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In the electronic age, documents appear to have escaped their paper confinement. But we are still surrounded by flows of paper with enormous consequences. In the planned city of Islamabad, order and disorder are produced through the ceaseless inscription and circulation of millions of paper artifacts among bureaucrats, politicians, property owners, villagers, imams (prayer leaders), businessmen, and builders. What are the implications of such a thorough paper mediation of relationships among people, things, places, and purposes? Government of Paper explores this question in the routine yet unpredictable realm of the Pakistani urban bureaucracy, showing how the material forms of postcolonial bureaucratic documentation produce a distinctive political economy of paper that shapes how the city is constructed, regulated, and inhabited. Files, maps, petitions, and visiting cards constitute the enduring material infrastructure of more ephemeral classifications, laws, and institutional organizations. Matthew S. Hull develops a fresh approach to state governance as a material practice, explaining why writing practices designed during the colonial era to isolate the government from society have become a means of participation in it.

Bureaucracy -- Pakistan -- Isla ̄ma ̄ba ̄d. --- Capitals (Cities) -- Pakistan -- Planning. --- City planning -- Pakistan -- Isla ̄ma ̄ba ̄d. --- Government paperwork -- Pakistan -- Isla ̄ma ̄ba ̄d. --- Isla ̄ma ̄ba ̄d (Pakistan) -- Politics and government. --- Municipal government -- Pakistan -- Records and correspondence. --- Public records -- Pakistan -- Isla ̄ma ̄ba ̄d. --- Government paperwork --- Bureaucracy --- Capitals (Cities) --- City planning --- Public records --- Municipal government --- Interorganizational relations --- Political science --- Public administration --- Organizational sociology --- Federal paperwork --- Paper work, Government --- Paperwork, Government --- Office practice in government --- Paperwork (Office practice) --- Cities and towns --- City government --- Municipal administration --- Municipal reform --- Municipalities --- Urban politics --- Local government --- Metropolitan government --- Municipal corporations --- Government records --- Records --- Archives --- Government information --- Civic planning --- Land use, Urban --- Model cities --- Redevelopment, Urban --- Slum clearance --- Town planning --- Urban design --- Urban development --- Urban planning --- Land use --- Planning --- Art, Municipal --- Civic improvement --- Regional planning --- Urban policy --- Urban renewal --- Capital cities --- Records and correspondence --- Government --- Government policy --- Management --- Islāmābād (Pakistan) --- Islāmābād --- اسلام آباد (Pakistan) --- Politics and government. --- builders. --- bureaucracy. --- bureaucratic documentation. --- bureaucrats. --- businessmen. --- colonial era. --- contemporary history. --- imams. --- islamabad. --- legal anthropology. --- material infrastructure. --- materials. --- middle east scholars. --- middle east. --- modern pakistan. --- nonfiction. --- pakistan. --- paper artifacts. --- paper documents. --- paper mediation. --- political economy. --- politicians. --- postcolonialism. --- property owners. --- social science. --- state government. --- urban bureaucracy. --- urban landscape. --- urbanism. --- villagers.