Integrates historical perspectives with classical anthropological treatments of political power and conflict
Offers original anthropological takes on some of political science's and political philosophy's major themes: Western democracy, conceptions of freedom, the role of the public sector, bureaucracy, and modernity

Explores equality as an issue of negotiation and social control

Autorentext
Halvard Vike is Professor of Anthropology at University College of Southeast Norway and Telemark Research Institute, Norway. He has more than 25 years of experience with ethnographic work in political contexts in Norway, and been much involved in applied research on local arenas. His main area of interest is the emergence and transformation of political institutions and states.

Inhalt

1. Local Politics in the Welfare State: Patterns of Conflict and Political Practice.- 2. Cross Cutting Cleavages, the Politics of Resistance and Social Control.- 3. Local Politics in Historical Perspective.- 4. Culminations of Complexity: Practicing Bureaucracy in Local Worlds.- 5. The Welfare Municipality: Universalism, Gender, and Service Provision.- 6. Post-Liberal Horizons: Conceptions of Freedom in the Northern Periphery.- 7. The Future of the Welfare State in an Age of Centralization.