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The term '[[Ideological ]] [[State ]] [[Apparatus]]' was coined by Althusser in his influential essay 'Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses'. Althusser begins this essay by wondering how [[society ]] reproduces itself; more specifically, he examines the reasons why a [[capitalist ]] society remains capitalist and does not, for example, lapse into frequent bouts of [[anarchy ]] and feudalism. What, in [[other ]] [[words]], compels us to turn up to [[work ]] every day, rather than setting up independent dictatorships whenever we feel like it? His first answer is that the State has at its disposal large reserves of troops, police and prisons with which it can physically quell any [[revolt]]. These reserves belong to what Althusser [[terms ]] the Repressive State Apparatus. As the title suggests, the Repressive State Apparatus consists of all the ways in which the State can [[control ]] a population by force. As we saw in the last chapter, for Žižek it is by means of the Repressive State Apparatus-that is by means of [[physical ]] coercion and [[violence]]-that the reign of the law is initially secured.
However, having secured the initialization of the law, how is the law then maintained? In a last resort, the State can always call upon the Repressive State Apparatus to buttress its [[authority]], such as happens on a micro level with petty crime, and on a macro level with mass demonstrations or revolutions. On a day-to-day basis, though, the State requires a population trained and moulded for its various roles in the [[Symbolic ]] [[Order]], not one which [[needs ]] to be prodded out of bed every morning with a bayonet. This, then, for Althusser, is where the Ideological State Apparatuses play their part. The Ideological State Apparatuses are those institutions which [[help ]] reproduce [[capitalism ]] by providing it with [[subjects ]] who are willing to fulfil their [[role ]] in it. Althusser proposes that the Ideological State Apparatuses are made up of the Churches, the education [[system]], the [[family ]] unit, the [[legal ]] system, the [[political ]] system, trade unions, the communications [[media ]] and [[culture]]. All of these institutions work primarily by means of ideology, rather than by force.
One of the problems with Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses, however, is precisely the way in which these institutions are supposed to inscribe subjects within ideology. For Althusser this is a matter of what he terms 'interpellation' or 'hailing'. As Althusser proposes, interpellation 'can be imagined along the lines of the most common-[[place ]] everyday police (or other) hailing: "Hey, you there!"' (quoted in MI: 131). In Althusser's [[model]], if you are hailed in this way, you will almost invariably recognize yourself in the call and [[think ]] that it is precisely you who is [[being ]] hailed. For Žižek this model of interpellation fails to explain how an Ideological State Apparatus creates [[belief ]] in an ideology. How is merely being hailed enough to make you believe in ideology? The solution to this problem, according to Žižek, is to view Ideological State Apparatuses as ideology machines in the Pascalian [[sense]]. That is, Ideological State Apparatuses are mechanisms which generate a belief in a [[particular ]] system, creating a conviction in the rectitude of that system before we are even aware of it. They [[unconsciously ]] pre-empt our belief and thereby habituate us to it.
INTERPELLATION
In [[Althusser]]'s [[theory]] of [[ideology]], [[interpellation]] is the [[mechanism]] that produces [[subject]]s in such a way that they recognize their own [[existence]] in terms of the dominant [[ideology]] of the society in which they live. (1970).
The [[French]] ''[[interpellation]]'' is commonly used to mean 'being taken in by the police for questioning', it also means the 'questioning' of a minister in parliament.
[[Althusser]]'s basic illustration of the mechanism exploits this sense of 'questioning' or 'hailing'.
An [[individual]] [[walking]] down the street is hailed by a police officer - 'Hey, you there!' - and turns round to recognize the fact that he is being addressed.
In doing so, that [[individual]] is constituted as a [[subject]].
According to [[Althusser]], the [[idea]] of interpellation demonstrates that [[subject]]s are always and already the products of [[ideology]], and thus subverts the [[idealist]] [[thesis]] that [[subjectivity]] is primary or [[self]]-founding.
==Vaneigem==
A similar [[notion]] of [[interpellation]] can be found in [[Vaneigem]]'s contribution to the theory of [[situationism]] (1967).
Confronted by the flow of [[sign]]s and [[image]]s that cosntitute [[Debord]]'s '[[society of the spectacle]]', [[individual]]s are constantly [[interpellated]] by posters, advertisements and stereotypes offering [[universal]] [[image]]s in which they are invited to recognize themselves.
The function of [[interpellation]] is to block spontaneous [[creativity]].
Whether or not there is any direct connection between the two notions of [[interpellation]] remains unclear.
==See Also==
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[[Category:Politics]]
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