A public authority can build quasi-sovereign autonomy over territory

Evidence

Anyone who doubted Triborough’s autonomy had only to look at its trappings. The empire had its own flag and great seal, distinctive license plates and a self-contained communications network, an elaborate teletype hookup that linked the gray building and the provincial capitals at Belmont Lake, Massena and Niagara. It even had its own island—Randall’s—on which it administered every structure and every inch of land. Randall’s Island was near the geographic center of New York, but the waters of the East River, Bronx Kill and Hell Gate were a moat between it and the city, and from the air, with its hundreds of acres of lawn, the island appeared separate, a bright green oasis, sharply defined by a blue border, in the midst of the city’s vast grayness. And the separateness was more than symbolic: no inhabitant of the city could drive across the island without paying Triborough a tribute in coin. — Robert A. Caro, The Power Broker, 69

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Collective utility has prevailed over sovereign rights as the axis of modern government — Michel Foucault, The Birth of Biopolitics: Lectures at…, 368; Rule by decree dominates empires efficiently by withholding information and overriding local autonomy — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 621; Sovereignty produces a will to law rather than a rule of law — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 418 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Remote colonial subregions ran on delegated autonomy of junior officials #exemplifies (0.85) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1019
• Rule by decree dominates empires efficiently by withholding information and overriding local autonomy #complicates (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 621
• Sovereignty fragments into overlapping partial rights to rule. #complicates (0.75) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 122
• Sovereignty produces a will to law rather than a rule of law #expands (0.72) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 418