Paper short abstract

Based on ethnographic research in Limassol, this paper examines the Planning Amnesty as a case of atmospheric governance, showing how shared expectations, tolerance, and anticipation shaped everyday state–citizen relations long before legal formalization.

Paper long abstract

This paper examines how political and legal authority in the Republic of Cyprus is experienced, negotiated, and reshaped through everyday atmospheres that emerge in mundane encounters with the state. Drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork in Limassol, the paper focuses on the so-called Planning Amnesty, a legal exception that retrospectively legalized widespread informal building practices. Rather than treating the amnesty as a top-down policy decision, the paper approaches it as the outcome of an atmospheric form of governance that preceded formal legalization. Based on ethnographic observations of everyday interactions and bureaucratic settings, the paper traces how atmospheres of tolerance, anticipation, arbitrariness, and tacit permissiveness came to structure state–citizen relations long before the amnesty was officially enacted. Citizens learned to sense these atmospheres and to act within them through practical mastery: knowing when rules could be bent, when enforcement was unlikely, and when patience or inaction would eventually be rewarded. These competencies were not articulated as political claims or acts of resistance, but emerged through repeated exposure to affective cues, material arrangements, and culturally intimate understandings of how the state operates. The paper argues that such atmospheres function as techniques of governance by shaping expectations and coordinating behavior without explicit directives. The Planning Amnesty did not merely respond to widespread informal practices but formalized an already existing, licit regime. The paper contributes to debates on law and citizenship, showing how political and legal authority is enacted through ordinary encounters rather than solely through institutions, laws, or exceptional political events.