Administrative Repair

This chapter describes the routine work of “paichusuo” patrolmen, which presents the theoretical goal of specifying their particular contribution to the city's order. It characterizes the unique professional competence of patrolmen as a kind of “administrative repair” that deploys the power of inscription to facilitate the political processes by which people curate their common world. The chapter also explores some of the techniques Taiwanese police use to do their work. It focuses on the nature of the boundary that sets police power apart from the other kinds of power at work in the city's political metabolism. It also demonstrates what unconventional possibilities the idea of a police power grounded in a political ethic of care might reveal.