David Nugent

The Encrypted State

Delusion and Displacement in the Peruvian Andes

• Gebundenes Buch

Produktbeschreibung

What happens when a seemingly rational state becomes paranoid and delusional? This resource engages in a close analysis of political disorder to shed new light on the concept of political stability. The book focuses on a crisis of rule in mid-20th century Peru, a period when officials believed they had lost the ability to govern and communicated in secret code to protect themselves from imaginary subversives.

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Produktdetails

• Verlag: Stanford University Press
• Seitenzahl: 304
• Erscheinungstermin: 13. August 2019
• Englisch
• Abmessung: 229mm x 163mm x 25mm
• Gewicht: 590g
• ISBN-13: 9781503609037
• ISBN-10: 1503609030
• Artikelnr.: 53541257

Autorenporträt

David Nugent is Professor of Anthropology at Emory University. His previous books include Locating Capital in Time and Space (SUP, 2002) and Modernity at the Edge of Empire (SUP, 1997).

Inhaltsangabe

Contents and Abstracts
Introduction: The Routine and the Remarkable in State Formation
chapter abstract
The Introduction provides an overview of current theories of state
formation and shows how the book contributes to those debates. It does so
by developing a conceptual framework that incorporates crisis into theories
of order. It treats crisis as something other than a temporary aberration
from the normal operation of the state. Instead, it focuses on the ritual,
bureaucratic and documentary practices undertaken in the name of the state
that produce the illusion of the ordinary and the mundane. Chapter One also
discusses why it is so important to maintain the illusion of the everyday
and why it is so difficult to see behind the mask of the state. Central to
the analysis are the mechanisms by which the delusional nature of state
activity is rendered rational and routine. Equally important are the
processes that undermine the effectiveness of these mechanisms.
1Sacropolitics
chapter abstract
This chapter introduces concepts that are crucial to the analysis of The
Encrypted State. The most important of these is "sacropolitics," the
politics of public mass sacrifice. This term identifies a form of
sovereignty that is distinct from biopolitics, necropolitics and the state
of exception. Sacropolitics differs from biopolitics in the sense that it
is not about the management of life. It differs from necropolitics in that
it is not about the subjugation of life to death. Sacropolitics is neither
about managing nor taking life but rather animating it. It is about
bringing to life dead, dying or moribund populations and social formations.
Sacropolitical efforts call upon the entire population to engage in public
performances of mass sacrifice. These performances are intended to
contribute to the creation of new life worlds that can redeem poor
countries from the profane state into which they have fallen.
2The Descent into Madness
chapter abstract
This chapter offers an in-depth exploration of the crisis of rule that
unfolded in the Chachapoyas region circa 1950. At this time officials came
to believe that they were incapable of carrying out even the most basic of
government functions. Furthermore, officials came to believe that their
efforts to govern the region were being thwarted by APRA, the party they
themselves had forced underground. In accounting for the failure of their
own efforts to govern, officials attributed to APRA a subterranean party
apparatus with all the powers of state that their own regime lacked.
Indeed, the political authorities came to view their administration as a
pale imitation of a sophisticated, complex state structure located
somewhere deeply underground. They could not actually see the subterranean
party state to which they attributed such power and influence. As a result,
they were left to imagine the contours of their invisible enemy.
3The Consolidation of Casta Rule
chapter abstract
This chapter explores the consolidation of a new form of political
organization in the Chachapoyas region in the early decades of the
twentieth century. Circa 1920 changes in the national social structure
brought a new national leader to power-Augusto Leguía. Drawing upon huge
sums of money borrowed from US banks, Leguía provided unprecedented support
to his elite clients in the Chachapoyas. In so doing, he changed the
balance of power between longstanding elite factions and allowed one
faction to prevail over the rest. By the time Leguía fell from power in
1930 his clients in the Chachapoyas region-the Pizarro-Rubio-had done
something that had not formerly been possible. They had eliminated the
region's opposing elite factions. In so doing, they permanently transformed
the region's class structure. Leguía and his administration had
sacropoliticial ambitions and plans.
4Being (and Seeing) Like a State
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the efforts of the Pizarro-Rubio casta to implement
the central government's sacropolitically-motivated plans to modernize the
Chachapoyas region during the 1920s. The period is an interesting one for
scholars of state formation because the developments of the 1920s provide a
direct challenge to institutional understandings of the state. According to
these views, state formation depends on the ability of central powers to
eliminate violence-wielding competitors, who interfere with the monopoly on
force the state seeks to establish. The ability of the central government
to impose its will in Chachapoyas, however, was contingent not upon the
elimination of violence-wielding actors but on their preservation. The fact
that the Pizarro-Rubio had succeeded in eliminating all competing elite
factions meant that the clients of the ruling casta were able to work
together to ensure that government projects proceeded un a timely and
efficient manner.
5Divided Elite and Disordered State
chapter abstract
This chapter investigates the changes in the regional social structure that
made it impossible for government officials to mobilize the workforce they
needed to carry out modernization projects. Key in this regard was the
breakdown of the castas. When the Pizarro-Rubio fell from power in 1930,
there were no remaining elite coalitions that could take their place.
Instead, the castas fragmented into a series of separate families, each
having to fend for itself. This resulted in an unprecedented degree of
infighting within the apparatus of government. For positions in government
were the only way that elite families could maintain an elite station in
life. From this point onward the apparatus of government became a terrain
of conflict. This in turn undermined any and all efforts to modernize the
Chachapoyas region. Those responsible for mobilizing the workforce became
involved in bitter struggles with one another.
6The Sacropolitics of Military Conscription
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the increasingly futile efforts of government
officials to conscript the regional population into the armed forces-a
mundane activity they had undertaken with ease during the reign of the
castas. The chapter shows the delusional nature of government plans, and
how delusion was (mis)-represented as rationality and routine. The chapter
also explores the authorities' growing confusion about their inability to
conscript, and their sense that what had formerly seemed ordinary was
anything but that. Chapter Seven also examines the explanations that
government officials generated to explain their inability to carry out
activities that had formerly been routine-in which their attribute their
difficulties to a series of phantom figures that are said to haunt
government efforts to rule.
7The Sacropolitics of Labor Conscription
chapter abstract
This chapter analyzes the authorities' mounting difficulties in
conscripting the population for public works-a second "routine" activity
they had previously undertaken with great success. The chapter shows the
delusional nature of government plans, and how delusion was represented as
rationality and routine. The chapter also explores officials' confusion
about their inability to carry out the ordinary, everyday task of
conscription, and their sense that what had formerly seemed ordinary was
anything but that. Chapter Eight also examines the explanations that
government officials generated to explain their inability to carry out
activities that had formerly been routine-in which their attribute their
difficulties to a series of phantom figures that are said to haunt
government efforts to rule.
8Glimpses of Danger and Subversion
chapter abstract
This chapter explores official efforts to understand why state activities
that had formerly been ordinary and routine (conscription) become
increasingly difficult to carry out. It focuses on the police investigation
of clandestine Aprista activities, and what this discovery suggests to the
authorities about the existence of an extensive underground network of
subversion. The chapter also traces the emergence in official circles of an
explanation that resolves official anxieties, even as it displaces
responsibility for problems that were of the government's own making onto
phantom forces that were regarded as hyper-real. The less the authorities
were able to carry out everyday activities, the more extraordinary were the
powers of subversion they attributed to these phantom forces. The most
important of these forces was APRA.
Conclusion: Behind the Mask of the State
chapter abstract
The Conclusion draws out the implications of the analysis for theories of
sovereignty and state formation. The focus is on state ritual, bureaucratic
and documentary practices that produce the illusion of ordinary, mundane
rule, the mechanisms by which the delusional nature of state activity is
rendered unremarkable, and the processes that undermine the effectiveness
of these mechanisms. Central to the analysis is the notion of
sacropolitics, a form of sovereignty that is based not on the management of
life (biopolitics) or on the subjugation of life to death (necropolitics)
but rather on the animation of life. Sacropolitics seeks to bring to life
dead, dying or moribund social formations. It calls upon the entire
population to engage in public performances of mass sacrifice, which are
intended to help create new life worlds that can redeem poor countries from
the profane state into which they have fallen.