Thread by @donmoyn

With the season finale of #Andor, I wrote about what the show tells us about the administrative state that underpins the Empire, and lessons for governing more broadly.

(Spoilers ahead, though not specifically about the finale).
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…

One lesson of #Andor is that poor contracting decisions can generate a lot of reputational damage donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…

You could pair #Andor with James Scott's "Seeing Like a State": A bureaucracy is constructed to monitor and extract resources from distant communities, but a failure to understand local communities becomes its undoing.

The Empire's tendency toward brittle authoritarianism reflects bureaucratic incentive structures, where bland careerists become fascists to grab the rung on the ladder. See Arendt’s banality of evil: donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…

For the last few years, I have talked to my students going into public service a lot about how bureaucrats respond when they are working for corrupt regimes. Some stay loyal, but some engage in sabotage. This is also part of the story of the Empire's bureaucracy.

#Andor also deals with the organizational structure of the rebellion, which is a emergent dark network that still have not built qualities that theorists like @BrintMilward show are essential for networks: trust, means of coordination and norms of reciprocity.

The final point is about the psychological costs of the rebellion for its participants. Fighting an authoritarian regime is personally costly in a way we do not see in the Star Wars movies.
This was reflected in Luthen's speech in episode 10.

That toll of fighting the Empire related of the toll of living under totalitarianism. Maarva's speech in the finale is the complement to Luthen, but comes from the same logic: at some point the costs of fighting make sense compared to the gradual loss of freedom.

Shout out to people whose tweets and research I drew on to write this: @_Oliver_James_ @SebJilke @StevenVdWalle @BrintMilward @AdamSerwer @jbouie @allafarce.
I want to hear from @Georgetown students who want to see this topic turned into a course!!
donmoynihan.substack.com/p/the-administ…