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Title: State, Power, Socialism by Nicos Poulantzas, Stuart Hall, Patrick Camiller ISBN: 1-85984-274-7 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: 15 February, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $20.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Return of an old classic
Comment: The premature death of Nicos Poulantzas was, indeed, a great disaster for Marxism, and for all social theorists concerned with the critical evaluation of the State. In this, perhaps his most readable work, Poulanztas rejects the simple instrumentalist interpretation of the State in favour of a complex structuralist approach which views the state not as an instrument, but a CONTESTED FIELD. Poulantzas portrays a state that is rent through with internal contradictions: which is itself a site of struggle. For Poulantzas, the class struggle IMPRINTS itself upon the state. As he argues, "the State bathes in struggles that continually submerge it." Hence Poulantzas's view of the State as a 'strategic field' is radically opposed to the 'fortress State' perspective, where the state is an intsrument firmly in the hands of a ruling class - and must be laid seige to or 'stormed' in order to be 'smashed' and then reconstructed. There are difficulties with Poulantzas's analysis. In a fashion akin to all Structuralists, his structural determinism seems to deny to possibility of agency. From my own perspective, I would argue that class struggle does not ONLY occur structurally, but reaches a higher level with the dawning of class consciousness and the establishment of the working class as a true collective-historical ACTOR. What is more, it is not only the class struggle that imprints itself upon the state, but political struggles of all varieties. Finally, I find the non-Marxist concept of a state contested by competing 'elites' quite convincing also - in the sense that this is at least ONE dimension of the nature of the State. Hence, it is true that I harbour serious differences with the perspective put forward by Poulantzas. Nevertheless, I must conclude by asserting that his account of the State in its true, contradictory form, was one of the greatest contributions to the political theory of the State. This is a must read of Marxists and political science students alike.
Rating: 5
Summary: A rigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories
Comment: In State, Power, Socialism, Nicos Poulantzas (a member of the Greek Communist Party of the Interior from 1968 until his death in 1979 at the age of 43) advances a rigorous critique of contemporary Marxist theories of the state. Poulantzas argues against a general theory of the state, and identifying forms of class power crucial to socialist strategy that goes beyond the apparatus of the state. Long out of print, this new and highly recommended Verso Books edition of State, Power, Socialismis enhanced for students of political science with an informative introduction by Stuart Hall, critically appraising Poulantzas' achievement.
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Title: The Case for Bureaucracy: A Public Administration Polemic by Charles T. Goodsell ISBN: 1566430070 Publisher: Chatham House Publishers Pub. Date: January, 1994 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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Title: The State and Revolution (Twentieth Century Classics) by Vladimir Il'ich Lenin, Robert Service ISBN: 014018435X Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: May, 1993 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Winning Grants: Step by Step, 2nd Edition by Mim Carlson, The Alliance for Nonprofit Management ISBN: 078795876X Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 21 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $29.00 |
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Title: Keeping Up with the Dow Joneses by Vijay Prashad ISBN: 0896086895 Publisher: South End Press Pub. Date: 15 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
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Title: Empire of Capital by Ellen Meiksins Wood ISBN: 1859845029 Publisher: Verso Books Pub. Date: June, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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