The concepts of legal pluralism used in jurisprudence, anthropology, and sociology are characterized by internal inconsistency and in their radical version are reasonably criticized by many scientists who solve the dilemma of monism and pluralism in favor of the former. At the same time, they are not simple populism, have a long history and are fully correlated with various facts of socio-legal reality such as the existence of international law, informal (direct-social) law in certain social groups, the complex structure of state law, the variability of law-making, law enforcement, non-governmental implementation of law, etc.

This prompts us to reconsider the prevailing ideas about the content and meaning of legal pluralism, to demonstrate the possibilities of creating a consistent theory of it.

To do this, various methods of scientific research are used, in particular, a dialectical approach to society (state) and law, a sociological approach in which legal pluralism is considered in an inextricable relationship with social pluralism.

It is shown that legal pluralism is, first of all, a type of legal understanding reflecting the idea of the need to reflect in law the conflicting interests (values, ideas) of various personalities, social groups and society, as well as one of the ways to solve social contradictions enshrined in law. It is proved that legal pluralism can manifest itself both as a plurality of systems (subsystems) of law in society, and as an internal pluralism inherent in a particular system (subsystem) of law. The facts of genuine pluralism and quasi-pluralism are distinguished. The general significance of the theory of legal pluralism is seen in the confirmation of the connection of law with the ideas of freedom, justice, competition, in the possibility of consolidating in law extremely diverse models of balancing the interests of various subjects, in substantiating the fact that legal pluralism plays a positive role when it adequately reflects social pluralism as a condition for the preservation and development of society.