The Facilitative State and the Symbolic Potency of Mutual Obligation

Abstract

This paper discusses ambiguities of mutual obligation at the levels of: defining the new political middle ground, policies for dealing with non‐compliance, the analytical frames that are used to support it, and discourses of contract. It concludes by locating these ambiguities within the cultural anthropological notion of symbol. As a symbol, mutual obligation has the power to confound its critics — criticism of the notion and its inconsistent policy prescriptions is generally not assessed as right or wrong, but rather is rendered irrelevant.