Pashtunwali—Law for the lawless, defense for the stateless

•A case study of Pashtunwali illustrates that law and community defense can be effectively produced without state coercion.•Pashtunwali is the customary law followed for centuries by the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.•The Pashtunwali obligation of Badal (retaliation) deters offenses.•Th...

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Veröffentlicht in:International review of law and economics 2014-03, Vol.37, p.108-120
Hauptverfasser: Benson, Bruce L., Siddiqui, Zafar R.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
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Zusammenfassung:•A case study of Pashtunwali illustrates that law and community defense can be effectively produced without state coercion.•Pashtunwali is the customary law followed for centuries by the Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.•The Pashtunwali obligation of Badal (retaliation) deters offenses.•Thega (truce), Melamastya (hospitality/asylum/protection) and Nanawatey (remorse/forgiveness) reduce Badal's external costs.•Pasthun resistance to state making ultimately prevails as subjugation efforts lead to Badal and Melamastya. Despite a large and growing literature on systems of law without coercive central authority, the overwhelmingly dominant view remains that law, as a public good, must be produced by the state. Defense against attempts to subjugate a community is even more widely viewed as a public good and therefore a necessary function of the state. This case study of the Pashtunwali – the customary law followed by the ethnic Pashtun tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan – illustrates that both law and community defense can be effectively produced without the institutions of a state. The incentives created under Pashtunwali have provided the Pashtun with a decentralized system for maintaining order within and between the tribes for several centuries without the authority of a coercive state. In addition, they have generated a system of spontaneous decentralized defense that has allowed the Pashtun to retain/regain their independence from the states that have tried to colonize or subjugate them for centuries.
ISSN:0144-8188
1873-6394
DOI:10.1016/j.irle.2013.07.008