Theories of the State: Comparative Perspectives
4 credits
Nitsan Chorev
In this course we will explore a variety of competing perceptions regarding the state and the political process of
decision-making. We will review a range of sociological perspectives from pluralism, neo-Marxism and historical
institutionalism to feminist and post-structuralist approaches. For empirical explorations, we will use case studies
from America, Europe and Africa. Equipped with this theoretical knowledge we will also regard, as concluding
topics, the recent experience of Central Eastern Europe, and the challenges globalization poses to everything we
thought we know about the state.
Requirements
A. Read thoughtfully in advance and participate. You are expected to do the readings before the class meeting for
which they are assigned, and to participate actively in class meetings.
You are not expected to read the “additional readings.” These can be used as an accessible source for your research
paper.
B. Research paper. You need to write a 5,000-word research paper, in which you apply a theory (or compare the
explanatory strength of competing theories) for analyzing an empirical case-study you are interested in.
Course evaluation
Class participation and activity: 30%
Final paper: 70%
***
Weekly readings
1. On the Difficulty of Studying the State
Nettl, J. P. 1968. “The State as a Conceptual Variable.” World Politic 20: 559-592.
Abrams, Philip. 1988 [1977]. “Notes on the Difficulty of Studying the State.” Journal of Historical Sociology 1(1):
58-69.
2. The notion of “power” in political thought
Gaventa, John. 1982. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana:
University of Illinois Press. Pp. 3-44.
Additional readings
Bachrach, Peter and Morton S. Baratz. 1962. “Two Faces of Power.” American Political Science Review 56(4): 947952.
Bachrach, Peter and Morton S. Baratz. 1963. “Decisions and nondecisions: An Analytical Framework.” American
Political Science Review 57(3): 632-642.
Lukes, Steven. 1986. “Introduction.” Pp. 1-18 in Power, edited by Steven Lukes. New York: New York University
Press.
3. Society-centered approaches: pluralism
Polsby, Nelson W. 1960. “How to Study Community Power: The Pluralist Alternative.” Journal of Politics 22: 474484.
Dahl, Robert. 1961. Who Governs? Democracy and Power in an American City. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Pp. 1-8, 89-103, 223-228, 271-275.
Additional readings
Polsby, Nelson W. 1963. Community Power and Political Theory. Yale University Press. [320.9/73 POL]
Manley, John F. 1983. “Neo-Pluralism: A Class Analysis of Pluralism I and Pluralism II.” American Political
Science Review 77: 368-83
Lindblom, Charles E. 1983. “Comment on Manley.” American Political Science Review 77: 384-6
Dahl, Robert. 1983. “Comment on Manley.” American Political Science Review 77: 386-9.
4. Society-centered approaches: the power elite
Mills, C. Wright. 1956. The Power Elite. Pp. 3-29, 269-297.
Domhoff, William G. 1990. “Social Networks, Power, and the State.” Pp. 1-15 in The Power Elite and the State:
How Policy is Made in America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
Additional readings
Dahl, Robert A. 1958. “A Critique of the Ruling Elite Model.” American Political Science Review 52: 463-9.
Bell, Daniel. 1958. “The Power Elite Reconsidered.” American Journal of Sociology 64: 238-50.
Lachman, Richard. 2003. “Elite-Self Interest and Economic Decline in Early Modern Europe.” American
Sociological Review 68(3): 346-372.
Additional readings: power elite in Central Eastern Europe
I. Konrad, George and Ivan Szelenyi. 1979. The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power. New York: Harcourt
Brace Jovanovich. Pp. 85-142.
II. Ivan Szelenyi. 1986/87. “The Prospects and Limits of the East European New Class Project: An Autocritical
Reflection on The Intellectuals on the Road to Class Power.” Politics and Society 15 (2): 103-144.
III. Eyal, Gil, Evan Szelenyi and Eleanor Townsley. 1998. Making Capitalism without Capitalists: The New Ruling
Elites in Eastern Europe. London: Verso. P. 17-45.
5. Marxist instrumentalism: Ralph Miliband
Poulantzas, Nicos. 1969. “The Problem of the Capitalist State.” New Left Review 58: 67-78.
Miliband, Ralph. 1983 [1970]. “The Capitalist State: Two Exchanges with Nicos Poulantzas,” in Class Power and
State Power. London: Verso. Pp. 26-35.
Additional readings
Miliband, Ralph. 1969. State in Capitalist Society. London: Quartet Books. [320.1 MIL].
Miliband, Ralph. 1983. “State Power and Class Interests,” in Class Power and State Power. London: Verso. Pp. 6378. [].
Miliband, Ralph. 1965. “Marx and the State,” The Socialist Register. Reprinted in Class Power and State Power.
London: Verso. [].
6. Marxist-structuralism [1]: Nicos Poulantzas
Miliband, Ralph. 1983 [1973]. “The Capitalist State: Two Exchanges with Nicos Poulantzas,” in Class Power and
State Power. London: Verso. Pp. 35-48.
Poulantzas, Nicos. 1976. “The Capitalist State: A Reply to Miliband and Laclau.” New Left Review 95: 63-83.
Abraham, David. 1977. “State and Classes in Weimer Germany.” Politics and Society. 7(3): 229-66.
Additional reading
Nicos Poulantzas. 1978. State, Power, Socialism. New York: Verso. Pp. 11-27, 35-46, 49-53, 123-160.
Nicos Poulantzas. 1973. Political Power and Social Classes. New York: Verso. Pp. 25-141 (especially: 25-33, 44-50,
73-77, 104-114, 130-137), 147-152; 187-194, 225-245 (especially 229-234), 255-289 (especially 275-289), 296-321
(especially 317-321). [].
Barrow, Clyde W. “The Miliband-Poulantzas Debate: An Intellectual History.” In Paradigm Lost: State Theory
Reconsidered. Edited by Stanley Aronowitz and Peter Bratsis. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Pp. 352.
Work that adopts and extends Poulantzas’ framework
Therborn, Goran. 1978. What Does the Ruling Class Do When It Rules? Prometheus Books [320.1 THE].
Abraham, David. 1979. “Constituting Hegemony: The Bourgeois Crisis of Weimer Germany.” The Journal of
Modern History 51(3): 417-433.
Critiques of Poulantzas
Bridges, Amy. 1974. ”Nicos Poulantzas and the Marxist Theory of the State.” Politics & Society 4(2): 161-190.
Laclau, Ernesto. 1975. “The Specificity of the Political: Around the Poulantzas-Miliband Debate.” Economy and
Society 5(1): [].
7. Marxist-structuralism [2]: Claus Offe
Offe, Claus. 1974. “Structural Problems of the Capitalist State: Class rule and the Political System. On the
Selectiveness of Political Institutions.” German Political Studies, I: 31-57
Additional readings
Offe, Claus. 1975. “The Capitalist State and the Problem of Policy Formation,” pp. 125-144 in Stress and
Contradiction in Contemporary Capitalism, edited by Leon Lindberg. D.C. Heath.
Offe, Claus. 1984. Contradictions of the Welfare State. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Chapter 3 “Social Policy and
the Theory of the State,” pp. 88-118; Chapter 4 “Theses on the Theory of the State,” pp. 119-129; Chapter 11
“European Socialism and the Role of the State,” pp. 239-251.
Offe, Claus. 1996. “The Politics of Social Policy in East European Transitions: Antecedents, Agents, and Agendas
of Reform” in Modernity and the State: East, West. MIT Press: Cambridge, Mass. Pp. 61-71, 147-182, 225-253.
Elster, Jon, Claus Offe, and Ulrich K. Preuss. 1998. Institutional Design in Post-Communist Societies: Rebuilding
the Ship at Sea. Pp. 1-34.
8. Relative autonomy and class struggle: Fred Block
Block, Fred. 1977. “The Ruling Class Does Not Rule: Notes on the Marxist Theory of the State.” Socialist Review
6-28.
Block, Fred. 1980. “Beyond Relative Autonomy: State Managers as Historical Subjects”, The Socialist Register
227-242.
I’M HERE.
Additional readings
Block, Fred. 1990. “Political Choice and Multiple ‘Logics’ of Capital.” Pp. 293-310 in Structures of Capital: The
Social Organization of the Economy. Edited by Sharon Zukin and Paul Dimaggio. New York: Cambridge University
Press.
Domhoff, William G. 1990. “The Ruling Class Does Rule: The State Autonomy Theory of Fred Block, and the
Origins of the International Monetary Fund.” Pp. 153-186 in The Power Elite and the State: How Policy is Made in
America. New York: Aldine de Gruyter.
9. Feminist Approaches
Haney, Lynne. 2002. Inventing the Needy: Gender and the Politics of Welfare in Hungary. Berkeley: University of
California Press. Pp. 1-22, 99-130, 173-205.
Additional readings
Orloff, Ann. 1996. “Gender in the Welfare State.” Annual Review of Sociology 22:51-78.
Haney, Lynne A. 2000. “Feminist State Theory: Applications to Jurisprudence, Criminology, and the Welfare
State.” Annual Review of Sociology 26: 641-666.
Haney, Lynne and Lisa Pollard. 2003. Families of a New World: Gender, Politics, and State Development in a
Global Context. London: Routledge.
Fraser, Nancy and Linda Gordon. 1994. “Dependency Demystified: Inscriptions of Power in a Keyword of the
Welfare State.” Social Politics 1: 14-31
Julia O'Connor. 1993. “Gender, Class, and Citizenship in the Comparative Analysis of Welfare State Regimes:
Theoretical and Methodological Issues.” British Journal of Sociology 44: 501-18.
10. State and Race
Burawoy, Michael. 1981. “The Capitalist State in South Africa: Marxist and Sociological
Perspectives on Race and Class.” Political Power and Social Theory 2: 279-335.
Weir, Margaret. 1995. “The Politics of Racial Isolation in Europe and America,” in Classifying by Race, edited by
Paul E. Peterson. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Lieberman, Robert. 1998. Shifting the Color Line: Race and the American Welfare State. Harvard University Press.
Pp. 1-22, 216-34.
Additional readings
Bonacich, Edna. 1981. “Reply to Burawoy.” Political Power and Social Theory 2:337-343.
Clarke, Simon. 1978. “Capital, Fractions of Capital and the State: Neo-Marxist Analysis of the South African State.”
Capital and Class 5: 32-77.
Wolpe, Harold. 1980. “Towards an Analysis of the South African State,” International Journal of the Sociology of
Law 8 (4). [].
11. Neo-Weberian/state-centered approaches
Skocpol, Theda (1980) “Political Response to Capitalist Crisis: Neo-Marxist Theories of the State and the Case of
the New Deal,” 10 Politics and Society 2: 155-201. [].
Stark, David and Victor Nee. 1989. “Toward an Institutional Analysis of State Socialism,” pp. 1-31 in Remaking the
Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe, edited by David Stark and Victor Nee. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Additional readings
Skocpol, Theda. 1985. "Bringing the State Back in: Strategies of Analysis in Current Research." Pp.3-37 in Bringing
the State Back In, edited by P. Evans, et al. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Evans, Peter, Dietich Rueschemeyer and Theda Skocpol. 1985. “On the Road toward a More Adequate
Understanding of the State.” Pp. 347-366 in Bringing the State Back In, edited by P. Evans, et al. New York:
Cambridge University Press.
Skocpol, Theda and Ken Finegold. 1982. “State Capacity and Economic Intervention in the Early New Deal.”
Political Science Quarterly 97(2): 255-278.
Michael Mann. 1984. “The Autonomous Power of the State: Its Origins, Mechanisms and
Results.” European Journal of Sociology 25 (2): 185-213.
Evans, Peter. 1995. “A Comparative Institutional Approach” in Embedded Autonomy: States and Industrial
Transformation. Pp. 21-42. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Krasner, Stephen D. 1984. “Approaches to the State: Alternative Conceptions and Historical Dynamics.”
Comparative Politics 16(2): 223-246.
A review of several books relying and developing a state-centered approach to the state.
Krasner, Stephen D. 1977. “US Commercial and Monetary Policy.” International Organization 31(4): 635-671.
Additional readings: institutions in Central Eastern Europe
Kornai, Janos. 1989. “The Hungarian Reform Process: Visions, Hopes, and Reality,” pp. 32-94 in Remaking the
Economic Institutions of Socialism: China and Eastern Europe, edited by David Stark and Victor Nee. Stanford:
Stanford University Press.
Stark, David and Laszlo Bruszt. 1998. “Enabling Constraints: Institutional Sources of Policy Coherence,” pp. 166187 in Postsocialist Pathways: Transforming Politics and Property in East Central Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
12. State-centered approaches: historical institutionalism
Thelen, Kathleen and Sven Steinmo. 1991. “Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Politics.” Pp. 1-32 in
Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism in Comparative Analysis, edited by Sven Steinmo, Kathleen Thelen
and Frank Longstreth. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Pierson, Paul. 1996. “The Path to European Integration: A Historical Institutional Analysis.” Comparative Political
Studies 29(2): 123-163.
Additional readings
Hall, Peter A. and Rosemary C. R. Taylor. 1996. “Political Science and the Three New Institutionalisms.” Political
Studies 44: 936-957.
Pierson, Paul. 1994. Dismantling the Welfare State? Reagan, Thatcher, and the Politics of Retrenchment.
[361.6/109/73 PIE]
Clemens, Elisabeth. 1997. The People's Lobby: Organizational Innovation and the Rise of Interest Group Politics in
the United States, 1890-1925. Chicago: Chicago University Press [324./409/73 CLE].
Steinmo, Sven, Kathleen Thelen, and Frank Longstreth. Eds. 1992. Structuring Politics: Historical Institutionalism
in Comparative Analysis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
13. Strategic-relational approach to the state: Bob Jessop
Jessop, Bob. 1990. “Marxism, Economic Determinism and Relative Autonomy” and “Capitalist States, The Interest
of Capital and Bourgeois Rule” in State Theory: Putting States in their Place. Penn State University Press. Pp. 79104, 144-169.
Additional readings
Brenner, Neil. 2003. “’Glocalization’ as a State Spatial Strategy: Urban Entrepreneurialism and the New Politics of
Uneven Development in Western Europe.” Forthcoming in Remaking the Global Economy: EconomicGeographical Perspectives. London: Sage.
14. Post-structuralist approaches: Pierre Bourdieu
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1994. “Rethinking the State: Genesis and Structure of the Bureaucratic Field.” Sociological
Theory 12(1): 1-18.
Additional readings
Calhoun, Craig. 1995. “Habitus, Field, and Capital: Historical Specificity in the Theory of Practice,” pp. 132-161 in
Critical Social Theory. Oxford: Blackwell.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1989. “Social Space and Symbolic Power.” Sociological Theory. 7: 14-25.
Wacquant, Loic J.D. 1989. “Towards a Reflexive Sociology: A Workshop with Pierre Bourdieu.” Sociological
Theory 7:26-63.
15. Post-structuralist approaches: Foucault’s disciplinary power
Mitchell, Timothy. 1991. “'The Limits of the State: Beyond Statist Approaches and their Critics.” American Political
Science Review 85(1): 77-96.
Gupta, Akhil. 1995. “Blurred Boundaries: The Discourse of Corruption, the Culture of Politics and the Imagined
State.” American Ethnologist 22(2), 375-402.
Additional readings
Bendix, John, Bertell Ollman, Barholomew H. Sparrow, Timothy Mitchell. 1992. “Going Beyond the State?”
American Political Science Review 86(4): 1007-1021.
Ferguson, James and Gupta, A. 2002. “Spatializing States: Toward an Ethnography of Neoliberal Governmentality,”
American Ethnologist 29(4): 981-1002.
Nelson, D. M. 1999. “State Fetishism and the Pinata Effect.” Pp. 74-127 in A Finger in the Wound: Body Politics in
Quincentennial Guatemala. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Dean, Mitchell. 2001. States of Imagination: Ethnographic Explorations of the Postcolonial State, edited by Thomas
Blom Hansen and Finn Stepputat. Duke University Press. [306.2 HAN]
Kligman, Gail. 1998. The Politics of Duplicity: Controlling Reproduction in Ceausescu’s Romania. Berkeley:
University of California Press. [363.9/609/498 KLI].
16. Post-structural approaches: Foucault’s modes of governmentality
Rose, Nikolas and Peter Miller. 1992. “Political Power Beyond the State: Problematics of Government.” British
Journal of Sociology 43(2): 173-205.
Hindess, Barry. 1993. “Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy: Variations on a Governmental Theme.” Economy
and Society 22: 300-313.
Additional readings
Foucault, Michel. 1991. “Governmentality,” pp. 87-104 in The Foucault Effect: Studies in Governmentality, edited
by Graham Buchell, Collin Gordon, and Peter Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gordon, Colin. 1991. “Governmental Rationality: An Introduction,” pp. 1-53 in The Foucault Effect: Studies in
Governmentality, edited by Graham Buchell, Collin Gordon, and Peter Miller. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
[REF to CEU].
Rose, Nikolas. 1993. “Government, Authority and Expertise in Advanced Liberalism.” Economy and Society 22(3):
283-299.
17. Cultural reproduction of authority: hegemony
Mouffe, Chantale. 1979. “Hegemony and Ideology in Gramsci,” pp. 168-204 in Gramsci and Marxist Theory, edited
by Chantale Mouffe. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Additional readings
Antonio Gramsci. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. “State and The
Civil Society” (206-275); “Problems of Marxism: Economy and Ideology” (pp. 407-409); “The Formation of
Intellectuals” (pp. 5-14); “The Modern Prince” (123-202) [335.4/309/45 GRA].
Perry Anderson. 1976. ”The Antinomies of Antonio Gramsci.” New Left Review 100: 5-78.
Femia, Joesph. 1975. "Hegemony and Consciousness in the Thought of Antonio Gramsci," Political Studies 23(1):
29-48.
Biagio de Giovanni, “Lenin and Gramsci: state, politics and party”, pp. 259-288 in Gramsci and Marxist Theory,
edited by Chantale Mouffe. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Gilbert M. Joseph and D. Nugent. 1994. “Popular Culture and State Formation in Revolutionary Mexico.” Pp. 3-22
in Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, edited by Gilbert
M. Joseph and D. Nugent. Duke University Press: Durham.
Derek Sayer. “Everyday Forms of State Formation: Some Dissident Remarks on Hegemony.” Pp. 367-377 in
Everyday Forms of State Formation: Revolution and the Negotiation of Rule in Modern Mexico, edited by Gilbert
M. Joseph and D. Nugent. Duke University Press: Durham.
Jean-Francois Bayart. 1993. “The Formation of a Postcolonial Historic Bloc” in The State in Africa: The Politics of
the Belly. New York: Longman. Pp. 180-204.
18. Culture and the State
Laitin, David D. 1999. “The Cultural Elements of Ethnically Mixed States: Nationality Re-formation in the Soviet
Successor States,” pp. 291-320 in State/Culture: State-Formation after the Cultural Turn, edited by George
Steinmetz. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Carruthers, Bruce G. “When is the State Autonomous? Culture, Organization Theory, and the Political Sociology of
the State.” Sociological Theory 12(1): 19-44.
Additional readings
Steinmetz, George. 1999 “Introduction: Culture and the State,” pp. 1-49 in State/Culture: State-Formation after the
Cultural Turn, edited by George Steinmetz. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
19. The Post-Communist State
Grzymala-Busse, Anna and Pauline Jones Luong. 2002. “Reconceptualizing the State: Lessons from PostCommunism.” Politics and Society 30(4):529-554.
Additional readings
Berglund, Sten, Thomas Hellen, Frank H. Aarebrot. 1998. The Handbook of Political Change in Eastern Europe.
Cheltenham: E. Elgar. [306.2/09/42 BER]
20. The State in the International System: the “world society” tradition
Keohane, Robert. 1986. “Realism, Neorealism and the Study of World Politics,” pp. 1-26 in Neorealism and its
Critics, edited by Robert Keohane. New York: Columbia University Press.
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1982. “International Regimes, Transactions and Change: Embedded Liberalism in the PostWar Economic Order.” International Organization 36(2): 379-415.
Additional readings : International Relations perspectives
Meyer, John W., John Boli, George M. Thomas, Francisco O. Ramirez. 1997. “World Society and the Nation-State.”
American Journal of Sociology 103(1): 144-181.
Keohane, Robert. 2002 [1995]. “Hobbes’s Dilemma and Institutional Change in World Politics: Sovereignty in
International Society,” pp. 63-87 in Power and Governance in a Partially Globalized World. London: Routledge.
21. The Challenge of Globalization
Shaw, Martin. 1997. “The State of Globalization: Towards a Theory of State Transformation," Review of
International Political Economy 4(3): 497-513.
Weiss, Linda. 1997. “Globalization and the Myth of the Powerless State.” New Left Review 225: 3-27.
Additional readings
Held, David and Anthony McGrew. 2000. “The Great Globalization Debate: An Introduction.” Pp. 3-27 in The
Global Transformations Reader, edited by David Held and Anthony McGrew: Oxford: Polity.
McMichael, Philip. 1996. “Globalization: Myths and Realities.” Rural Sociology 61(1): 25-55.
Cerny, Philip G. 1997. “Paradoxes of the Competition State: The Dynamics of Political Globalization,” 32:2
Government and Opposition 249-274.
Panitch, Leo. 2000. “The New Imperial State.” New Left Review 2: 5-20