Product Description The advent of information technology ushered in new forms of political power. Machines play crucial roles in how states see, understand, and act, and scrutiny of these processes lies at the heart of Identify and Sort. It frames debates about IT in world politics, explaining how industrial sorting systems employed by political actors are renegotiating the social contract between individuals and the state. Ansorge takes the reader on a global expedition that tracks the historical antecedents of digital power, from Aztec and Inca rituals, to medieval filing systems, to a grandiose 1930s design for a German registry, to the databases used in US presidential campaigns and how IT is deployed in war and post-conflict reconstruction.Databases are also deployed virtually to record and act upon people who have no publicly visible identification or group consciousness; modern wars and election campaigns are fought on this individualised terrain. The uneven distribution of these technical capacities engenders inequality of access, while rights discourses and legal frameworks forged in an era of mass group discrimination, subjugation, and public resistance lag behind these micro-targeting practices. Rich in examples and ideas, Identify and Sort develops an analytical model and vocabulary to explain the functions and limits of digital power in world politics. Review "Identify and Sort is a fascinating work that takes the process of investigation, identification and, one might add, manipulation from the ancient world down to a window on the future. Ansorge looks at the moral, legal and personal implications of supervision and identification through history and in the digital present. He provides information and asks questions about the utilities and modalities of specification and its often contradictory personal and administrative/political functions. In the process, and it is a book about process, he also presents an analysis of how the human mind works analogously across cultures. The book is stimulating, informative and provocative." -- Amb. Robert P. Finn, Non-Resident Fellow, Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination, Woodrow Wilson School, Princeton University"A radical take on information technology and political power where the sovereign is refigured as the one that identifies and sorts. Ansorge provides the astute analysis and the practical tools to challenge these new forms of political-digital-power. He shows how we live in a global regime of a technics of politics that appropriates our subjectivity, and how we are able to re-appropriate our personhood, if we first understand that it is being taken from us." -- Jenny Edkins, Professor of International Politics, Aberystwyth University "With this book, Josef Ansorge distinguishes himself as one of our most promising and innovative young scholars. Drawing on a capacious and intellectually dazzling range of disciplines and lines of inquiry, he offers an original and provocative new way of understanding the creation and evolution of the state, its complex relationships with citizens and society, and the very meaning of human identity." -- William Inboden, Executive Director and William Powers, Jr. Chair, Clements Center, University of Texas, Austin "From ancient rituals to modern databases, this is a fascinating account of the techniques of sovereign power in our time. Drawing on a distinction made by Foucault, but not pursued by him in the impressive way Ansorge has done, this study shifts our attention from the internalization of political authority to the methods used for controlling populations without their awareness. Full of insights, Identify and Sort is a book that should be read by everyone concerned to understand modern power." --Talal Asad, Distinguished Professor, Graduate Center, The City University of New York "Brilliant and riveting. From the history of ear-cutting in ancient Egypt to the disambiguation protocols of modern digital