Peasant resistance to conscription catalyzed a new regime of state control

Evidence

On a deeper level, then, this chapter has argued that the significance of conscription in Mehmed Ali’s army exceeds the sheer weight of the number of those gathered or its impact on the demographic composition of the countryside. Conscription, the population’s aversion and reaction to it, and the government’s attempts to counteract this resistance formed the impetus for the implementation in Egypt of a radically different system of controlling and governing the country. Resorting to physical force as represented by the conscription gang was no longer thought effective in tapping the country’s human resources. Gradually a shift to more subtle, hidden techniques of power took place, represented by the tezkere, the register, and ultimately the census. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 490

Categorization

• XREF: Foucault’s shift from sovereign to disciplinary power — surveillance, registers, census as modern statecraft — connects to the broader reading on how states see populations (Scott’s ‘Seeing Like a State’). — connects to: Recruitment excesses triggered the Dahomey revolt led by aristocrats; Egyptian peasant conscription began as a three-year substitute for Turkish troops; Conscription transformed the relation between Egyptian government and governed (+11 more)
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 490

Broader Connections

• Egyptian peasants strongly resisted conscription into the modern army #corroborates (0.70)