Sovereignty always relies on a double movement of violence and care. It requires the power to exercise violence as well as the capacity to care, to protect, and to nourish. In the footsteps of Foucault and Agamben, numerous scholars have rediscovered the same paradox in philosophical and legal texts. Anthropologists writing about informal and practical sovereignty pay attention to violence, but sometimes ignore the importance of care for the exercise of sovereignty. Against such tendencies to focus on texts and on violence, this article deals with sovereignty as care. The concrete examples are the relationships of care between commanders, soldiers, and villagers in the Wa State of Myanmar, a de-facto state governed by an insurgent army. In the absence of an effective government bureaucracy, popular sovereignty in this military state relies on a particular logic of personal relations, in which care is central. Subordinates have to care about leaders, whereas leaders are supposed to care for subordinates. Care provides the balance and foil for the exercise of violence, and both are necessary for the exercise of sovereignty. The combination of violence and care in personal relations is scaled up to create “the people” as the subject and object of sovereignty. The article describes the logic of personal relations that allows for the exercise of popular sovereignty in the Wa State and elsewhere.

主权总是依赖于暴力和关怀的双重运动。它需要行使暴力的能力以及关怀、保护和滋养的能力。追随福柯和阿甘本的脚步，许多学者在哲学和法律文本中重新发现了同样的悖论。撰写关于非正式和实际主权的人类学家关注暴力，但有时会忽略关注行使主权的重要性。与这种关注文本和暴力的趋势相反，本文将主权视为关怀。具体的例子是缅甸佤邦的指挥官、士兵和村民之间的关怀关系，这是一个由叛军统治的事实上的国家。在缺乏有效的政府官僚机构的情况下，这个军事国家的人民主权依赖于个人关系的特殊逻辑，其中关怀是核心。下属必须关心关于领导者，而领导者应该关心下属。关怀为暴力的行使提供了平衡和陪衬，两者都是行使主权所必需的。个人关系中暴力和关怀的结合被放大，以创造“人民”作为主权的主体和客体。这篇文章描述了允许在佤邦和其他地方行使人民主权的个人关系的逻辑。