Literature on tribes in Iraq is scant and often falls prey to simplistic binary approaches to state-society relations. Scholars of legal pluralism provide tools to conceptualize interrelations between adjacent normative fields. Several legal specialists have talked about “a thin form of cooperation” between tribal “private orders” and the Iraqi state. By the same token, many scholars presuppose that the capacity of the tribes and the state to mediate and settle feuds covary in opposite directions and are correlated with the strength of state institutions (tribes step in to fill a vacuum during times of state weakness). However, careful examination of Iraqi penal legislation and its implementation in tribal areas invalidates this stereotypical paradigm. Already in her seminal 1973 article, Sally Moore drew the attention of scholars of legal pluralism to the idea that legal orders should be approached as partially discrete, overlapping social fields. The various arenas intersect and create meaning for each other.

关于伊拉克部落的文献很少，而且经常被简单化的二元论国家社会关系所迷惑。法律多元化学者提供了工具来概念化相邻规范领域之间的相互关系。几位法律专家谈到了部落“私人命令”与伊拉克国家之间的“一种单薄的合作形式”。出于同样的原因，许多学者假设部落和国家调解和解决纷争的能力在相反的方向上共同变化，并与国家机构的力量相关（部落在国家衰弱时期介入以填补真空）。然而，仔细审查伊拉克刑事立法及其在部落地区的实施，使这种陈规定型范式无效。在她 1973 年的开创性文章中，萨莉·摩尔（Sally Moore）提请法律多元主义学者注意法律秩序应该被视为部分离散、重叠的社会领域的观点。不同的竞技场相交并为彼此创造意义。