Mukerji on Power and Logistics

The Territorial State as a Figured World of Power: Strategics,Logistics, and Impersonal Rule!

CHANDRA MUKERJI

University of California

The ability to dominate or exercise will in social encounters is often assumed in socialtheory to define power, but there is another form of power that is often confusedwith it and rarely analyzed as distinct: logistics or the ability to mobilize the naturalworld for political effect. I develop this claim through a case study of seventeenth-century France, where the power of impersonal rule, exercised through logistics,was fundamental to state formation. Logistical activity circumvented patrimonialnetworks, disempowering the nobility and supporting a new regime of impersonalrule: the modern, territorial state.

The strategic exercise of will for domination—often associated with the use or threatof legitimate violence—is routinely assumed in social theory to define power, butthere is another form of power that is often confused with it and rarely analyzedas distinct: logistics or the ability to mobilize the natural world for political effect.Strategic power works because people respond to favors and threats (and by extensionsurveillance), aligning their behaviors to regimes (Adams 2007; Anderson 1974; Beik1985; Brewer et al. 1996; Foucault 1979; Lynn 1997; Mousnier 1979; Sargent 1968).Logistical activity shapes social life differently, affecting the environment (context,situation, location) in which human action and cognition take place (Carroll 2006;Joyce 2003, 2009; Mann 1986; Parker 1983; Scott 1998; Zukin 1991). Both formsof power take advantage of human responsiveness to outside influence to shapeaggregate patterns of action. But strategics and logistics are different forms of powerin that they do this in distinct ways.1

The concept of logistics used here, defined as power derived from controlling andshaping the natural world, owes a debt to Marx and the idea that social orders aregrounded in material relations (Marx 1963). Neo-Marxists and post-Marxists havecontinued to find ways to analyze the relationship of material conditions, economicsystems, and regimes (Beik 1985; Mann 1986; Parker 1983; Tilly 1975). But theyusually assume that material and social orders are aligned or synthesized throughdialectical processes, so even if logistical power acts as a distinct historical force, itseffects can be seen in patterns of strategic power and so require no separate analysis.

!Address correspondence to: Chandra Mukerji, Department of Communication 0503, University ofCalifornia San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0503. E-mail: [email protected]. Thanksto CASBS for supporting this work.

1Sociologists tend to distinguish between institutional and constructivist approaches to social life. Often,constructivist studies focus on logistics (how social life proceeds on the ground), and institutional studiesfocus on strategics (social domination). What logistical analysis can do for constructivist analysis is toprovide a means for thinking about the material aspects of activity and the physical character of thesocial settings of interaction (Mead and Strauss 1956). So, even though this article addresses historicalmatters around state formation, the theory of strategics and logistics presented here is not meant to belimited to the large-scale institutional level. In fact, figured world theory, which is at the center of thisanalysis, comes from social psychology (Holland et al. 1998).

Sociological Theory 28:4 December 2010C" 2010 American Sociological Association. 1430 K Street NW, Washington, DC 20005

THE TERRITORIAL STATE AS A FIGURED WORLD OF POWER 403

In fact, Marx explicitly cautions against attending to the mere physical existenceof things as part of a material order. It is the human labor in the object and theobjectification of the human that fascinates Marx, not the independent powers of thematerial world on human communities: “mindless objectivity is annulled by the factthat private property is incorporated in man himself, and man himself is recognizedas its essence . . . [M]an himself . . . has now become the act of objectification, ofalienation” (Marx 1963:98). Similarly, Foucault, who famously writes about archi-tectures of power, does not concern himself with logistics, such as the materials andlabor that go into buildings. Traditions of wall design do not enter into discussionsof the panopticon, and the same is true for the skills of masons (Foucault 1979).Equally absent from his description of biopower are the logistics of training bodies,including the military music whose rhythms have been used for centuries to trainsoldiers for war (Cowart 2008; Foucault 1978). The body may be material and thewalls may be importantly physical, but they are both strategic power materializedfor Foucault, not elements of logistical power acting at a different level on humangroups.

Scott (1998), Joyce (1994, 2003, 2009), and Carroll (2006) are exceptional in theirefforts to describe the workings of logistical power in modern governance. Scott(1998) follows techne as a political tool used by states from the seventeenth centuryto create social order through large-scale, imposed, material projects—a strategythat he suggests usually failed (compare to Latour 1992). Carroll (2006) argues, onthe contrary, that materiality was quite effective for the English in Ireland wherecolonizers experimented with urban reforms, estate management projects, and in-frastructural engineering to stabilize British rule, developing along the way both newnatural knowledge (episteme, not just techne) and tools of measurement—with the in-frastructure of experimental science becoming an object of political interest preciselybecause of its logistical significance. Joyce (2003, 2009) makes another argumentfor the effectiveness of material regimes, pointing to their importance to identityand self-management. He argues that material infrastructures can be powerful inpart because they disappear from consciousness when they are accepted and takenfor granted, creating an illusion of freedom and patterns of governmentality thatseem quite the opposite of overt political regulation. Material orders thus engenderless opposition in populations even as they define social worlds. (For the materialformation of social worlds, see Becker [1982].)

In this article, I synthesize these ideas to create a broad theory of logisticalpower, demonstrating its effectiveness in installing, stabilizing, and defining polit-ical regimes. I develop the theory around an empirical case and important his-torical moment in Western state formation: the period of the so-called absolutismof Louis XIV, when the French state began to have more purchase over Frenchlife.

STRATEGICS AND LOGISTICS

Before I turn to the political interplay of strategics and logistics in French state for-mation, I need to pay closer theoretical attention to the difference between strategicsand logistics as forms of power. This can be done by comparing them across sixdimensions: (1) the form of control exercised, (2) the basis for legitimacy, (3) themode of political calculation, (4) the form of order sought or achieved, (5) the mediaused in the exercise of power, and (6) political outcomes. These are summarized inTable 1.

404 SOCIOLOGICAL THEORY

Table 1. Forms of Power2

Strategics Logistics

Form of control Political domination Material regimeLegitimacy Moral authority by rank Dominion/restorationCalculation Strategic advantage Natural knowledgeForm of order Social hierarchy Built environmentMedium of control Threats/favors Impersonal rulePolitical expression Relations of domination Figured world of power

Reading the left column of Table 1 from the bottom up, one can see that strategicpower is a practice of social domination, using favors or intimidation to controlsocial outcomes in order to gain or maintain rank in a social hierarchy. Participantsin the system use strategic calculation of advantages over others to win contestsof power. The authority of ruling elites is legitimated by defining them as morallyand/or intellectually superior. And the result of these activities is a regime of politicaldomination.

Reading the right column of Table 1 from the top down, one can see that logis-tical power (in contrast) is the use of material world for political effect, physicallyreworking land to shape the conditions of possibility for collective life. A materialregime cultivated this way favors some groups over others, but governs imperson-ally through an order of things. In the Western tradition, managing the earth andits creatures is legitimated by Judeo-Christian conceptions of stewardship or humandominion over Creation, but land administration can also be condoned with otherideals of moral and material restoration (Drayton 2000; Lansing 1991). The exerciseof logistical power depends on natural knowledge (techne and/or episteme), eitherpractical experience in working with materials, or formal knowledge useful for re-shaping the environment. This knowledge is employed for making built environmentsor material contexts for social life, conditioning action both practically and throughsymbolism embedded in the form of things. The effectiveness of the resulting mate-rial regime lies in its mute presence as a form of impersonal rule. Without words,the built environment often seems to lie outside of political dispute, and thus canseem as inevitable as the natural order. And without people enforcing order, a sys-tem of impersonal rule provides little opportunity for resistance. So, the outcomeof exercising logistical power is an inarticulate but deeply effective material regimeinflected with cultural ideals and conveying a reality that seems inevitable, natural,or true: a figured world of power.

The term logistics has already been used in social theory by Michael Mann, whoconsiders logistics in explaining the power of empires (Mann 1986). Mann pointsto the role of natural places, forces, and resources in the formation of systems ofpower. Empires emerged, he argues, from the particularities of people, places, andgovernments. The physical characteristics of places matter, and governments ruleboth people and places alike. Still, for Mann, logistical activity, while historicallyimportant to the dialectics that shape social power, is not a matter of extended,independent theoretical interest.

2This table is a variant of one I used at the conclusion of my book (Mukerji 2009a). I have tried hereto make the categories more broadly useful for analyses of practices and regimes of power.


Logistical power, although not named, is more significant in critical geographyand landscape studies where places are understood as sites of political structuring.Zukin (1991, 1995), Cronon (1991), and Joyce (2003), for example, write theoreticallysophisticated analyses of the power of cities as sites of governmentality and marketrelations with their stores, streets, libraries, and grain elevators. These built environ-ments not only bear signs of the marketplace but also make economic calculationsformative for all parts of the urban environment. This is logistical power in themetropolitan context.

The term logistical power, as I use it, also bears a close relationship to whatScott (1985) calls weapons of the weak or what de Certeau (1988) calls tactics—oppositional stances that prevent ruling elites from governing with impunity. Manyof Scott’s weapons of the weak are logistical; they are acts of sabotage, employingpeasant knowledge of natural processes for political effect. The success of strategicpower is limited by the tactics of those resisting this power, but tactics can, inprinciple, be forms of strategic action—resistance to superordinates themselves, notthe order of things. In this sense, logistical power can be a weapon of the weak, buttactics and logistics are not the same thing.

Scholars in science studies are (on the whole) the social analysts most interested inthe independent powers of material orders, and provide most of the analytic prece-dents for my thinking about logistics. Becker and Clark (2001), Bowker and Star(1999), Galison (2003), Knorr-Cetina (1999), Latour (1993), Roberts et al. (2007),Smith (1994, 2004), and Smith and Findlen (2002), among many others, have allstudied the power of infrastructures, pointing to the silent, unrecognized, and rou-tine ways they can define reality. They explain how keys, trains, lab instruments,specimens, windmills, ship models, paperwork, and databases—ubiquitous and un-contested material objects—construct the order of things. They also point to thesilent power of these artifacts in shaping human behavior.

The concept of logistics I use here is derived from this tradition, but more directlyfrom Serres (1983), whose ideas have been formative for science studies. In hisanalysis of the Roman Empire, Serres (1983) argues that this ancient political orderwas built on two foundations: one, the struggle for dominance illustrated by thestory of Romulus and Remus, the brothers of myth who fought to the death to findRome, and the second, the material engineering of the empire that Serres equateswith the collective behavior of social animals like African termites. Military Romecarried the cultural heritage of Romulus and Remus, using human will and violenceto form the empire. Engineered Rome was a product of many human hands, usinglogistical tools to create a form of collective life.

The concept of power presented by Serres as fratricide (or murder used to es-tablish legitimate political authority) is a version of strategic power, resemblingWeber’s definition of power as legitimate violence (Weber 1947), and pointing tothe importance of intimidation to domination. The second form of power describedby Serres is a process of shaping the natural world. This is what I call logisticalpower.

Rome does not speculate, does not speak, never converses about the latestrefinement. Rome fights, Rome prays; it is pious, it humbly accepts the darksense of a repeated gesture. It builds, extends itself, preserves. It is not thenegative—the destructive work that seems to advance things . . . It gives flesh tothe word; it builds. Rome incarnates itself; it is construction. (Serres 1983)


The power of construction stands for mute, anonymous work—the power of im-personal social coordination and material action.3 The great cities and aqueducts ofRome were collective accomplishments, products of labor aligning people and things(Callon 1986; Callon and Latour 1992). One person would seal cracks in a wall, oth-ers would fix the floor, and the result would be a more long-standing structure thatwould carry a heritage of problem solving from older material regimes. Pragmaticacts of construction would yield a built environment, both serving and characteriz-ing the successive regimes inhabiting the space (Mukerji 2008a; Rosental and Lahire2008).

Talking of logistics as a distinct form of power may seem counterintuitive onphilosophical grounds. Political agency is normally associated with acts of conscious-ness or will, not the power of objects to shape social life.4 Understanding logisticalpower requires accepting that natural objects can have a kind of social agency with-out intentionality (Callon and Latour 1992; Callon 1986; Kirsch and Neff 2008;Knorr-Cetina 1997). Plagues are historical agents; droughts or floods are, too (Muk-erji 2007b); and so is climate change. Large-scale physical assaults on social ordersmay seem exceptional because they are rare, but they are nonetheless extreme casesof normal relations, revealing taken-for-granted human dependencies on the naturalworld. Disaster brings into relief the flow of rivers, the heat of the sun, the formationof ice that have routine and often relatively benign agential powers in human life.People manage natural forces and resources to live (Carroll 2006; Joyce 2003; Marx1963; Serres 1983), building towns or cities, and using fauna and flora for food ormedicine. The result is a “second nature” that is the foundation of collective life(Cronon 1983, 1991; Serres and Latour 1995), and a political culture embedded inthings: a “figured world” of power (Holland et al. 1998).

A “figured world,” as described by Holland et al. (1998), is a politically infusedculture that shapes cognition as well as action. The culture consists not only of aconstellation of ideas, but also physical forms systematically infused with meaning.

3Because of its constructivist leanings and cooperative focus, Serres’s view of material power is inter-estingly quite unlike Foucault’s notion of embodied power that focuses on strategic uses of the materialworld for domination, or in Serres’s terms, impersonal means of fratricide (Foucault 1973, 1978, 1979).Foucault, of course, is as concerned as Serres with the physical aspects of regime power, but in seeingbuildings and bodies as tools of hierarchical domination, he never considers who built the wall systemsfor prisons and mental hospitals, or how these construction techniques developed. The forms of lifethat make materialized power possible are easier to recognize in Serres than Foucault. What makes Ser-res’s argument distinctive (and sometimes problematic) is its posthumanist stance—taking human beingsas part of nature rather than distinguished by the human mind (and language). Serres focuses on theunpremeditative forms of tacit knowledge that allowed those inhabiting the Roman Empire to extendit through construction. They engineered a Rome, but without sustained premeditation—extending theempire to different sites and in different times. Creating a built environment is, for Serres, an expressionof human nature, not essentially a means of domination, although it can be used to that end (Henaffand Feenberg 1997). People can use water in war as the Dutch did when they flooded the countrysideto defeat the Spanish and later the French (Belidor 1753), but generally people design water suppliesfor more peaceful purposes such as making their towns more habitable. Like other social animals suchas bees and termites, people make worlds together, forms of collective life that are powerful organizingsystems. The construction described by Serres in many ways resembles Cronon’s “second nature” (1983),an environment reworked over time by many people in the course of its development. In finding solutionsto the problems of living in the world, they define goals for life and reasons to build or “improve”things. Precisely because a built environment is accreted over time, it is not a product of an individualimagination, or even imposed by one political regime. Compare to Howard Becker’s art worlds (Becker1982; Mukerji 1997b).

4I would like to acknowledge the help of my colleagues in the Objects and Agency Group at the Centerfor Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences for their help in developing this part of my argument,particularly Marian Feldman, Karin Knorr-Cetina, Gina Neff, Glenn Adams, Ann Taves, Linda Jack,and Seth Landefeld.


It is a physical arrangement of the material environment that intentionally ratifiescultural conceptions of reality. A figured world functions like a habitus (Bourdieu1984), shaping the beliefs, tastes, identities, and habits of people, but it is not just aset of social relations and ideas; it is a material order, too (Becker 1982; Beik 1985;Joyce 2003; Wagner-Pacifici 2005).

Adams et al. (2010) have demonstrated how deeply people’s political conscious-ness can be shaped by figured worlds—even apparently neutral elements of theirenvironments. They studied bulletin boards set up in classrooms during Black His-tory Month, asking about their effects on racial attitudes. The ones from black andwhite classrooms were quite different. The bulletin boards in majority white schoolsemphasized individual achievements, and test subjects—both black and white—whoviewed them in laboratory studies displayed more racist attitudes, according to stan-dard measures. The ones from majority black schools focused on the collectivehistory of African Americans in the United States, and in laboratory studies reducednegative attitudes about race. Given that everyday understandings of race can affectstudents’ abilities to perform cognitive tasks (Steele and Aronson 1995), such figuredworlds can clearly be political in their effects on thought. They are rhetorical agentsof even more significance because they seem in their silence to lie outside of acts ofpersuasion.

To flesh this out and illustrate these ideas, I turn to logistical power and itsuse in France for state formation in the late seventeenth century, focusing on themost ambitious and technically difficult infrastructural project of the administra-tion: construction of the Canal du Midi. I begin by describing the contest set upbetween strategics and logistics by administrative policies of infrastructural devel-opment. Then, I show how logistical work on the Canal du Midi transformed theprovince where the canal was built. I do this by analyzing the six aspects of logisticalpower listed in Table 1. I not only show how Jean-Baptiste Colbert, minister of theTreasury, King’s Households, and the Marine, built his administrative power on amaterial regime, but also demonstrate how logistical power was legitimated, intellec-tually developed, and used for the canal. I illustrate ways that the physical presenceof the canal changed life and politics in Languedoc, too, and analyze Colbert’s pro-paganda campaign that enrolled the Canal du Midi in imagery of the New Rome. Iend with the most telling evidence of the incommensurability of strategics and logis-tics as forms of power: the king’s break with the three great architects of the Frenchstate who worked on the Canal du Midi. The power that these men wielded overFrance started to threaten Louis XIV as territorial projects and stewardship ideasseemed more and more important to French life. To reverse this trend, the kingused his will to destroy their careers, reasserting his absolutism with patrimonialpower.

STRATEGICS, LOGISTICS, AND FRENCH STATE FORMATION

To begin, I must first review the basic characteristics of the canal project. The Canaldu Midi was built between 1663 and 1684 across the province of Languedoc insouthwestern France just north of the Pyrenees, linking the Mediterranean Sea to theAtlantic Ocean through the Garonne River (Bergasse 1982; Maistre 1968; Rolt 1973).It was roughly 150 miles long, and crossed the continental divide, linking parts of theprovince previously remote from each other, and cutting across fields and roads thathad integrated local life. The work was contracted out by the king (officially) andColbert (administratively) to an entrepreneur and salt tax farmer from Languedoc,


Pierre-Paul Riquet, a financier with a large fortune but questionable social standing.He was no engineer, but successfully assembled people from Languedoc with the tacitknowledge to do the work, cutting a broad waterway across southwestern Franceand making it seem more like ancient Gaul (Mukerji 2009a).

This work was important. The modern French state, as I will show here, wasnot the product of bureaucratic rationalization or more effective management ofnobles at court, as many theorists have argued (Elias 1983; Tilly 1975), but rather aproduct of state territoriality and the use of logistical power to silently underminetraditional elites and to assert and exercise new forms of impersonal power (Mukerji1997a, 2009a). By my account, the reign of Louis XIV was not really a period ofstate absolutism (Beik 1985; Parker 1983) in which the king’s will was augmentedby a more effective state apparatus. The turn to logistics had more complicatedeffects, disrupting a patrimonial order that had impeded the king, but on whichhis personal authority was founded. The result was supposed to be an absolutistgovernment, but was instead something more complex: an unintended state builton political territoriality that indeed empowered the administration, but did it byusing patterns of impersonal rule at odds with absolutism. The result was a newpolitical order in which the pursuit of power assumed new forms, but whose radicalimplications were for the moment masked by Louis XIV’s ostentatious use of hispersonal will (Mukerji 2010).

Colbert first developed programs of territorial politics to contend with the strategicpowers of the nobility that he saw as impeding the ambitions of the young LouisXIV. Machiavelli (1996) explains well the problems of patrimonial relations in Francethat made the shift to political territoriality so consequential. He argues that Frenchmonarchs had never gained full control of great noble families:

The king of France is surrounded by a large number of lords of ancient lineagewho are recognized and loved by their subjects. They have their degrees of pre-eminence, which their king cannot deprive them of without danger to himself. . . You can [conquer such a kingdom] with ease by winning over one of thebarons of the kingdom, since malcontents and others who desire a change canalways be found. For the reasons stated, such persons can open the way for youand facilitate your victory. But in preserving it afterward infinite difficulties willarise in regard to both those who have helped you and those whom you haveoppressed . . . Unable either to please them or to annihilate them, you will losethe state at the first likely opportunity. (Machiavelli 1996:26–27)

In the patrimonial system, nobles were nominally bound to the king with ongoingacts of respect, favoritism, and generosity: the tools of patronage politics. But thesestrategic powers had their limits. Giving nobles favors often meant assigning themoffices with attendant powers that served the autonomy of appointees, diminishingthe king’s control over them (Kettering 1988; Mousnier 1971). In contrast, noblesgained no immediately recognizable advantage from new state infrastructure builtacross their land, since nobles were nominally restricted from trade and, in any case,did not want state facilities taking land from their estates. Accustomed to seekingautonomy more than money, even high-ranking families that did eventually profitfrom increased rents from state infrastructure were nonetheless more concerned aboutthe political rather than economic implications of the installations (compare to Beik1985; see Bergasse 1982; Mukerji 2009a; Rolt 1973; Salamange 1986).


Ruling elites across France more frequently tried to stop rather than embraceinfrastructural projects like the Canal du Midi5 (Konvitz 1978; Mukerji 2007c; Sala-mange 1986). So, it is no wonder that when Riquet sought a contract for theenterprise, elites in Languedoc immediately and vigorously opposed it, using allthe strategic powers at their disposal to try to prevent this intervention into theirprovince. Their techniques of social domination were pitted against Colbert’s invest-ments in logistics, producing in this tension a modernizing form of social change.The result of the contest was not just a grand canal and engineering emblem of theNew Rome, but also a new political regime: a disempowered local nobility and anadministration with greater geographical reach and authority.

In arguing that strategics and logistics were in contest at the Canal du Midi, I takeissue with Beik (1985), who contends that a partnership developed between noblesand the king around the canal during its construction, serving as a (strategic) basisof absolutism. Local elites, Beik (1985) suggests, started to act like a class in thisearly period of French capitalism as they began to see their common interests servedby the state rather than furthered by struggles against it. These elites, in his eyes,abandoned traditional powers for more modern ones they could only realize throughcloser ties with the king. The result was state absolutism—a triumph of centralizedpatrimonialism—and a new strategic order in Languedoc.

Although well aware of the material relations of power in this region and period,Beik (1985) sees ruling elites pursuing a strategic alliance with Louis XIV by freechoice. But it was a forced choice made in the face of logistical power that theycould not control. The Etats du Languedoc, the body representing the ruling elite,had originally turned to the king when Riquet first proposed the canal, expectinghis protection and vigorously protesting the project. But Louis XIV did not supportthem, and instead signed a contract for the canal, specifying that the Etats had tohelp pay for it (Conseil d’Etat 1666). They haggled over the price for indemnifiedland mainly to stall work so the canal would not be completed within the periodof the contract (Mukerji 2007a). It was precisely because the king was not a goodally that members of the ruling elite used their powers over the bourse and indem-nifications to try to deprive Riquet of both money and land to build the Canal duMidi (Etats du Languedoc 1680). The Etats were forced to play logistical politics,and ended up losing. It is true that in the following century after traffic on thecanal began to mount, nobles in Languedoc did become more capitalistic, profitingfrom higher rents they could charge for land near the new waterway. But throughoutconstruction of the Canal du Midi, the contest between strategics and logistics con-tinued unabated in Languedoc, and the administration triumphed politically becauselogistical power prevailed.

MATERIAL REGIME

Engineering for political effect in itself was not new to seventeenth-century France;it was common in Italy and used in the competition among city-states (Long 2001;Masters 1998). Even in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, Italian engineers weredeveloping new principles and practices of fortress engineering while also cultivating

5Importantly, the Canal du Midi was built in Languedoc, one of the most dissident regions of Francewhere even the nobility had a tradition of evading control by the northern monarchy (Beik 1985). Ratherthan vainly demanding their obedience, Colbert simply took their land for administrative projects (deFroidour 1672).


other forms of technological innovation useful to the military. They used engineer-ing in contests of power between city-states. In contrast, the territorial engineeringnurtured by Colbert was politically more radical because it shifted the balance ofpowers within the kingdom, having unexpected effectiveness in disempowering thenobility.

The most famous infrastructural work from the period of Louis XIV was thestring of fortresses constructed along French borders by the great engineer of theperiod, Sebastian Le Prestre de Vauban, working under the minister of the army,Louvois. This enterprise was a direct outgrowth both technically and tactically offorms of Italian military engineering that had been brought to France in the sixteenthcentury. During the wars of religion, the king of France brought Italian engineersto the kingdom to modernize the battlements of border cities, using French laborersto do the construction. The result of the policy was not only more defensible citiesin vulnerable border regions, but also more sophisticated French knowledge andpractices of military engineering (Blanchard 1996; Holt 2005).

Louis XIV reinvigorated fortress construction in France again during his reign. Hewanted to defend recently acquired land in Roussillon (Sahlins 1989), and went towar to expand French territory to the north and east. French attacks in the SpanishNetherlands were successful enough to frighten the Dutch who allied with the En-glish and Swedes, forming the Triple Alliance. They stopped the northern territorialexpansion of the French state, but Louis XIV nonetheless retained some territory(Sonnino 1988), so new fortifications were again required. Vauban, a political vi-sionary as well as engineer, wanted to do more. He hoped to unify France as wellas defend it with a string of border fortresses. He spoke of the kingdom as a precarre, a singular military territory, defined as a unity by its geometrical form andexpressing its military power (Mukerji 1997a, 2002).

Although Vauban and his pre carre were certainly important to the history ofFrench engineering and territorial politics under Louis XIV, they have overshadowedColbert’s early work on military infrastructure that was politically more transforma-tive. As the head of the king’s households, Colbert was in charge of royal lands,and these included some sites of military significance. He started repairing fortresses,improving ports, and razing old military infrastructure. As minister of the navy, Col-bert also wanted new well-fortified ports, particularly in the Mediterranean with itspirates. He wanted ports and ship-building facilities, too, on the Atlantic to stimulateand serve colonial trade. As minister of the treasury, he wanted to expand trade inthe Atlantic, but he understood that the merchant marine was ineffective without anavy to protect ships, so even in pursuit of his economic goals, Colbert wanted toempower the navy (Konvitz 1978; Mukerji 2009a).

All these practices of territorial politics were consequential, but only some startedto address internal relations of power. Razing fortresses inside the kingdom wasan example. It helped to destroy material infrastructure that had been or couldbe used for regional dissent. New ports were meant to shift power in France, too.Colbert’s projects at Brest, Lorient, Rochefort, and Sete were explicitly designedto rival Marseilles on the Mediterranean and La Rochelle on the Atlantic—notbecause trade was too great to be served by these ports, but rather because thesegreat commercial cities were only tenuously loyal to the crown (Degage 1985, 1987;Konvitz 1978). Colbert wanted safe harbors for French naval vessels, and placeswhere he could control trade by the merchant fleet, so he sent the military engineer,the Chevalier de Clerville, to find them. The minister explicitly sought to displace(at least in part) the great port cities that already existed in France, significantly


shifting the balance of power inside the kingdom toward the king (Konvitz 1978;Verin 1993).

Pierre-Paul Riquet’s canal across Languedoc, although often treated simply aseconomic infrastructure, was originally meant to serve the navy (Mousnier 1985;Mukerji 2009a; Rolt 1973). The entrepreneur argued that it could be made largeenough to accommodate naval vessels, allowing French ships to reach the Atlanticfrom the Mediterranean without passing Gibraltar. This goal was abandoned duringconstruction because it was technically too difficult to achieve, but it was certainlya central reason that Riquet was given a contract for the Canal du Midi (Mukerji2009a).

Colbert had other interests in building a canal through Languedoc, however. Theprovince was famous for its dissidents, and difficult to administer. In his early effortsat forest reform, Colbert had naively asked those in charge of royal forests to tell himabout their condition, expecting that they would take their official responsibilitiesseriously and be honest to the king’s minister. But he found local elites resisting himand lying about the trees they had timbered for their own purposes (Corvol 1999;Mukerji 2007c, 2009a). Running a large canal through the heart of Languedoc wasan act of power meant to shift authority away from local nobles and to the king,reducing the autonomy of elites that might be dangerous to the crown.

The result of all these logistical programs by Louvois and Colbert was a new ma-terial regime for France that physically made the kingdom a singular unit of power:a territory marked along its boundaries with military installations and restructuredin the interior to undercut local resistance to the state.

STEWARDSHIP AND RESTORATION

While the divine right of kings as articulated by Bodin (1967)6 formally establishedthe primacy of the king among nobles, it did not provide legitimacy for royal ruleamong his many detractors. In the region of Languedoc, for example, Huguenot no-bles questioned their duty of allegiance to the northern monarchy, rejecting Churchauthority on this or any issue (Holt 2005). In this context, Christian acts of stew-ardship became particularly legitimating, pointing to a moral authority based onspiritual qualities of person rather than Church law. This was particularly true inthe southwest of France, where Huguenots were politically powerful, and ideas ofmaterial virtue had local roots.

Olivier de Serres, a man of southern France himself who developed ideas aboutestate management based on classical writings, was particularly effective in definingstewardship practices (or the intelligent and productive management of God’s Cre-ation). Moreover, he successfully wove them into political doctrine (Mukerji 2005,2009a). His ideas were first adopted as administrative policy by Henri IV, the king ofNavarre who ruled France at the turn of the seventeenth century. If man was respon-sible for restoring nature to its perfect form (like the Garden of Eden), using his God-given intelligence to produce a more abundant and peaceful world, then rulers shouldtake stewardship of their lands as their highest duty. Henri IV was a Huguenotwhen he ascended the throne, and had to define a new legitimacy for his monar-chical authority. He and his minister, Sully, initiated programs of infrastructural

6Bodin’s articulation of the relationship between Church law and Roman law underscored divine rightas the foundation of royal power, relegating Roman law to local legal issues (Mousnier 1979).


improvement, citing the need for administrative stewardship of the kingdom(Pinsseau 1944). The infrastructural program was not fully realized, but the promiseof stewardship politics was there to see.

Colbert was impressed by Sully’s territorial practices, and used stewardship princi-ples in his administration, too (Mukerji 2007c). He also used ideas routinely evokedin this period by Europeans who were seizing and “improving” lands in colonial ar-eas that they claimed were not being well tended and exploited by local populations(Drayton 2000; Mukerji 2005). If noble officials were stripping the kingdom of itsnatural resources, their poor stewardship warranted its return to the control of thestate.

Colbert cleansed his territorial politics of some of its Huguenot associations bydefining France as a New Rome. The heritage of Gaul provided a rationale formaking infrastructural improvements a route to power (Apostolides 1981; Goldstein2008). France would be restored not only to the good order designed and desiredby God, but also to its ancient glory. The two programs of restoration provided themoral and cultural foundation for French public administration (compare to Burke1992; Mukerji 2005, 2009b).

NATURAL KNOWLEDGE

Building a New Rome was easier to imagine in principle than to realize in practiceon the ground. Creating a grand infrastructure required knowledge that was notobviously at hand. So there were risks in turning to logistics, and the Canal du Midimade this clear. Although short canal projects were successful in flatter regions ofItaly, the Netherlands, and northern France, no one knew precisely how to engineera canal to span over half of a continent (la Feuille 1678; Masters 1998). The projectfor a canal across Languedoc was technically too complex for the formal knowledgeof the time, so no one person could bring the necessary expertise to direct it. Thework required collaboration, and was a product of “natural knowledge” harboredby peasants as well as military engineers (Mukerji 2009a).

Colbert did not realize the problem at first, and tried to assemble experts thatcould clearly say what to do to build the Canal du Midi. He asked the Chevalier deClerville to head up a commission of notables and experts to evaluate the projectand draw up specifications for it. The members of the commission, including HectorBoutheroue de Bourgneuf, heir to the Canal de Briare near Paris, contributed whatthey could, but many of the design features were novel, underspecified in the plans,and had to be invented on the ground (Malavialle 1891). During the course ofconstruction, Colbert sent additional formally trained and experienced engineers tohelp with the problems—some even from the Netherlands (Colbert 1979 5:84). Butthey were limited in what they could suggest, too. Hydraulics at the time was mainlyfocused on pumps and mining, and could not solve problems of currents, watersupplies, lock design, and silting that became central to taking a canal throughtopographically complex and dry land. The people who knew about these problemsworked the land: peasants, artisans, and other laborers—many of them women. Theybuilt irrigation systems for estates, and developed water supplies for mills and towns.Their tacit knowledge of hydraulics, materials, forces, and the techniques for usingthem—added to the formal knowledge of military and civil engineers who knewsomething about buildings structures—produced the collaborative intelligence thatmade the canal possible (Mukerji 1997a, 2008b).


The cognitive capacity for logistical work was the opposite of the personal strategicabilities of elites (Clark 1995), creating a divide between what nobles could do polit-ically and what could be done by the administration. Technical knowledge became apolitical asset that was hard for elites to counter or control. They were confrontedwith new forms of intelligence embedded in infrastructures they could not imitateor counter: anonymous works of material governance that stood for France andembodied a collective cognitive ability forged through administration.

Over the next century, the Canal du Midi was recognized as a textbook caseof hydraulic engineering. It was studied as a model of good practice in the Ecoledes Ponts et Chaussees, when that great engineering school opened in the eighteenthcentury. The hydraulics learned while building the canal became a signatory attributeof French technological ability, and continued to be used to make France moreRoman—all the way through the French Revolution (Mukerji 2009b).7

BUILT ENVIRONMENT

Infrastructural “improvements” were politically effective not only because nobleshad so few ways to oppose them, but also because material management had lastingconsequences. A canal once filled with water was hard to erase from the landscape.It became something that locals had to accommodate, and in the accommodation,they changed their lives in irreversible ways.

The new-built environment disrupted traditional, everyday social practices dra-matically along the Canal du Midi, first, as 20 years of construction disrupted oldpatterns of life, and later, as people took advantage of the new waterway. In the be-ginning, the ditch for the canal cut roads and fields, inhibiting movement of people,goods, services, and the mail. Once the canal was built, it became the main routefor trade and much travel in the region, taking over mail delivery, too (Rolt 1973).

Daily life changed for local women as some started doing laundry in the canal,finding it a source of water close to home that reliably flowed from the mountainsthrough most of the summer, even in the dry eastern end of Languedoc. Publiclaundries developed near towns and bridges along the canal, providing social centersfor women’s work, and commercial opportunities for laundresses.8

Textile manufacture also gained momentum because weavers were able to get theirproducts more rapidly to the textile finishers near Toulouse. As the textile trade grew,so did the taxes on textiles. They helped to refill the coffers of the treasury that hadbeen partly depleted by canal expenses, but also affected local commerce (Conseild’Etat 1668). Enterprising locals also began to develop facilities for the canal itself.Some made barges; others raised horses to pull them; and some developed facilitiesfor their repair. There were coopers making barrels for the new Minervois andCorbieres wineries, and merchants building warehouses in Bezier, too, for the goodsstored and awaiting ships from the Mediterranean or barges from the canal (Jaroniak1999; Konvitz 1978; Rolt 1973).

7One example of a famous logistical system with obvious organizing power is the traditional watersystem in Bali. It integrated many communities into a common system of irrigation and farming and wasmanaged by monks rather than any given town because of a need to control a whole watershed. Thiswas similar to what developed in the Pyrenean valleys (Lansing 1991; Mukerji 2008b).

8There are historical postcards of the Canal du Midi that document its importance for laundry, andthere remains today evidence of the laundries built over the centuries along the canal, mainly nearCastelnaudery and toward Beziers.


Mills on noble lands far from the canal were also replaced by new mills poweredby the Canal du Midi. It was easier to bring grain and take away flour by boat orbring old rags and take away paper. The value of land parcels along the canal alsochanged as they became used for vineyards, yielding new rents for landholders alongthe canal (uncatalogued maps, Chateau de Paraza). Hierarchies within the rulingelite were affected (Jaroniak 1999; Price 1981). The Riquet family gained power inthe province, for example, demonstrating the benefits of working with rather thanagainst the state, and helping finally to lure ruling elites into capitalist alliances withthe crown (Beik 1985; Rolt 1973). In other words, new activity (commercial and not)changed life in central Languedoc as the new built environment opened up and shutdown possibilities for social existence.

IMPERSONAL RULE

The Canal du Midi became an effective medium of political transformation in partbecause it exercised a form of impersonal rule. The new material regime brought thepower of the state down to the local level. It became like a mountain or river inFrance—a physical part of the landscape that locals had to take into account. It wasnot like a political policy or argument that notables could contest. Opponents of theCanal du Midi could poke holes in the embankments of the canal as a “tactic” ofprotest, but if they did, they would only flood a neighbor’s land or their own village.The power of the state would not be breached opponents would confront the powerof water, not the administration.

The canal stood for the state and yet seemed outside politics, gaining power fromits massive presence but also having more effect because of its quasi-invisibility aspower. As long as political authority lay in the interpersonal struggles among theking and ruling elites, material arrangements seemed apolitical (Joyce 2003; Mukerji2006, 2008b). And so structures like the Canal du Midi, even as they clearly shapedsocial relations and stood for the state, nonetheless were hard to understand andcounter as political agents.

Local ruling elites could not build canals of their own to compete with it, either,or design an alternative infrastructure to better serve their needs. It was too costlyand difficult to realize such projects without state support. Even the shifts in thelocal economy that resulted from commerce on the canal were results of impersonalforces that people—including the administration—could not completely control.

Yet, while the Canal du Midi was a palpable instrument of public administration,changing the local order in irreversible ways, it was never completely within statecontrol. It posed risks as it imposed new order. As a configuration of natural materi-als and forces, the Canal du Midi was an impersonal instrument of governance thatdid not always obey the will of the king. The canal had no personal obligation tothe monarch or to its neighbors. It could flood, and whole portions of towns wouldwash away, and administrators could do nothing to stop it. Walls would crumbleand silt would build up over time, and make the canal too shallow for navigation. Itcalled for continued repair work (Henke 2008). The government that had expandedits powers using stewardship principles—promises of a more orderly and abundantnatural world—suddenly faced problems of risk management in the exercise of im-personal rule. The limits of natural knowledge became a political problem as naturalknowledge itself became a significant technique of power (Mukerji 2009a).

Even the people who managed the locks, policed the waterway, and controlledtraffic on the Canal du Midi were configured as impersonal agents of the state in


the seventeenth century. These office holders were early technocrats who stood forthe administration, repaired its assets, and did its work. Although acting in person,they were not like the nobles and high-standing members of the clergy who heldoffices of the state—or even their clients who served them personally. Officials of theCanal du Midi stood for a distant authority that was abstract in its absence, anddistant from the patrimonial networks of local elites.

The formation of offices for the canal began as a politically contentious activity,a site of strategic maneuvering. Once the first leg of the Canal du Midi was openedfor navigation and used actively for the textile trade, there was need for some admin-istrative personnel to police the waterway, work the locks, and regulate trade nearToulouse. So, Riquet went to the Etats du Languedoc to ask for permission to makethe appointments. But they refused, ostensibly because the canal was not finished(and they did not want it to be). Offices in the province were normally allocated bythe Etats as part of local patrimonial practice, but Riquet needed immediate help, sohe asked Colbert to intervene. The king pressured the Etats, giving the entrepreneurhis permission to make the appointments. The result was that office holders for theCanal du Midi were set outside the social world of the Etats, and became a cadreof officers, serving the canal, trade, and the king more than local notables (Mukerji2009a; Rolt 1973). They, too, became instruments of impersonal rule: modern officeholders.

A FIGURED WORLD

On its completion, the Canal du Midi was hailed as a wonder of the world, andwas framed as such through active efforts by Colbert. Why and how this hap-pened is easier to understand by following the events that unfolded when the en-trepreneur Riquet fell ill and died. The story illustrates the continued oppositionof elites to the canal that Colbert countered by representing it as part of the NewRome.

Throughout Riquet’s lifetime, Colbert was wary of local nobles and their op-position to the project. But he mistrusted Riquet even more because he was notnoble; as a financier, the entrepreneur was by definition not necessarily a man ofhis word. In spite of Riquet’s pleas that he was honest and a loyal servant of theking, Colbert saw him as a self-promoter, ambitious upstart, and devious moneymanager. But the minister needed the canal to succeed, so he had to keep Riquet’slocal opponents at bay. That is why he was horrified when the entrepreneur fellill and months later died before the canal was complete. The minister suddenly re-alized that those whose land had been confiscated for the canal could demand itback.

The character of Colbert’s concern became clear in his letters to the intendant,d’Aguesseau, during this period (Colbert 1979 4:372–74, 388–94). The minister wor-ried that Riquet had engaged in graft, and this would finally be revealed in his estate.Local nobles could argue in any case that the contract with the state had not beenfulfilled because of Riquet’s death, but worse, they could argue that the contractshould be considered void if there was evidence of graft (Colbert 1979 4:393–94).There was reason to be concerned. Opponents to the Canal de Briare, near Paris,had killed that project and successfully taken back their land earlier in the century(Pinsseau 1944). So, Colbert wanted to act quickly on Riquet’s death. The ministerasked d’Aguesseau to claim immediately any tax money in Riquet’s hands when hedied, so the family could not steal it. In fact, Riquet had not taken money from the


Figure 1.

treasury, and left his family mostly debts. But that did not solve all the problems.The canal was still not complete.

So, Colbert rushed to the aid of Riquet’s son, publicly announcing his right andduty to complete the contract for the Canal du Midi. The minister pushed, too, tohave the waterway filled and ready for use before the opposition gathered force. Hestudied the books and what needed to be done, and helped the younger Riquet getfinancing for the project (Colbert 1979 4:388–90). Then he turned to propaganda,asking d’Aguesseau to think about preparing something about the wonders of thecanal to publish—perhaps in the journal that covered court affairs: the Mercure(Mukerji 2009a).

The point was to place the canal in a figured world of French grandeur, linking itwith Rome. Colbert wanted to make the canal too important on the public stage forlocals to destroy it. A map of the Canal du Midi, drawn by an engineer who hadworked on the project named Francois Andreossy (Figure 1), illustrated the symbolicwork done to “save” the canal. Andreossy depicted Louis XIV as Apollo in the heav-ens over Languedoc with an entourage of muses and angels. The monarch pointedtoward the Canal du Midi with his finger, indicating that it was his handiwork. TheCanal du Midi was an expression of monarchical will, a material instantiation of his(otherworldly) powers.

The picture of the Canal du Midi in Andreossy’s map and others of the periodshow it as part of Louis XIV’s New Rome, a figured world connecting propagandato state infrastructure. This imagery was convincing because it seemed ratified bythe canal itself: a work of heroic proportions using sophisticated hydraulics worthyof the Romans.


STRATEGICS AND LOGISTICS IN TENSION IN THE STATE

Seen as a strategic asset at its inception, the Canal du Midi was expected to increasemonarchical authority seamlessly. It was meant to increase the king’s personal holdover his kingdom, not set up a system of impersonal rule. But the depersonaliza-tion of governance was so effective in countering patrimonialism that it started tothreaten the king. Colbert did not want to undermine patrimonial politics in France,just weaken the power of local elites and expand the powers of the state to helprealize the king’s dream of a French empire in the image of Rome. But when LouisXIV’s military ambitions were frustrated (Sonnino 1988), France could not becomea great empire, and state infrastructure took on more domestic significance. Col-bert’s projects of territorial improvement empowered the administration more thanthe king, bringing French lands under greater political control but not under thepersonal control of Louis XIV.

In this context, those who exercised logistical power started to become threats tothe king. Their powers were important to the state, but separable from monarchicalstrategic power. The monarch’s personal rule was not supposed to depend on theirimpersonal powers, but it did. In the face of this reversal of influence, the kingsuddenly turned against all three major architects of the French state: Pierre-PaulRiquet, the Chevalier de Clerville, and Sebastian le Prestre de Vauban. Their logisti-cal powers lay hauntingly beyond the patrimonial powers of the king. So, Louis XIVasserted his will by acting willfully, ruining the careers or reputations of all threemen (Mukerji 2010).

Although after Riquet’s death Colbert gave support to his son, before his passingRiquet was disgraced by Colbert and the king’s representative and appointee inLanguedoc, the intendant d’Aguesseau. The intendant initiated the process, voicingconcerns in a letter to Colbert about Riquet’s character. The minister, already surethat the entrepreneur was dishonest and worried that he was also a fool, wrote backsuggesting Riquet was delusional:

I must say [your report] very much disturbed me . . . You have penetrated moredeeply [into] the conduct of M. Riquet and the source of his views on the matterof the vast range that he has given his imagination. Although it might be bestto treat him as ill, we must, nevertheless, apply ourselves with care in orderthat the course and strength of his imaginings does not bring on us a final andgrievous end of all his works . . .. This man does as do great liars do who, aftertelling a story three or four times, persuade themselves it is true . . . It has beensaid to him so many times, even in my own presence, that he is the inventor ofthis great work that in the end he has believed he is in fact the absolute author.(Rolt 1973:91)

The intendant circulated this letter, taking it to the entrepreneur himself to humil-iate him and put him in his place. Instead of being a hero of the regime, Riquet wasmade a laughing stock, and his claims of political importance were made ridiculous(Mukerji 2009a, 2010).

In a sense, Riquet was crazy to brag about his logistical abilities when he waspolitically ill-advised to do so. He was unwise to believe, too, that his work inLanguedoc necessarily served the king’s will. He failed to recognize his debt to LouisXIV for the contract for the canal, thinking it was the child of his imagination. Andso he was publicly embarrassed by d’Aguesseau and Colbert, who used strategicpractices of patron-client gossip and public humiliation to ruin his reputation and


undermine his independent powers. Patrimonialism was made triumphant (Mukerji2009a, 2010).

Clerville was disgraced for similar reasons—to constrain his logistical authorityand stewardship reasoning. He was working for Colbert on repairs for the Alsatianfortresses at Philipsbourg and Brisach. He assumed that executing this work well washis first duty to the king, but it was not. His duty was obedience to the sovereignand his patron. So, he got in trouble for improving the design for a fortress withoutauthorization from the king. Worse, he demanded oversight of the finances for theproject from the intendant, a man appointed directly by Louis XIV. So, he wasreprimanded, and fell out of the king’s favor, leaving Vauban the leading militaryengineer in France. Clerville’s career as an esteemed client of Louis XIV effectivelycame to an end. Like Riquet, he continued to work for Colbert, but his credibilityeven on matters of engineering was diminished (Mukerji 2010).

Vauban made the most stunning political mistake by assuming that good steward-ship was more important to the king than his patrimonial powers. The great militaryengineer had always worried about the well-being of the land and its people, “im-proving” the kingdom with his carefully designed cities and devising tactics for siegesthat better protected the soldiers. The success of his pre carre probably emboldenedhim to think of more ways to act as a good steward of France, using the tools of hisprevious successes: reason and attention to material relations. Whatever the genesisof his proposal for tax reform, the Dıme Royale, Vauban (1707) proposed the newsystem to be less of a burden for the poor and still provide money for the treasuryby taxing nobles as well as everyone else. Vauban reasoned that all the people ofFrance were equally indebted to the king and all were beneficiaries of the state.But as Machiavelli (1996) made clear and Louis XIV understood well, the people inFrance were not all the same. The exemption from taxes for nobles was an importantpart of what kept the nobility loyal to the king, and its great families at the topof the social order. The king’s patrimonial powers depended on the tax system thatVauban proposed to change. So, Vauban was exiled from court and was never ableto speak again to a king who had previously been devoted to him (Mukerji 2010).

All three architects of the French state were disgraced in this period for approach-ing power in new and dangerous ways—in terms of logistics more than strategics,stewardship more than patrimonialism. They became the precursors of modern func-tionaries, and began to think about how to run the state more effectively as thoughthe kingdom was theirs to manage. They mistook their logistical abilities for un-mitigated political assets, and soon learned this was not the case (Colbert 1979;Langins 2004; Mukerji 2007b; Rolt 1973). Louis XIV turned against these men todemonstrate the final authority of monarchical will.

The fall from political grace of the great architects of the French state was tes-timony to the political importance of logistics to this regime that made those withlogistical abilities and stewardship tendencies so threatening (Mukerji 2010). Monar-chical singularity triumphed for the moment, but of course ironically, the canaloutlived Louis XIV and even the system of personal rule he defended. In the FrenchRevolution, the demand for good stewardship in government was raised in a newway and the disjuncture between logistical power and monarchical rule became bothmore evident and more violent.

CONCLUSIONS

The state that emerged in seventeenth-century France was importantly a productof logistical activity. Politics at court remained mainly strategic: forging patrimonial


networks and enforcing the will of the king. But public administration increasinglywas logistical activity that served the state’s institutional independence from thenobility. Colbert used propaganda to reconcile the two political registers to makelogistics seem consistent with the king’s will. But political territoriality organizedstate power around something new and dangerous: natural knowledge and risk. Andusing logistical power for administrative purposes engaged peasants, artisans, mer-chants, and manufacturers more directly with the state, threatening noble hegemonyin politics.

While theories of the modern state often include territoriality as one of the state’sattributes, there has been very little attention to the political significance of territorialgovernance. Without a well-defined concept of logistics, this would necessarily behard to do. Still, as a result, state formation has been reduced mainly to a socialprocess of political change, enhanced by infrastructure, but not formed throughmaterial processes of territorial politics. But looking at the logistics exercised by theadministration under Louis XIV reveals how important territorial activity actuallyturned out to be for empowering the French state and making it a modern institutioncapable of wielding impersonal powers.

Defining logistics as a distinct form of power and following its interplay withstrategic power is not only useful for explaining state formation, but also for consid-ering other moments when disjunctures between strategics and logistics have led topolitical weakness, violence, or transformation. It is frequently the case that peasantrebellions, civil wars, weak governments in contentious societies, and other sites ofconflict arise when strategic and logistical powers are not stably aligned. In somecases, officials of a government cannot control the infrastructure of their country,such as roads, media, airports, or train stations. Control of the political process andcontrol of the landscape are not necessarily continuous, and the disjunctures cancreate patterns of stabilized disorder or sites of recurrent violence. At other times,struggles between superordinates and subordinates are played out as contests be-tween those with strategic power and those with logistical skills. This is often whathappens in peasant societies when agricultural laborers with the logistical knowledgerefuse to use it to serve elites, disrupting an oppressive social order. There are manydifferent forms of contentious politics that might be analyzed by looking at strategicsand logistics. These are only a few examples.

Studying logistics also provides a way to understand how risk became an elementof modern political life. It draws attention to the fundamental ways modern stateswith their obligations of stewardship and their material infrastructures enroll naturalforces into political life, and insert risk into politics. Interstate highways, bridges,railroads, reservoirs, airports, fiber optic systems, and satellites are all taken-for-granted material infrastructures that are never completely under human control.Governments find themselves held responsible for failures that threaten the well-being of the population and land. The agential qualities of natural things continueto be only partly controlled by state agents, so modes of impersonal rule necessarilycontinue to have unintended effects and raise risk management issues.

As could be seen with Hurricane Katrina, building canals and levies implies moralresponsibility by the state and carries political risk. When the levies ruptured in NewOrleans, so did the credibility of the government (Mukerji 2007a). The army corps ofengineers was criticized for poor design and (worse) poor maintenance. And politicalcredibility remains low in New Orleans, too, in part because so many houses remainunrepaired.

Paying attention to built environments as figured worlds of power also providesopportunities for new forms of cultural analysis. As Braudel (1977) has shown,


material regimes work on a slower cycle of history than politics, remaining surpris-ingly unaffected by ideological shifts, rises and falls of political factions, or changesof regime. While the concept of the longue duree is useful for analyzing the varyingperiodicities in history, Braudel treats material regimes as apolitical cultural forma-tions rather than figured worlds carrying logistical power. He recognizes temporaldifferences between strategics and logistics, but does not treat them as different formsof power.

Doing so is useful for thinking about impersonal rule, and, for example, theAmerican interstate highway system. It has exercised logistical power through half acentury of rapidly changing strategic politics, and has even survived the shift froman industrial to a service economy. It has spawned motels and diners, campgroundsand tourist destinations. Some have come, others have gone. The roads are nowfull of passing trucks that serve chain stores and shopping malls in Minnesota,Virginia, or Southern California, making capitalism seem the source of this system—not the roads themselves, nor the machines, cement, gravel, asphalt, and laborers whomade them. These anonymous highways, continually shedding some of their historybut maintaining their form, present America to travelers as wild stretches of landor complexes of freeways that seem the bloodlines of great cities. The collectiveimagination of the country has been configured with asphalt and concrete paths thatdirect human movement past ghettoes and wilderness alike, defining America andAmericans with a figured world of possibility and raw, competitive struggle. Theinterstate highway system is a figured world of the longue duree.

There can be profound shifts in the political significance of material regimes overtime, too. This is apparent in the suburbs of the central valley of California thatwere erected from the 1990s to 2000s. They were originally shining exemplars ofthe “ownership society,” the Jeffersonian ideal of family home ownership extendedto everyone. Such developments were meant to secure the future of the RepublicanParty by making lower-middle-class people property owners with stakes in low taxesand small government. While interest rates were held low to promote home buying,this ideal seemed feasible. But the recession of 2009 led to foreclosures, leavingmany developments half empty. The new suburbs changed political significance,standing now for a failure of stewardship by government: the failure to regulatebanks or the lack of fortitude to let them fail. In both historical moments, the builtenvironment stood as evidence of good or bad stewardship, helping to configurepolitical sentiment in complex and changing ways. On the other hand, the differencesin periodicities between strategics and logistics allowed a shift in the figured worldof suburban America; the landscape did not change but it developed new strategicsignificance and uses.

Together, the constellation of concepts used in this article—logistics, impersonalrule, and figured worlds—help to define a way to do materialist analysis in sociologywithout depending upon Marx’s theory of history or accepting Weber’s rejection ofit. Material orders, as Joyce (2003) has demonstrated, constitute the environments inwhich people live their lives, shaping their subjectivity without their realizing it. Theyare ruled, but they experience themselves as free, while working to fit into spacesdesigned by others.

Perhaps because built environments are so routinely naturalized in social life, thematerial order has been and continues to be the unspoken “elephant in the room”in social theory. Perhaps it is just too hard to recognize an elephant and keep trackof all its wrinkles without a word to name it. So, I have tried in this article to give it


a name, logistics, and to describe its relationship to figured worlds of power. I havetried above all to show how logistics could act as an independent form of power incontest with strategies of social domination.

I have illustrated, too, the historical significance of logistical power, using Frenchstate formation as my example. I have argued that the modern state developed as asystem of impersonal rule and product of political territoriality. Public administrationgained power by becoming politically focused on land management, using materialmeans to adjust internal social relations as well as to pursue power internationally.

Modern states are the most elaborated systems of impersonal rule, each lookingdifferent because their built environments have been developed to address distinctissues of power. They carry their histories in infrastructures as well as stories of greatpolitical leaders, and they build their collective futures with scientific infrastructuresuch as CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) and military basesaround the world. States continue to define their futures with infrastructures suchas the Internet and weapons of war. They continue to exercise logistical power anddevise new tools of impersonal rule.

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Mukerji on Power and Logistics