Ein erwünschter Staat?

Dezentralisierung im urbanen Java als Staatsbildung „von unten“

Abstract

This article contributes to the anthropology of the state by inquiring into the peculiarities of local state-formation in urban Java, Indonesia. Here, since Indonesia underwent a radical macrostructural process of decentralization, neighbourhood residents have been faced with a changed modality of state power. Grappling with the multifarious ramifications of decentralization, this paper offers a reconsideration of two theorists who assist in understanding state-society entanglements: Michel Foucault (1991), who conceptualizes expanding modes of the ‘art of government’; and James C. Scott (2009), who emphasizes entirely different situations characterized by ‘the art of not being governed’. My argument centres around an observation alien to both schemes, namely that certain local actors actively seek, emulate, shape and incorporate desirable elements of the state. They are thus neither tricked by Foucauldian techniques of governmentality, nor do they repel the state altogether and artfully resist its machinations. Hence, this contribution draws attention to the significance and formative involvement of local non-state actors in large-scale transformations, as well as challenging theoretical approaches that cannot account for the imbrication of civilians into the continuous reproduction of ‘the state’.