The encrypted state : delusion and displacement in the Peruvian Andes / David Nugent

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Sacropolitics -- The descent into madness -- The consolidation of casta rule -- Being (and seeing) like a state -- Divided elite and disordered state -- The sacropolitics of military conscription -- The sacropolitics of labor conscription -- Glimpses of danger and subversion

Why do seemingly rational states become paranoid and delusional? The encrypted state engages in a close analysis of political disorder to better understand political stability. David Nugent focuses on a crisis of rule in twentieth-century Peru, when officials believed they had lost the ability to govern and communicated in secret code to protect themselves from imaginary subversives. The encrypted state employs the notion of sacropolitics - the politics of mass group sacrifice - to make sense of this plague of dark fantasies. Nugent explores the role of state structures and everyday cultural practices in generating state delusion. He also investigates the part affect and imagination play in producing government paranoia. This book sheds important new light on the forces that variously promote or undermine organized political subjection.

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