In this Chapter, I have shown that the evolution of village elites into state agents was an
integral part of process of state formation at the grassroots. It was the necessity of the
state for access to villagers and their resources that facilitated the rise of village officials in Indonesia. The state has established patrimonial ties with relatively homogenous local
elites, and used them to make rural life accessible and identifiable for the center. While
rural life was reorganized chiefly in functional and territorial terms, the patrimonial ties
were preserved as the primary means of mobilizing the population (surrender of communal
resources—land and labor) by force and consensus in the process of state formation. Hence, the political structure was in many ways characterized by dualism which perpetuated ambiguous boundaries between state actors and social forces. As Chapter