthia. 1998. The Space between Us: Negotiating Gender and National Identities in Conflict. London, UK: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Cohen, Jean L., and Laborde, Cécile, eds. 2015. Religion, Secularism, and Constitutional Democracy. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Costalli, Stefano, and Ruggeri, Andrea. 2015. “Forging Political Entrepreneurs: Civil War Effects on Post-Conflict Politics in Italy.” Political Geography 44: 4049. doi: 10.1016/j.polgeo.2014.08.008.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Derluguian, Georgi M. 2005. Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Ellickson, Robert C. 1991. Order without Law: How Neighbors Settle Disputes. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Elster, Jon. 1989. The Cement of Society: A Survey of Social Order. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Erie, Matthew S. 2016. China and Islam: The Prophet, the Party, and Law. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evangelista, Matthew. 2011. Gender, Nationalism, and War: Conflict on the Movie Screen. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Faludi, Susan. 2006. Backlash: The Undeclared War against American Women. New York, N.Y.: Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Felstiner, William L. F., Abel, Richard L., and Sarat, Austin. 1980. “The Emergence and Transformation of Disputes: Naming, Blaming, Claiming ….” Law & Society Review 15, no. 3–4: 631–54. doi: 10.2307/3053505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraenkel, Ernst. 1969. The Dual State: A Contribution to the Theory of Dictatorship. New York, N.Y.: Octagon Books.Google Scholar
Gall, Carlotta, and de Waal, Thomas. 1997. Chechnya: A Small Victorious War. London, UK: Pan Original.Google Scholar
Gammer, Moshe. 2004. Muslim Resistance to the Tsar: Shamil and the Conquest of Chechnia and Daghestan. Abingdon, UK: Frank Cass.Google Scholar
Gans-Morse, Jordan. 2017. “Demand for Law and the Security of Property Rights: The Case of Post-Soviet Russia.” American Political Science Review 111, no. 2: 338–59. doi: 10.1017/S0003055416000691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
García-Ponce, Omar. 2017. “Women’s Political Participation after Civil War: Evidence from Peru.” Manuscript. University of California, Davis. At http://omargarciaponce.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/shining_path.pdf, accessed July 16, 2019.Google Scholar
Gibson, James L. 2009. Overcoming Historical Injustices: Land Reconciliation in South Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giustozzi, Antonio, and Baczko, Adam. 2014. “The Politics of the Taliban’s Shadow Judiciary, 2003–2013.” Central Asian Affairs 1, no. 2: 199224. doi: 10.1163/22142290-00102003.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua S. 2003. War and Gender: How Gender Shapes the War System and Vice Versa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hechter, Michael. 2009. “Alien Rule and Its Discontents.” American Behavioral Scientist 53, no. 3: 289310. doi: 10.1177/0002764209338794.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hendley, Kathryn. 2017. Everyday Law in Russia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Hirsch, Susan F. 1998. Pronouncing and Persevering: Gender and the Discourses of Disputing in an African Islamic Court. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Huang, Reyko. 2016. The Wartime Origins of Democratization: Civil War, Rebel Governance, and Political Regimes. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hudson, Valerie M., Bowen, Donna Lee, and Nielsen, Perpetua Lynne. 2015. “Clan Governance and State Stability: The Relationship between Female Sub-ordination and Political Order.” American Political Science Review 109, no. 3: 535–55. doi: 10.1017/S0003055415000271.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hughes, Melanie M. 2009. “Armed Conflict, International Linkages, and Women’s Parliamentary Representation in Developing Nations.” Social Problems 56, no. 1: 174204. doi: 10.1525/sp.2009.56.1.174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isser, Deborah. 2011. Customary Justice and the Rule of Law in War-Torn Societies. Washington, D.C.: US Institute of Peace Press.Google Scholar
Khaikin, Sergei, and Cherenkova, Natalia. 2003. “Izuchenie obschestvennogo mnenia Chechenskoy Respubliki” [Studying public opinion in the Chechen Republic.] Mir Rossii 12, no. 3: 334.Google Scholar
Kurbanova, Lida. 2012. Problemy I Processy Gendernoi Samoidentificatsii Chechentsev [Problems and Processes of Gender Identification among Chechens]. Krasnodar, Russia.Google Scholar
Lake, Milli. 2017. “Building the Rule of War: Postconflict Institutions and the Micro-Dynamics of Conflict in Eastern DR Congo.” International Organization 71, no. 2: 281315. doi: 10.1017/S002081831700008X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lake, Milli. 2018. Strong NGOs and Weak States: Pursuing Gender Justice in the Democratic Republic of Congo and South Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarev, Egor. 2019a. “Replication Material for: Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War, Gender, and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya.” Harvard Dataverse, V1. doi: 10.7910/DVN/KOVT5Y.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lazarev, Egor. 2019b. “Supplementary material for: Laws in Conflict: Legacies of War, Gender, and Legal Pluralism in Chechnya.” doi: 10.1017/S004 3887119000133.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Levi, Margaret. 1989. Of Rule and Revenue. Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lieven, Anatol. 1999. Chechnya: Tombstone of Russian Power. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Lokshina, Tanya. 2014. “Virtue Campaign for Women in Chechnya under Ramzan Kadyrov: Between War Backlash Effect and Desire for Total Control.” In Le Huérou, Anne, Merlin, Aude, Regamey, Amandine, and Sieca-Kozlowski, Elisabeth, eds., Chechnya at War and Beyond. New York, N.Y.: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lupu, Noam, and Peisakhin, Leonid. 2017. “The Legacy of Political Violence across Generations.” American Journal of Political Science 61, no. 4: 836–51. doi: 10.1111/ajps.12327.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lyall, Jason. 2009. “Does Indiscriminate Violence Incite Insurgent Attacks? Evidence from Chechnya.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 53, no. 3: 331–62. doi: 10.1177/0022002708330881.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macaulay, Stewart. 1963. “Non-Contractual Relations in Business: A Preliminary Study.” American Sociological Review 28, no. 1: 5567. doi: 10.2307/2090458.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mamdani, Mahmood. 1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Massell, Gregory J. 1974. The Surrogate Proletariat: Moslem Women and Revolutionary Strategies in Soviet Central Asia, 1919–1929. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Massoud, Mark Fathi. 2015. “Work Rules: How International NGOs Build Law in War-Torn Societies.” Law & Society Review 49, no. 2: 333–64. doi: 10.1111/lasr.12138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 1988. “Legal Pluralism.” Law & Society Review 22, no. 5: 869–96. doi: 10.2307/3053638.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Merry, Sally Engle. 2006. Human Rights and Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Migdal, Joel S. 1988. Strong Societies and Weak States: State-Society Relations and State Capabilities in the Third World. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Mosedale, Sarah. 2005. “Assessing Women’s Empowerment: Towards a Conceptual Framework.” Journal of International Development 17, no. 2: 243–57. doi: 10.1002/jid.1212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Murphy, Paul J. 2010 Allah’s Angels: Chechen Women in War. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press.Google Scholar
Murtazashvili, Jennifer Brick. 2016. Informal Order and the State in Afghanistan. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nader, Laura, and Todd, Harry F. Jr. 1978. The Disputing Process: Law in Ten Societies. New York, N.Y.: Columbia University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nair, Gautam, and Sambanis, Nicholas. 2019. “Violence Exposure and Ethnic Identification: Evidence from Kashmir.” International Organization 73, no. 2: 329–63. doi: 10.1017/S0020818318000498.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nichols, Johanna. 2000. “The Chechen Refugees.” Berkeley Journal of International Law 18, no. 2: 241–59. doi: 10.15779/Z38B65T.Google Scholar
Northrop, Douglas. 2004. Veiled Empire: Gender and Power in Stalinist Central Asia. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Orlov, Oleg, and Cherkasov, Alexander. 1998. Rossiya-Chechnya: Tsep Oshibok: Prestupleniy [Russia-Chechnya: The Chain of Mistakes and Crimes]. Moscow, Russia: Zveniya. At https://memohre.org/sites/all/themes/memo/templates/pdf.php?pdf-/sites/defaut/files/rossia-chechnia_1edition.pdf.Google Scholar
Pape, Robert A., O’Rourke, Lindsey, and McDermit, Jenna. 2010. “What Makes Chechen Women So Dangerous?” New York Times. March 30. At https://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31pape.html, accessed July 16, 2019.Google Scholar
Parkinson, Sarah Elizabeth. 2013. “Organizing Rebellion: Rethinking High-Risk Mobilization and Social Networks in War.” American Political Science Review 107, no. 3: 418–32. doi: 10.1017/S0003055413000208.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Politkovskaya, Anna. 2007. A Small Corner of Hell: Dispatches from Chechnya. Chicago, Ill.: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Politkovskaya, Anna. 2009. A Dirty War: A Russian Reporter in Chechnya. London, UK: Random House.Google Scholar
Procházková, Petra. 2002. The Aluminum Queen: The Russian-Chechen War through the Eyes of Women. Prague, Czech Republic: NLN.Google Scholar
Rozenas, Arturas, Schutte, Sebastian, and Zhukov, Yuri. 2017. “The Political Legacy of Violence: The Long-Term Impact of Stalin’s Repression in Ukraine.” Journal of Politics 79, no. 4: 1147–61. doi: 10.1086/692964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sandefur, Justin, and Siddiqi, Bilal. 2013. Delivering Justice to the Poor: Theory and Experimental Evidence from Liberia. Paper presented at A Workshop on African Political Economy, Washington, D.C., May 20. At http://cega.berkeley.edu/assets/cega_events/55/Siddiqi_WGAPE-WB.pdf, accessed June 28, 2019.Google Scholar
Scott, James C. 2009. The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google ScholarPubMed
Sezgin, Yüksel. 2013. Human Rights under State-Enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt, and India. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Slater, Dan. 2010. Ordering Power: Contentious Politics and Authoritarian Leviathans in Southeast Asia. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sokirianskaia, Ekaterina. 2009. “Governing Fragmented Societies: State-Building and Political Integration in Chechnya and Ingushetia.” Ph.D. diss., Central European University.Google Scholar
Souleimanov, Emil Aslan, and Siroky, David S.. 2016. “Random or Retributive? Indiscriminate Violence in the Chechen Wars.” World Politics 68, no. 4 (October): 677712. doi: 10.1017/S0043887116000101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Su, Yu-Sung, Gelman, Andrew, Hill, Jennifer, Yajima, Masanao. 2011. “Multiple Imputation with Diagnostics (mi) in R: Opening Windows into the Black Box.” Journal of Statistical Software 45, no. 2: 131. doi: 10.18637/jss.v045.i02.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Szczepanikova, Alice. 2012. “Becoming More Conservative? Contrasting Gender Practices of Two Generations of Chechen Women in Europe.” European Journal of Women’s Studies 19, no. 4: 475–89. doi: 10.1177/1350506812466611.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamanaha, Brian Z. 2008. “Understanding Legal Pluralism: Past to Present, Local to Global.” Sydney Law Review 30, no. 3: 375411.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1992. Coercion, Capital, and European States, AD 990–1992. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Tishkov, Valery. 2004. Chechnya: Life in a War-Torn Society. Berkeley, Calif.: Uni-versity of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toft, Monica Duffy, and Zhukov, Yuri M.. 2015. “Islamists and Nationalists: Rebel Motivation and Counterinsurgency in Russia’s North Caucasus.” American Political Science Review 109, no. 2: 222–38. doi: 10.1017/S000305541500012X.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tripp, Aili Mari. 2015. Women and Power in Postconflict Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 1989. “The Psychology of Procedural Justice: A Test of the Group-Value Model.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 57, no. 5: 830–38. doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.57.5.830.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tyler, Tom R. 2006. Why People Obey the Law. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Van der Vet, Freek. 2012. “Seeking Life, Finding Justice: Russian NGO Litigation and Chechen Disappearances before the European Court of Human Rights.” Human Rights Review 13, no. 3: 303–25. doi: 10.1007/s12142-012-0226-2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viterna, Jocelyn. 2013. Women in War: The Micro-Processes of Mobilization in El Salvador. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Webster, Kaitlyn, Chen, Chong, and Beardsley, Kyle. 2019. “Conflict, Peace, and the Evolution of Women’s Empowerment.” International Organization 73, no. 2: 255–89. doi: 10.1017/S0020818319000055.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wood, Elisabeth Jean. 2008. “The Social Processes of Civil War: The Wartime Transformation of Social Networks.” Annual Review of Political Science 11: 539–61. doi: 10.1146/annurev.polisci.8.082103.104832.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Lazarev Dataset

Link
Supplementary material: PDF

Lazarev supplementary material

Appendices A-C

Download Lazarev supplementary material(PDF)
PDF 344.8 KB