[AmbiStates] Ambiguous State Spaces: Everyday Governance and Fragmented Authority in Southern Jordan
Ente: EC
Scadenza: 2029-08-31
Importo max: 263.393 EUR
Paese: EU
Descrizione
Authoritarian regimes increasingly govern not through coherent bureaucracies but through fragmented, hybrid, and semi-privatized arrangements such as Special Economic Zones (SEZs), Government-Organized NGOs (GONGOs), and Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs). These ambiguous state spaces (ASSs) obscure authority while redistributing power in opaque, discretionary ways. Existing scholarship on the “state effect” and “ambiguities of domination” has shown how states appear monolithic through everyday practices—even when citizens are cynical. This project pushes state theory further by asking what happens when the state no longer seeks to appear unified, but instead institutionalizes fragmentation as a deliberate mode of rule.
The project interrogates state-society relations in ambiguous state spaces, while developing a framework for analyzing power through ambiguity. Two specific aims guide the study: (1) to investigate the spatial effects of ASSs—how SEZs or regime-linked GONGOs reshape the symbolic, scalar, and bureaucratic contours of authority; and (2) to examine citizens’ everyday practices—how they navigate opacity, uncertain authority, and retreating welfare provision.
Empirically, the project focuses on two peripheral sites in southern Jordan—Aqaba and Tafileh—where governance has been reconfigured through SEZs and GONGOs. Methodologically, it combines participatory mapping, discourse analysis, and interviews to capture both institutional self-representations and citizen perspectives.
By treating ambiguous state spaces as core features of governance, the project contributing to MSCA’s goals by generating innovative concepts, interdisciplinary methods, and transferable insights into how governance is reshaped under neoliberal restructuring and authoritarian resilience, while also fostering collaborations and training and positioning CCRS as a hub for comparative debates—showing how theorizing from the periphery generates globally relevant insights.
Settori: Horizon Europe Topics
Vai al bando originale
Registrati gratis su Bandolo per trovare bandi compatibili con la tua azienda.