The entrepreneurial shadow state delivering a smart city

Abstract

Among the many issues that have been discussed under the scholarship of entrepreneurial state, the place of and strategies to mobilize, a shadow state apparatus have so far received little attention. It is particularly relevant from state practices in the Global South. This article gives an account of shadow practices that an entrepreneurial state undertakes in its attempt to deliver a smart city project. It documents a host of practices that essentially blur the boundaries of the formal and shadow state to smoothen business deals and take the neoliberal agendas of the entrepreneurial state forward. The article demonstrates that these shadow practices by formal state actors take place due to the demands of the entrepreneurial zeal of the state, a key facet of neoliberalism. The article contributes toward the scholarship by bringing into focus the salience of caste and kin networks in the quotidian operations of the shadow state.