This open-access book provides fresh and much-needed insights into the interconnections between law, society and governance in Central Asia. By taking the interdisciplinary perspective of law and society, the book explores the social life of law and legal institutions in Central Asia in broader terms, encompassing not only the state legal system and institutions but also various informal (non-legal) forms of normative ordering. The topics covered within this book will be of interest to many scholars considering various theoretical and methodological challenges in studying law, governance, and informality in authoritarian regime contexts such as Central Asia. Considering interdisciplinary approaches taken within the volume, we aim to reach out to the students and scholars within the following disciplines and fields of study.

• Central Asian Studies

• Communist and post-communist studies

• Anthropology: Economic Anthropology, Legal Anthropology, Anthropology of Law

• Business sciences

• Socio-legal studies

• Transnational Politics and Governance

• Law and economics

Rustam Urinboyev is an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology of Law. He is an interdisciplinary socio-legal scholar, studying corruption, governance, legal reform, migration, and penal institutions in the context of Russia, Central Asia and Turkey. He is the author of Migration and Hybrid Political Regimes: Navigating the Legal Landscape in Russia (2020), published by the University of California Press.