Why won't my TV turn on? -- Where has empathy gone? -- Outside in, not inside out -- Politics: the invisible straitjacket -- You have been denied access to this chapter -- Show me your deck! -- What's that lurking in the shadows? Aggh, it's a rule!! -- Fear and loathing in the corporate world --...

Government has become a central character in anthropological studies, but anthropologists rarely investigate how government itself operates. Instead, it appears as a looming shadow that mysteriously affects its surroundings. My portion of this introduction to a symposium on state bureaucracy...