States possess character that is shaped in racial terms

Evidence

Elsewhere I have referred to this mix of institutional character and its permissible scope and styles of expression, relation, discontent, and response as the “personality” of the state, as “state character.” The state and the social life it shapes, enables, supports or enervates, as well as the global relations states anchor, take on a particular character or hue as a consequence, a disposition towards people defined as and in terms of population or group belonging. … The personality of the state ennobles or disables certain sorts of persons and actions, orders “proper” or “improper” social relations, provides the landscape and the contours of being and longing, horizons of possibility and impermissibility in more or less acceptable or adjustable modes of belonging. In contemporary states, in those states where civility has been so much in contest, the landscape and contours of state personality have been deeply defined and refined in racial terms, figuring a racial character to state personality. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 256

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces ‘personality of the state’ or ‘state character’ as a conceptual framework for analyzing how institutions encode dispositions toward population groups.
• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how abstract institutions materialize as felt dispositions, comparable to BMF-adjacent thinking about infrastructure as character. — connects to: State character is deeply shaped in racial terms in contemporary states. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 257; States develop a character that disposes them toward populations defined by group belonging. — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race: Reflections on…, 256; Racial states actively define populations into racial groups through state apparatuses — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 1688 (+3 more)