Rule and Rupture - State Formation Through the Production of Property and Citizenship examines the ways in which political authority is defined and created by the rights of community membership and access to resources.
- Combines the latest theory on property rights and citizenship with extensive fieldwork to provide a more complex, nuanced assessment of political states commonly viewed as "weak," "fragile," and "failed"
- Contains ten case studies taken from post-colonial settings around the world, including Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, and Bolivia
- Characterizes the results of societal ruptures into three types of outcomes for political power: reconstituted and consolidated, challenged, and fragmented
- Brings together exciting insights from a global group of scholars in the fields of political science, development studies, and geography
"Rule and Rupture begins with a striking and original point of departure: the realization that the disposition of property and of the rights of membership in the political community are what constitute public authority. The volume fully realizes its promise in the subtle analysis of both failure and success in case studies. Henceforth I will insist that students read Lund and Eilenberg's path-breaking book on state-formation in conjunction with the classical text of Max Weber."
-James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science, Yale University
"Rule and Rupture provides a fresh and powerful empirical analytic of State formation. By focusing on the dialectics of recognition that create both authorities and rights holders, the volume shows us how society is constituted through multiple social contracts. The book offers a truly new and exciting approach to the material study of society and social change."
-Jesse Ribot, University of Illinois
Rule and Rupture - State Formation through the Production of Property and Citizenship examines the ways in which political authority is defined and created by the rights of community membership and access to resources. It combines the latest theory on property rights and citizenship with extensive fieldwork to provide a more complex, nuanced assessment of political states commonly viewed as "weak," "fragile," and "failed." The contributors characterize the results of societal ruptures into three types of outcomes for political power: reconstituted and consolidated, challenged, and fragmented. They then delve into ten case studies taken from post-colonial settings around the world, including Cambodia, Nepal, Indonesia, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Somalia, Democratic Republic of Congo, Colombia, and Bolivia. Written by a global group of scholars from the fields of political science, development studies, anthropology and geography, this book brings together exciting new insights on the theory of state formation, vividly demonstrating how nations are locked in a cycle of creation, rupture, and reproduction.
