The configuration of interests and interest groups in a society reflects the
composition of state interventions in society and economy. The state’s
organization, patterns of intervention in economic and social life, and pub-
lic policies determine which group interests are activiated, which social
cleavages are politicized, and which political demands are pressed. Political
identities and attempts to capture control of parts of the state apparatus are
responses to state intervention. For example, working class political orien-
tations have historically been affected by the timing of democratization in
relation to industrialization; by the administrative structure of the state; and
by legal conditions bearing on working class organizations such as trade
unions. States may induce different forms and levels of corporatism which
influence the way sectional interests are defended. Social movements
reflect in part variations in constitutional, legal and coercive state appara-
tuses. For example, economic intervention by bureaucratic–authoritarian
regimes in Latin America affected social resistance by reducing the state’s
capacity to dominate civil society. Shrinking the public sector can under-
mine social forces behind political opposition.
Thirdly, the structure of the state is related to the way in which political
interests are mediated by political parties. For example, the extent to which
the state bureaucracy is free from partisan control determines how far it can be
used as a source of political patronage and therefore how far political parties
secure electoral support by promising the spoils of office or by offering ideo-
logically coherent programmes capable of securing majority support within
the electorate. State administrative structures also influence party organiza-
tion and styles. Variations in relationships between the state administration
and party organization also affects the kinds of issues that regularly appear on
the political ‘agenda’: collective versus divisible benefits, for example.
Fourthly, the political expression of class interests is never wholly eco-
nomically determined. This is because the ability of classes to achieve con-
sciousness, mobilization and representation is affected by the structures and
activities of states. For example, working class activism has historically
been conditioned by the nature of the state and in particular the extent to
which state and society are sharply differentiated, and the extent to which
workers are incorporated into a political system based on locally rooted
political parties wielding patronage. The political capacity of dominant
socio-economic classes is also a function of state structures, such as decen-
tralized forms of administration and social control and parliamentary forms
of political decision-making, and not simply extensions of class interest.
However, an autonomous state does not automatically mean a reduction
in the power of all social groups. The game is not zero-sum. State autonomy
126 Understanding Third World Politics