Welcome to Governance Uncovered, your ultimate resource for understanding the intricacies of governance, state and non-state actors, and local development dynamics. Whether you're a student, professional, or simply curious about political science, this podcast is your gateway to learning from the best experts in the field. Join us as we delve into how governance shapes societies, influences political decisions, and drives local progress.
Governance is the overall complex system or framework of processes, functions, structures, rules, laws, and norms borne out of the relationships, interactions, power dynamics, and communication within an organized group. Our episodes break down these elements to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how governance affects every aspect of our lives.
Tune in to Governance Uncovered for insightful discussions, expert interviews, and in-depth analyses that will broaden your perspective on governance and empower you to become more informed and engaged in political discourse.
This podcast is brought to you by the Governance and Local Development Institute, supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Welcome to Governance Uncovered, your ultimate resource for understanding the intricacies of governance, state and non-state actors, and local development dynamics. Whether you're a student, professional, or simply curious about political science, this podcast is your gateway to learning from the best experts in the field. Join us as we delve into how governance shapes societies, influences political decisions, and drives local progress.
Governance is the overall complex system or framework of processes, functions, structures, rules, laws, and norms borne out of the relationships, interactions, power dynamics, and communication within an organized group. Our episodes break down these elements to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how governance affects every aspect of our lives.
Tune in to Governance Uncovered for insightful discussions, expert interviews, and in-depth analyses that will broaden your perspective on governance and empower you to become more informed and engaged in political discourse.
This podcast is brought to you by the Governance and Local Development Institute, supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we are joined by Egor Lazarev, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Yale University. Egor and host Ellen Lust discuss Egor's book State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya, which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2023. The book addresses two interrelated puzzles: why do local rulers tolerate and even promote non-state legal systems at the expense of state law, and why do some members of repressed ethnic minorities choose to resolve their everyday disputes using state legal systems instead of non-state alternatives? It documents how the rulers of Chechnya promote and reinvent customary law and Sharia in order to borrow legitimacy from tradition and religion, increase autonomy from the metropole, and accommodate communal authorities and former rebels. At the same time, the book shows how prolonged armed conflict disrupted the traditional social hierarchies and pushed some Chechen women to use state law, spurring state formation from below.
As Ellen and Egor discuss the book, they get into how Egor first became interested in working in Chechnya, and on issues of legal pluralism, individual-level decision-making, and whether Egor believes that the book's perspective on the state as fragmented, always including centers and peripheries, extends to other contexts than the one of Chechnya and Russia.
Lazarev, Egor. (2023). State-Building as Lawfare: Custom, Sharia, and State Law in Postwar Chechnya, Cambridge University Press. Online ISBN:
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009245913
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.