Laws and regulations still require human agents who often subvert them

Evidence

Inasmuch as modern laws, regulations and disciplinary devices might create a framework which, as Mitchell would say, appear prior to things in themselves, “conjuring up … the prior abstractions of progress, reason, law, discipline … and order,” the fact remains that these devices still do not execute themselves; they needed an agency to come to life, in spite of their pretence at autonomy and self-enunciation. And as was seen with the case of the sentries and guards who were expected to execute the laws and regulations aiming at creating ideas of “inside” and “outside,” these agencies were often behaving in a manner that was not particularly representative of any abstract notions of “progress, reason, law, discipline … [or] order.” — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 1179

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in institutional failure across the Ottoman/Egyptian military story, and to Mitchell’s ‘Rule of Experts’ framing of modern state power.