Featuring a sweeping array of essays from scholars of state formation and development, this book presents an overview of approaches to studying the history of the state. Focusing on the question of state formation, this volume takes a particular look at the beginnings, structures, and constant reforming of state power. Not only do the contributors draw upon both modernist and postmodernist theoretical perspectives, they also address the topic from a global standpoint, examining states from all areas of the world. In their diverse and thorough exploration of state building, the authors cross the theoretical, geographic, and chronological boundaries that traditionally shape this field in order to rethink the customary macro and micro approaches to the study of state building and make the case for global histories of both pre-modern and modern state formations.
Author(s): John L. Brooke, Julia C. Strauss, Greg Anderson
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Year: 2018
Language: English
Pages: 635
City: Cambridge
Tags: State Formation
Half title
Title page
Imprints page
Dedication
Contents
Figures and Maps
Tables
Contributors
Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Definitions, Foundings, Agendas, and Memberships
Part I Definitions
1 On the Person of the State
2 The State as a Social Relation
The Challenges of State Theory
The Strategic-Relational Approach
Structure and Agency in the SRA
Dimensions of the State and State Power
The State as a Strategic Social Relation
3 Was There Any Such Thing as a Nonmodern State?
What We Talk about When We Talk about “the State”
The State in Its Metaphysical Environment
Two Nonmodern Modes of Rule
Implications
Part II Foundings
4 Comparative Perspectives and Early States Revisited
Counterweights to Exclusionary Rule of Early States
A New Approach to the Indus Civilization
The Indus Craft Economies
Indus Hydraulics, Irrigation, and Water Management
The Upper Indus, Harappa, and the Beas Settlements
The Lower Indus and Mohenjo-daro
A System of Reservoirs and Dams at Dholavira
Assumptions Laid to Rest
5 (Re)Introducing the State on the Medieval Swahili Coast
Trade and the Medieval Swahili State
Structuring Swahili Networks
The Emergence of Leadership on the Swahili Coast
Sources of Elite Power and Authority
6 Renaissance States of Mind
The Discursive Constitution of the Divisible State
Building a Divisible State: The Case of Arezzo, 1384
Governing a Divisible State
7 Bringing the Sarkār Back In
The Mughal Sarkār(s)
Sarkār or “the State”? Successor Regimes and the Company
8 Revolutionary State Formation
A Declaration of State Formation
Revolutionary State Legislatures and State Formation
9 The Founding of Nondemocratic States
The Founding of the Soviet Union, the Iranian Theocracy, and the Third Reich
Comparison of the Three Nondemocratic Foundings
Part III Agendas
10 Empire as State
Sovereignty over Territory in Roman Thought
The Politics of Local Autonomy
The Political Economy of Democratic Domination
11 Weights and Measures and State Formation
12 Mapping Power
13 To Bee or Not to Bee
Science and the State
Bees and Material Cultures of the Modern State
Crisis of State or Crisis of Expertise?
14 Taxes and the Two Faces of the State since the Eighteenth Century
Fiscal Revolutions: The Critique of the Old Regime and Coming of the New
Fiscal Evolutions: The Return of Personal Taxation
Culmination, Aftermath, and Reflections on Our Recent Tax Debates
15 Regimes and Repertoires of State Building
Thinking about States and Bureaucracy
State Agendas, Repertoires, and the Two Chinas at Mid-Century
Bureaucratic Modalities of State Building: Repertoires of Standardization and Organizational Strengthening
The Campaign Breakthrough Strategy: Yundong
Campaign Repertoires Shared: Mobilization, State Expansion, and Propaganda
Diverging Repertoires: Performing the Campaign
Conclusion: Bureaucratic and Campaign Modalities of State Building
Part IV Memberships
16 The Mesopotamian Citizen Conceptualized
Royal Literature
City Laments
Proverbs and Debates
Appendix A: Selected Proverbs
1. … greedy and corrupt
2. … an unpredictable and dangerous place
3. … full of lies
4. … full of jumped-up good-for-nothings
5. Don’t get involved
17 Military Mobilization and the Experience of Living with the Ming State
18 Ethnicity and Power in Early Modern Europe and Asia
19 Patriliny and Modern States in the Middle East
Patriliny and Individual Gendered Relations
Patriliny, Tribal Leaders, and Everyday Community Relations
Patriliny and Modernizing States
Colonial and Postcolonial States Upholding Patriliny
20 Social Service, Convivialismo, and Hegemony in Colombia
21 Indian Affirmative Action and the Postcolonial State
The Postcolonial “Difference”
State Effects: Law, Rights, and History
Indian Affirmative Action
Caste’s Secularity
The (Postcolonial) Resolution of Group Rights
Conclusion
Index
