Crises of technogenic civilization and their role in the development of law: A retrospective analysis

The article presents a jurisprudential and historical study that proposes a non‑linear interpretation of the evolution of law under the influence of the crises of technogenic civilization. The aim was to model cyclical wave regularities and mechanisms through which such crises shape the dynamics of legal development by synthesizing the crisis approach with the theory of technological orders, as well as to assess the forecasting potential of this model. The methodological framework combines dialectical and systematic approaches, enabling law in general and legislation in particular to be examined in the broader context of civilizational change. Comparative historical and formal legal methods were applied to the analysis of legal regulation in different historical epochs and legal systems. The methodological core of the study is the author’s cyclical wave model of legal development, complemented by a crisis approach to the study of law. According to the proposed model, legal development is understood as a succession of cycles determined by the life cycles of dominant technological paradigms. Within the crisis approach, law is conceptualized as a reflexive system that evolves largely in response to the challenges generated by technogenic civilization itself. Based on the history of legal regulation in Russia and other countries, the study identifies key technological orders and demonstrates that transitions between them, along with the associated crises of technogenic civilization, give rise to regularities that manifest themselves in the rhythms, phases, and waves of qualitative transformations of legal systems, all following a common cyclical wave logic. The mechanisms of cyclical lag, advance, and decyclization in the development of law relative to the dynamics of technological orders are revealed, thereby explaining how legal systems adapt to crisis-induced technological shifts. The proposed cyclical wave model can be used as a tool for long‑term forecasting of legal development scenarios and as a methodological basis for developing regulatory models of advanced legal regulation aimed at increasing the stability of law and legal regulation to possible future crises of technogenic civilization.

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