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Sherzod Eraliev

Sherzod Eraliev

Researcher

Sherzod Eraliev

Informal civil society initiatives in non-Western societies: mahallas in Uzbekistan

Author

  • Rustam Urinboyev
  • Sherzod Eraliev

Summary, in English

Despite the extensive literature on the nexus between civil society and democratization in non-democratic regimes, most existing scholarship focuses on politically oriented and claim-making civil society organizations. While these accounts provide useful insights, they appear to rely on Western-centric understandings of civil society. Undoubtedly, little space exists in non-democratic regimes within which civil society organizations may engage in overt political activism due to governmental restrictions. Notwithstanding these restrictions, there are politically less threatening social arenas, where it is possible to identify informally organized civil society initiatives with the potential to redefine and influence long-term state–society relations. This article argues that what we might think of as civil society initiatives in non-democratic regimes cannot be satisfactorily understood through the lens of Western-centric understandings of civil society. Instead, we should focus on informal civil society initiatives. These processes will be illustrated through the case study of mahalla institutions in Uzbekistan.

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology of Law

Publishing year

2022-04-21

Language

English

Pages

477-497

Publication/Series

Central Asian Survey

Volume

41

Issue

3

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Taylor & Francis

Topic

  • Law and Society
  • Globalization Studies
  • Sociology (excluding Social Work, Social Psychology and Social Anthropology)

Keywords

  • Central Asia
  • law and social change
  • Legal pluralism
  • Uzbekistan

Status

Published

Project

  • Understanding Islamic Legal Culture and Migration through Ethnographic and Archival Research
  • Administrative Law Reform and Legal Integration in Hybrid Political Regimes
  • Legal Cultures and Business Environments in Central Asia
  • The Multilevel Orders of Corruption - Insights from a Post-Soviet Context
  • Migration and Legal Cultures in Post-Soviet Societies: Ethnographic Study of Uzbek Migrant Workers and Their Families
  • Living Law and Political Stability in Post-Soviet Central Asia. A Case Study of the Ferghana Valley in Uzbekistan
  • WANEA Workshop: Vad är det nya i new autoritarianism?

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 0263-4937