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This paper analyses how the public policies of potable water distribution have influenced the perceptions people in Villa Chaquimayu, a marginalized neighbourhood of Cochabamba (Bolivia), have about the State. This analysis is based on the theoretical distinction between 'State-system' and 'State-idea' proposed by Abrams (1988). Following Abrams, this paper examines both the practices the Bolivian State has implemented to deliver potable water to Villa Chaquimayu (State-system), and the notions people in this neighbourhood have about the State (State-idea). By using ethnographic data, this investigation shows that a deficient public management of potable water distribution has negatively influenced people's ideas and perceptions about what is the State.

In a famous article from 1959, David Easton claimed that political anthropology has nothing to tell a political scientist, since it does not treat the state as a separate sphere. To make such a claim, Easton had to assume stability in the distribution of functions between the Westphalian state & the co-existing society, similarity between European Westphalian states, & likeness between the European state & all other states in the world. Fifty years later it seems to be clear why Easton was mistaken, & why state comparisons that do not problematize the historical & sociological conditions of every single state formation have failed. If one wants to understand the state in the age of globalization, the point of departure must be to ask how the relationship between state & society continuously changes, not if it does. As Easton points out, this is exactly what political anthropology mainly has focused on. The article gives an overview of how this has been done, from Lewis Henry Morgan to James C. Scott. It calls on political scientists to study the state empirically to a higher degree, as an endogenous part of the analysis or a dependent variable, rather than treating it as either a given starting point, an exogenous part of the analysis, or an independent variable. 44 References. Adapted from the source document.