Experiencing the State

by Rudolph, Lloyd I.; Jacobsen, John Kurt

• ISBN13: 9780195672435
• ISBN10: 0195672437
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2006-04-27
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This collection of essays by 13 well-known contributors departs from a conventional analysis of the state that universalizes and standardizes what the state is, does, and means. The contributors engage state and stateness as it is encountered in everyday life, ranging from village and urban life to big dams, war, torture, hospital treatment, cinema attendance, and art exhibitions. The essays locate the state in time, space, and circumstance so that it is contingent and evocative rather than definitive and authoritative. Experiencing the State discusses formative discourses on the state, what we may think or say about the state, and what images are evoked by its various manifestations through social and cultural forms. This volume begins with a non-essentialist perspective on state formation, and concludes with an account of how the state is experienced in the post-9/11 world scenario, in India and South Asia, the US, Europe, including the former Soviet Union, and the Far East.

Author Biography

Lloyd I. Rudolph is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Chicago.

John Kurt Jacobsen is Research Associate in the Program on International Politics, Economics and Security at the University of Chicago.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Framing the Inquiry: Historicizing the Modern State
LLOYD I. RUDOLPH AND JOHN KURT JACOBSEN	VII
EXPERIENCING HIGH MODERNIST STATES IN AMERICA AND INDIA
1. High Modernist Social Engineering: The Case of the Tennessee Valley Authority
JAMES C. SCOTT	3	(50)
2. The Cost of Living: The Narmada Dam and the Indian State
ARUNDHATI ROY	53	(20)
3. Understanding the Collapse of the Soviet Union
HYUNG-MIN-JOO	73	(37)
4. How Political Scientists Experienced India's Development State
PAUL R. BRASS	110	(33)
EXPERIENCING THE STATE FROM BELOW IN VILLAGE GERMANY AND INDIA AND URBAN KARACHI AND LONDON
5. Experiencing Reunification: An East German Village after the Fall of the Wall
HELMUTH BERKING	143	(22)
6. The Dynamics of Bureaucratic Rule in Pakistan: A Personal View
TASNEEM AHMED SIDDIQUI	165	(19)
7. Face to Face with the Indian State: A Grass Roots View
PHILIP OLDENBURG	184	(31)
EXPERIENCING THE STATE FROM OUTSIDE: PSYCHIATRY, FILM, AND ART
8. Experiencing Care: Psychotherapy and NHS Mental Health Reform in Britain
NICHOLAS TEMPLE	215	(21)
9. In Cahoots? Cinema, Cynicism, and Citizenship
JOHN KURT JACOBSEN	236	(31)
10. Forest of Logos: Empire of Signs
PATRICIA BICKERS	267	(26)
EMANCIPATORY RESISTANCE
11. Gandhi's Trial and India's Colonial State
SUDIPTA KAVIRAJ	293	(16)
12. Experiencing Repressive States in America and the Koreas
BRUCE CUMINGS	309
Conclusion: Sovereignty Unbound: Experiencing the State after 9/11
LLOYD I. RUDOLPH AND JOHN KURT JACOBSEN	343	(38)
Contributors	381