What if the job of police was to cultivate the political will of a community to live with itself (rather than enforce law, keep order, or fight crime)? In Sentiment, Reason, and Law, Jeffrey T. Martin describes a world where that is the case.

The Republic of China on Taiwan spent nearly four decades as a single-party state under dictatorial rule (1949-1987) before transitioning to liberal democracy. Here, Martin describes the social life of a neighborhood police station during the first rotation in executive power following the democratic transition. He shows an apparent paradox of how a strong democratic order was built on a foundation of weak police powers, and demonstrates how that was made possible by the continuity of an illiberal idea of policing. His conclusion from this paradox is that the purpose of the police was to cultivate the political will of the community rather than enforce laws and keep order.

As Sentiment, Reason, and Law shows, the police force in Taiwan exists as an "anthropological fact," bringing an order of reality that is always, simultaneously and inseparably, meaningful and material. Martin unveils the power of this fact, demonstrating how the politics of sentiment that took shape under autocratic rule continued to operate in everyday policing in the early phase of the democratic transformation, even as a more democratic mode of public reason and the ultimate power of legal right were becoming more significant.

About the Author

Jeffrey T. Martin is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Follow him on X @jematica.

Reviews

Jeff Martin's book is a very welcome volume in Cornell's ground-breaking Police/ Worlds series on security, crime and governance, and this book offers the kind of sustained intellectual analysis of police that I wish I had been able to read as a neophyte comparative criminological researcher prior to visiting Taiwan nearly twenty years ago. Sentiment, Reason, and Law does precisely that, and invites us to consider what concepts, contexts and forms are most pertinent for building a reflective relation to the present. Martin spent almost a decade living in Taiwan, and this book is a fittingly rich intellectual legacy of his sojourn on that enchanted island.

* The China Quarterly *

Jeffrey T. Martin's book is a masterful addition to the ethnographic literature both on the anthropology of the state and for the anthropology of police and policing. The strength of the book lies in the in-depth fieldwork that, combined with a refusal of presentism, enables Martin to distance himself from culturalism and present Taiwanese police and its work as part of a historical process. Thus, this book can be highly recommended as a contribution to the anthropology of policing and of the state.

* Polar *



Book Information
ISBN 9781501740053
Author Jeffrey T. Martin
Format Paperback
Page Count 186
Imprint Cornell University Press
Publisher Cornell University Press
Weight(grams) 454g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 14mm