In a new book, Officious: Rise of the Busybody State, Josie Appleton argues that the new officials and new regulation represent a new logic of state organisation and a new set of relations between citizens and state. Appleton analyses the distinct forms of legal regulation and institutional forms that define the ‘busybody state’, and shows how these forms are a violation of classical modern state forms. She shows how the state has come to represent the principle of the rule and the restriction of freedom as an end in itself – and to define itself against the shady and dubious citizenry.
