Q:

Is “erect around” an idiom, or simply a verb＋adverb? 

I came across the phrase “erect around” in the following sentence of the article titled “Campaign 2012: China or America” appearing in New Yorker magazine (April 6), which deals with the elections of the top leaders of two superpower countries in the world taking place this year:
“In the United States, modern political parties strain to project spontaneity and authenticity onto that which is, in fact, highly ritualized: an onward procession of bumps and setbacks and gaffes that rarely veers outside the lines. 
In China, it is the other way around: the Party strains to project solemn ritual onto that which turns out to be brutally untamed. 
This year, the artifice of calm erected around the hidden cut-and-thrust fell away at the hands of Chongqing Communist Party boss, Bo Xilai.”
I don’t think I’ve ever met the expression, *“erect calm." Though I'm familiar with "stay (keep) calm," I'm unfamiliar with the expression like "erect calm," or "erect serene / tranquilness / noise / clamor" around something. To me "calm" doesn't seem to be the thing to be "erected," though it can be secured or built.
Is "erect calm" around something a popular expression? What does the line, “the artifice of calm erected around the hidden cut-and-thrust fell away at the hands of Chongqing Communist Party boss” exactly mean?.

A:

In phrase

... the artifice of calm erected around the hidden cut-and-thrust ...

erected is associated with artifice moreso than with calm.  That is, it says an artifice was erected, an artifice of calm.  The particular arrangement of words in the printed phrase may be a result of editing problems; specifically, the author may have written the edifice of calm erected and an editor may have substituted the more-appropriate noun artifice but failed to modify the now-inappropriate verb erected, to, for example, constructed or maintained or enveloping.  
Note that ngrams for erect an edifice,erected edifice,edifice erected shows that edifice/erected combinations appear in print often enought that an editor may regard the combination as cliched.

