BOOK REVIEW: The Art of Not Being Governed

Louis

BOOK REVIEW: THE ART OF NOT BEING GOVERNED

the following is a book review: of JAMES C. SCOTT. 

The Art of not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia

The State of the State of Nature: Modernity and the Closing of the World

The modern state has come closer than ever to achieving the “end of history”. Increasingly, “non-state” spaces are being brought into the fold of “civilization.” Eschewing the normal protagonist, the nation-state, James C. Scott presents his subject: Zomia – a massive chunk of mountainous territory forming a transnational “non-state” region in upland Southeast Asia. Zomia represents a final frontier, or hold-out zone where progress, development, “civilization” and the state have yet to gain full control.

 The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia offers a new account of state building that seeks to overturn conventional understandings of both civilization and un-civilization. Scott's revisionist narrative aims to correct, “the huge literature on state-making, contemporary and historic, [which] pays virtually no attention to its obverse: the history of deliberate and reactive statelessness.”1

Predicting the Election: Enough Already?

Predicting the Election: Enough Already? 

By this point in the season I'm suffering from election fatigue. As the contests drags on, I'm probably not the only person wondering, "wouldn't it be easier if we could predict the winner in advance?"

On August 28th, 2012 U.S. News and World Report's Economic Model Looks Ahead: See's Victory for Romney claimed "Kenneth Bickers and Michael Berry have developed an economic and political forecasting model to analyze economic data from the 50 states and D.C. going back to 1980 in order to predict the presidential campaign winner. And, they say, their model predicts that Romney will win." Last year USNWR provided the contrasting prediction of Allan Lichtman, the American University professor whose "12 keys" election formula has correctly called every president since Ronald Reagan’s 1984 re-election", assured Barack Obama's re-election is in the bag. These prognosticating political pundits boast of having predicted 7 consecutive elections.  This November only one perfect predictor will remain.

So who will win? Litchman or Bickers and Berry? Obama or Romney?