Who rules the law? How government, civil society, and aid agencies manipulate law in Sudan

Why would a colonial administration, a post-colonial military dictatorship, a democratically elected government, a disadvantaged civil society, and a variety of international aid agencies all seek to use their limited resources in the pursuit of building the rule of law? This dissertation argues that law is an unstable, but powerful form of institutional and symbolic ordering that captures the imagination of state and non-state actors in their struggle to achieve political durability and to promote development.;I demonstrate this theory empirically in three different contexts in Sudan. Colonial administrators graft formal law onto local custom and religion in order to co-opt local authorities, impose order, and construct governable subjects. Distancing themselves from colonial history, post-colonial governments deploy law to harass non-governmental groups and undermine competing sources of loyalty. The international aid community also uses law, in the form of human rights, to try to buttress local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that in turn can liberate oppressed populations. That law is at once an instrument of tyranny and at the service of liberty evidences the power (and puzzle) of law's rule.;Sudan is an extreme example of a divided society. By studying law in such a context, my project reveals the importance of law in even the outmost cases of failed states that have yet to transition successfully to democracy or to stability. Adopting a case study approach, I show how different actors in a divided society and volatile state negotiate national and international legal regimes. Findings revealed through multi-archival research, interviews, and ethnographic observations all uncover a desperate quest for law and legal institutions and the variety of functions law serves. This investigation of a site little known to the wider world and exhausted after decades of warfare and slaughter will, I hope, illuminate the dynamic interplay between law, politics, and society in a great number of colonial and post-colonial regimes.