The relationship between governments and the citizens they seek to rule is central to understanding politics and society in the contemporary world. This collaborative research project was a departure from macro-historical studies of state power, relying instead on ethnography, archival research, interviews, historical narratives, and textual analysis to develop a local understanding of “the state” that reveals how authorities (from prime ministers to police officers) evaluate political threats, create social structures, and construct categories of legality and criminality. By studying interactions between states and criminal organizations in Latin America, policing and social control in urban America, and violence and state building in post-colonial South Asia, the project bridged regions, methodologies, and disciplines. Ultimately, through a series of collaborative workshops and a culminating conference, the project aimed to create a new ‘Chicago School’ on the state, violence, and social control.