The Capitalist State and State Power

2018 ◽  
pp. 298-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bob Jessop
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
The State ◽  
Paris Commune ◽  
Form Analysis ◽  
Relational Approach ◽  
Bourgeois Society ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
Mode Of Production

Marx planned a book on the state as part of his larger project to critique the political economy of the capitalist mode of production. Nonetheless Marx analyzed the state over some forty years of critical engagement with bourgeois society and provided at least seven types of analysis of the state and state power. Overall, he highlighted the significance of the institutional separation of the economic and political in capitalist social formations, explored the normal form of the capitalist type of state and some of its exceptional forms (notably Bonapartism), and related state power to specific state forms and the changing balance of forces. This article surveys the development of Marx’s work on the capitalist state, the range of approaches that he adopted in specific contexts, his form analysis of the state, his conjunctural analyses, and his eventual discovery of the adequate form of a democratic socialist state in the Paris Commune. It builds on this analysis of Marx’s work to comment on subsequent Marxist analyses of the state and state power, including capital-, class- and state-theoretical work and emphasizes the importance of a relational approach to the capitalist state.

Poulantzas lesen. Zur Aktualität marxistischer Staatstheorie

2009 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 143-156
Author(s):  
Julian Müller
Keyword(s):  
State Theory ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Strategy ◽  
Democratic Socialism ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
Subject Areas ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Supranational Institutions

AbstractThis review discusses a collection of papers on Nicos Poulantzas's contribution to Marxist state-theory and socialist strategy. Chapters are grouped into three subject-areas: theory and method; globalisation; political strategy. Particular attention is paid to Poulantzas's definition of the state and methodology for investigating concrete state-forms. Poulantzas gives primacy to the balance of forces between classes, which raises two questions: Should his approach be integrated with theories which emphasise the formal aspects of the capitalist state? Can power-relations other than those between classes be integrated into a Poulantzian framework? Poulantzas's work is also relevant to the study of globalisation and supranational actors. First, his investigations of the internationalisation of capital and different fractions of the bourgeoisie help us analyse developments since the 1970s. Second, his theory of the state and its functions provide a benchmark for assessing to which degree national states have been superseded by inter-/supranational institutions such as the EU. Regarding political strategy, the focus is on the path towards democratic socialism. Questions raised concern primarily the right mixture of struggles inside and outside the institutions of parliamentary democracy.

KEY ASPECTS OF TRANSFORMATION OF THE STATE AUTHORITIES IN THE WORLD AND TO THE MODERN SOVERUM UKRAINE: A JOINT AND PERSONALITY

2018 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 164-174
Author(s):  
Оlena Fedorіvna Caracasidi
Keyword(s):  
Separation Of Powers ◽  
Human Life ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Public Power ◽  
The People ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The World ◽  
Distribution Of Power ◽  
Key Aspects

The article deals with the fundamental, inherent in most of the countries of the world transformation of state power, its formation, functioning and division between the main branches as a result of the decentralization of such power, its subsidiarity. Attention is drawn to the specifics of state power, its func- tional features in the conditions of sovereignty of the states, their interconnec- tion. It is emphasized that the nature of the state power is connected with the nature of the political system of the state, with the form of government and many other aspects of a fundamental nature.It is analyzed that in the middle of national states the questions of legitima- cy, sovereignty of transparency of state power, its formation are acutely raised. Concerning the practical functioning of state power, a deeper study now needs a problem of separation of powers and the distribution of power. The use of this principle, which ensures the real subsidiarity of the authorities, the formation of more effective, responsible democratic relations between state power and civil society, is the first priority of the transformation of state power in the conditions of modern transformations of countries and societies. It is substantiated that the research of these problems will open up much wider opportunities for the provi- sion of state power not as a center authority, but also as a leading political structure but as a power of the people and the community. In the context of global democratization processes, such processes are crucial for a more humanistic and civilized arrangement of human life. It is noted that local self-government, as a specific form of public power, is also characterized by an expressive feature of a special subject of power (territorial community) as a set of large numbers of people; joint communal property; tax system, etc.

Interaction of the State and Business on Indicators of Values and Innovations of Public Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-37
Author(s):  
V.A. Morozov
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Medical Institutions ◽  
Business Structures

The article analyzes the state of public health on the example of domestic and foreign statistics, as well as prospects for its development and improvement. The state of relations and forms of interaction of budgetary medical institutions (state, municipal) with private clinics, as well as directly private clinics with the structures of municipal and state power are considered. The directions and ways of interaction of power and business structures for improvement of methods and forms of service of patients on the basis of indicators of values and innovations are offered.

Suffering Spectators of Development

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Arjun Chowdhury
Keyword(s):  
Civil Wars ◽  
Central Government ◽  
State Capacity ◽  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Colonial Period ◽  
Alternative View

This chapter offers an alternative view of the incidence and duration of insurgencies in the postcolonial world. Insurgencies and civil wars are seen as the primary symptom of state weakness, the inability of the central government to monopolize violence. Challenging extant explanations that identify poverty and low state capacity as the cause of insurgencies, the chapter shows that colonial insurgencies, also occurring in the context of poverty and state weakness, were shorter and ended in regime victories, while contemporary insurgencies are longer and states are less successful at subduing them. The reason for this is the development of exclusive identities—based on ethnicity, religion, tribe—in the colonial period. These identities serve as bases for mobilization to challenge state power and demand services from the state. Either way, such mobilization means that popular demands for services exceed the willingness to disarm and/or pay taxes, that is, to supply the state.

The State as an Actor

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Georg Menz
Keyword(s):  
Service Sector ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Regulatory Capture ◽  
Banking Institutions ◽  
Political Left ◽  
Central Actor ◽  
Capitalist State ◽  
State Of Affairs ◽  
Rules Of The Game

Despite the state being such a central actor in establishing and policing the rules of the game of any given political economy, its role is often neglected. In this chapter, we briefly review relevant state theories and explore changes to the nature and appearance of the capitalist state. The awesome increase in the political fire power of the financial service sector has unfortunately led to regulatory capture. The state can no longer be considered a neutral umpire, being heavily influenced by the prerogatives of major banking institutions. This state of affairs corrupts the hopes that liberals place in the self-policing powers of the marketplace and reflects certain fears on the political left regarding the pernicious effects of ‘financialization’.

‘Party in the street’: The partisan politics of space

2021 ◽  
pp. 239965442110338
Author(s):  
David Jenkins ◽  
Lipin Ram
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Space ◽  
State Power ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
The State ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Democratic Legitimacy ◽  
Partisan Politics ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

Public space is often understood as an important ‘node’ of the public sphere. Typically, theorists of public space argue that it is through the trust, civility and openness to others which citizens cultivate within a democracy’s public spaces, that they learn how to relate to one another as fellow members of a shared polity. However, such theorizing fails to articulate how these democratic comportments learned within public spaces relate to the public sphere’s purported role in holding state power to account. In this paper, we examine the ways in which what we call ‘partisan interventions’ into public space can correct for this gap. Using the example of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPIM), we argue that the ways in which CPIM partisans actively cultivate sites of historical regional importance – such as in the village of Kayyur – should be understood as an aspect of the party’s more general concern to present itself to citizens as an agent both capable and worthy of wielding state power. Drawing on histories of supreme partisan contribution and sacrifice, the party influences the ideational background – in competition with other parties – against which it stakes its claims to democratic legitimacy. In contrast to those theorizations of public space that celebrate its separateness from the institutions of formal democratic politics and the state more broadly, the CPIM’s partisan interventions demonstrate how parties’ locations at the intersections of the state and civil society can connect the public sphere to its task of holding state power to account, thereby bringing the explicitly political questions of democratic legitimacy into the everyday spaces of a political community.

The Political Economy of Post-Independence India—A Review Article

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 787-797 ◽  
Author(s):  
Akhil Gupta
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Organizational Structures ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Newly Industrialized Countries ◽  
The Past ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Balance Of Forces ◽  
The Third World

Economists and political scientists have become increasingly interested in the political economy of India during the past decade and particularly during the past three or four years. The titles under review will be valuable not only to India specialists but also to comparative scholars because of the intriguing mix of conditions found in India. More like a continent than a country in its diversity, India is in some ways very similar to densely populated, predominantly rural and agricultural China, differing most perhaps in the obstinacy and depth of its poverty. In the predominant role played by the state within an essentially capitalist economy, it is closer to the model of Western social democracies than it is to either prominently ideological capitalist or socialist nation-states; like other countries in the “third world,” the state in India plays a highly interventionist developmental role. Finally, since Independence it has pursued, more successfully than most nation-states in Latin America and Asia, policies of importsubstituting industrialization and relative autarchy. In terms of its political structures, India differs from most newly industrialized countries (NICs) in that it generally continues to function as a parliamentary democracy. The federal political system creates an intriguing balance of forces between central and the regional state governments, which are often ruled by opposition parties with agendas, ideologies, and organizational structures quite different from those of the central government.

State Power in Mozambique

1978 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-11
Author(s):  
James H. Mittleman
Keyword(s):  
State Power ◽  
The State ◽  
Socialist Economy ◽  
National Liberation ◽  
Essential Factor ◽  
Ruling Class ◽  
Working Classes ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
Political Act ◽  
Vexing Question

After winning a war of national liberation, FRELIMO faces the vexing question of whether socialism now can be established. With respect to Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral emphasized: ‘This depends on the instruments used to effect the transition to socialism; the essential factor is the nature of the state....“ No doubt his statement was premised on the belief that socialism begins with the conquest of the state by the producing classes. They must seize the state apparatus to defeat the ruling class whose power is concentrated there. Both the means of coercion and the forces that reproduce the system itself are part of this domain. It is only by gaining control of state power, which is a political act, that the working classes can subsequently organize a socialist economy.

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