Easton, D. (1990) An Analysis of Political StructureNew York: Routledge.
Forsyth, M. (1987) ‘The State’ in D. Miller (ed.) The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of Political
ThoughtOxford: Basil Blackwell, 503–6.
Gerth, H. and Wright Mills, C. (1991) From Max WeberLondon: Routledge.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison NotebooksLondon: Lawrence and Wishart.
Gray, J. (1998) False DawnLondon: Granta.
Green, T.H. (1941) The Principles of Political ObligationLondon: Longmans, Green.
Hamlin, A. and Pettit, P. (1989) ‘The Normative Analysis of the State: Some Preliminaries’
in A. Hamlin and P. Pettit (eds) The Good PolityOxford: Basil Blackwell, 1–13.
Hegel, G. (1956) The Philosophy of HistoryNew York: Dover.
Hinsley, F.H. (1986) SovereigntyCambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hoffman, J. (1995) Beyond the StateCambridge: Polity Press.
Hoffman, J. (1996) ‘Antonio Gramsci: The Prison Notebooks’ in M. Forsyth and M. Keens-
Soper (eds) The Political Classics: Green to DworkinOxford: Oxford University Press,
58–77.
Hoffman, J. (1998) SovereigntyBuckingham: Open University Press.
James, A. (1986) Sovereign StatehoodLondon: Allen and Unwin.
Machiavelli, N. (1998) The PrinceOxford: Oxford University Press.
Mann, M. (1980) ‘The Pre-industrial State’ Political Studies28, 297–304.
Marx, K. and Engels, F. (1976) Collected Worksvol. 5, London: Lawrence and Wishart.
Ohmae, K. (1995) The End of the Nation-StateNew York: Free Press.
Pringle, R. and Watson, S. (1992) ‘Women’s Interests and the Post-Structural State’ in
M. Barrett and A. Phillips (eds) Destabilizing TheoryCambridge: Polity Press, 53–73.
Rosenberg, J. (1994) The Empire of Civil SocietyLondon: Verso.
Vincent, A. (1987) Theories of the StateOxford: Blackwell.
Weldon, T.D. (1953) The Vocabulary of PoliticsHarmondsworth: Penguin.Further reading
Bhikhu Parekh’s essay ‘When Will the State Wither Away?’ (Alternatives15(3), (1990),
247–62) is a thoughtful and accessible presentation on the state as a modern institution.
John Hoffman’s Beyond the State(1995) deals with the way in which different traditions
have approached the state, and makes the case for the kind of conceptual distinctions needed
to provide an effective critique. Alan James’s Sovereign Statehood(1986) provides a clear
defence of a traditional view of sovereignty with an attempt to sort out the confusions that
the concept generates. David Easton’s The Political System(2nd edn, 1971) makes the classic
case against the state and the need to conceptualise politics as a system rather than a set of
institutions. Hedley Bull’s The Anarchical Society(1977) seeks to argue that international
society is a stateless order and yet there is order. An ingenious and extremely interesting text.
Bernard Crick’s In Defence of Politics(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1964) (and subsequent
editions) offers a very interesting first chapter on the nature of political rule, and what he
sees as distinctive about the political process. Adrian Leftwich’s edited volume, What is
Politics? (2nd edn, Cambridge: Polity, 2004) contains a very useful and thought-provoking
chapter 3 on the question of ‘Politics and Force’ by Peter Nicholson. Colin Hay, Michael
Lister and David Marsh have edited a most useful volume, The State(Basingstoke: Palgrave,
2006); chapter 9 by David Marsh, Nicola Smith and Nicola Hothi is entitled ‘Globalization
and the State’.Weblinks
See the Companion Website for further resources.Chapter 1 The state 33