Political order is consolidated through deliberate manipulation of symbols.

Evidence

An example of the intentional creation of symbols for political purposes was provided by the Czech leader and playwright Vaclav Havel, who saw the end of socialism and the advent of a changing political order in his country as the staging of a new play calling for more than just a change of actors. Within a few months of becoming president he had commissioned new military uniforms, parades and protocols, fanfares, statues, and coins (Absurdistan, BBC2, May 28, 1990). — Diego Gambetta, The Sicilian Mafia The Business of…, 945

Categorization

• XREF: Havel’s symbolic state-building is the legitimate-state mirror of the mafia’s own symbolic signaling — useful for the reader’s private-protection contrast.