State Theory and Andean Politics explores the material and cultural processes by which states come to appear as real and tangible parts of everyday life in the Andes, showing the state to be one of many forces vying for a claim to legitimate domination in a highly contested political field.

In the last few decades, Andean states have seen major restructuring of the organization, leadership, and reach of their governments. With these political tremors come major aftershocks, regarding both definitions and expectations: What is a state? Who or what makes it up, and where does it reside? In what capacity can the state be expected to right wrongs, raise people up, protect them from harm, maintain order, or provide public services? What are its powers and responsibilities?

State Theory and Andean Politics attempts to answer these questions and more through an examination of the ongoing process of state creation in Andean nations. Focusing on the everyday, extraofficial, and frequently invisible or partially concealed permutations of rule in the lives of Andean people, the essays explore the material and cultural processes by which states come to appear as real and tangible parts of everyday life. In particular, they focus on the critical role of emotion, imagination, and fantasy in generating belief in the state, among the governed and the governing alike. This approach pushes beyond the limits of the state as conventionally understood to consider how "nonstate" acts of governance intersect with official institutions of government, while never being entirely determined by them or bound to their authorizing agendas. State Theory and Andean Politics asserts that the state is not simply an institutional-bureaucratic apparatus but one of many forces vying for a claim to legitimate political dominion.

Featuring an impressive array of Andeanist scholars as well as eminent state theorists Akhil Gupta and Gyanendra Pandey, State Theory and Andean Politics makes a bold and novel claim about the nature of states and state-making that deepens understanding not only of the Andes and the Global South but of the world at large.

Contributors: Kim Clark, Nicole Fabricant, Lesley Gill, Akhil Gupta, Christopher Krupa, David Nugent, Gyanendra Pandey, Mercedes Prieto, Maria Clemencia Ramírez, Irene Silverblatt, Karen Spalding, Winifred Tate.

Chapter 1. Off-Centered States: Rethinking State Theory Through an Andean Lens
—Christopher Krupa and David Nugent

PART I. CRITICAL PHENOMENOLOGIES OF RULE
Chapter 2. The Idea of the State in Colombia: An Analysis from the Periphery
—María Clemencia Ramírez
Chapter 3. Respatializing the State from the Margins: Reflections on the Camba Autonomy Movement in Santa Cruz, Bolivia
—Nicole Fabricant
Chapter 4. State Formation and Class Politics in Colombia
—Lesley Gill

PART II. OFF-CENTERED MORPHOLOGIES OF STATE
Chapter 5. Cadastral Politics: Property Wars and State Realism in Highland Ecuador
—Christopher Krupa
Chapter 6. New Arenas of State Action in Highland Ecuador: Public Health and State Formation, c. 1925-1950
—A. Kim Clark
Chapter 7. The State and Indigenous Women in Ecuador, 1925-1975
—Mercedes Prieto

PART III. FEAR, FANTASY, AND DELUSION
Chapter 8. Haunting the Modern Andean State: Colonial Legacies of Race and Civilization
—Irene Silverblatt
Chapter 9. Appearances to the Contrary: Fantasy, Fear, and Displacement in Twentieth-Century Peruvian State Formation
—David Nugent
PART IV. CROSS-BORDER PROCESSES OF STATECRAFT
Chapter 10. Notes on the Formation of the Andean Colonial State
—Karen Spalding
Chapter 11. The Aspirational State: State Effects in Putumayo
—Winifred Tate

PART V. THEORETICAL REFLECTIONS
Chapter 12. Off-Centered States: An Appreciation
—Gyanendra Pandey
Chapter 13. Viewing States from the Global South
—Akhil Gupta

Notes
Bibliography
List of Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments