Inaugurated ideology: An anthropological theory of state identity and transformation

This essay introduces Inaugurated Ideology (Ix), a theoretical framework for understanding how political succession reconfigures governing rationalities through the symbolic articulation, institutional mediation, and uneven translation of state power. Drawing on political anthropology, critical theory, and the study of bureaucracy, Ix conceptualizes executive transition not as a simple change in leadership, but as a performative process through which overlapping temporal and moral orientations are publicly established and differentially enacted across institutions and policy domains. Unlike paradigms or worldviews, Ix is temporally bounded, strategically articulated, and institutionally consequential, often reshaping legal processes, bureaucratic practice, and lived experience without altering formal statutes. Rather than assigning administrations to fixed ideological types, the framework identifies configurations of temporal orientations—reactive, restorative, revolutionary, and pragmatic—together with moral orientations, inclusionary and exclusionary, that combine differently across political contexts. Through an analysis of US administrations from Ronald Reagan to Donald J. Trump's second non-consecutive administration, the essay traces how ideological succession reshapes public discourse, institutional behavior, and state practice across time. It does so through a two-level examination of US immigration governance, first as a broader field in which shifting governing rationalities become visible through executive framing, administrative priority, and uneven institutional translation, and second through the I-485 adjustment-of-status process, where these configurations become materially consequential through mechanisms such as classification, evidentiary thresholds, administrative time, and bureaucratic discretion. In doing so, the essay offers a framework for understanding political transition as a recurring site for the rearticulation of authority, belonging, and state practice.