The State-in-Society Approach

The State-in-Society Approach

A NEW DEFINITION OF THE STATE AND TRANSCENDING

THE NARROWLY CONSTRUCTED WORLD OF RIGORT his introductory chapter frames the ideas that have preoccupied me over the past two decades, when the remaining essays in this book were written. I have four primary goals here. First, I want to present a concise statement of the state-in-society approach that is the centerpiece of the book, especially in light of the literature that I have drawn on – and have found wanting. My second aim is the principal one for this chapter: I present a new definition of the state in place of Max Weber’s widely used one, which  I believe has led scholars down sterile paths. My hope is that the new definition

will offer social scientists a better, more grounded way to conceive of the state and will suggest new, innovative lines of inquiry to them. Third, implicitly these essays reject what has become standard method in political science and related social science disciplines. I want to spell out the point of how better to approach comparative research and state why I think political scientists should abandon the blinders that have limited their work. And, finally, I want to show how a state-in-society perspective can provide new and exciting answers to well-studied issues in comparative studies by recounting the work of several young scholars who have used the approach. State-in-Society as an Approach to Studying Domination and Change The themes explored in the essays in this book, domination and change,  by no means original. Identifying and analyzing patterns of domination– the recurring ways in which some use violence, threats, and other means to make others behave in ways they would not have otherwise chosen – and when and why those patterns change have preoccupied.

A Model of State-Society Relations

Introduction: Images of the Impact of State on Society

The incredibly quick unraveling of empire in Asia and Africa following World War II suggested to many the hidden political strength of poor, subjugated peoples. Daring leadership, such as that of Mohandas Gandhi, Kwame Nkrumah, and Gamal Abdul Nasser, together with imaginative political organization, such as that found in India’s Congress, Algeria’s National Liberation Front (FLN), and the Vietnamese Communist party, could topple the rich and powerful. An imperial state could be reduced to

a Gulliver among the Lilliputians. Even to third-world leaders who eluded fiery anticolonial struggles, events in distant India or Algeria lent confidence about the important role that centralized, mobilizing politics could play in their countries after independence. Western imperial powers were not only the bêtes noires in the transition from colony to statehood; they were models to be emulated as well.

The aims of the founders of new states were taken largely from already successful states and the dominant European nationalist ideologies of the nineteenth century.1 New political leaders of Asia and Africa came to believe, like leaders in the West and the socialist bloc, in their states’ potential to shape their societies – to move their economies from agriculture to industry, to create a skilled workforce, and to induce the population to abandon outmoded beliefs. Even in Latin America, where many

1 See, for example, two articles by Benjamin Neuberger: “The Western Nation-State in

African Perceptions of Nation-Building,” Asian and African Studies 11 (1976): 241–61; and

“State and Nation in African Thought,” Journal of African