which theyWnd themselves. However that context is not neutral. It too is strategic-
ally selective in the sense that it privileges certain strategies over others. Individuals
learn from their actions and adjust their strategies. The context is changed by their
actions, so individuals have to adjust to a diVerent context. Institutions or func-
tions no longer deWne the state. It is a site of strategic selectivity; a ‘‘dialectic of
structures and strategies’’ (Jessop 1990 , 129 ).
According to Hay ( 1999 , 170 ), Jessop’s central achievement has been to transcend
‘‘more successfully than any other Marxist theorist past or present’’ the ‘‘artiWcial
dualism of structure and agency.’’ I do not want to demur from that judgment or
attempt any critical assessment. For my purposes, I need to note only that Jessop’s
contribution is widely noticed in Continental Europe and substantially ignored by
mainstream political science in America and Britain.
- 2 Post-Marxism
Ernesto Laclau is a leadingWgure in post-Marxism (Laclau 1990 ; Laclau and MouVe
1985 ). His roots lie in Gramscian Marxism and with post-structuralist political
philosophy, not with mainstream political science. Discourse theory has grown
withoutengaging with mainstream political science. There is no speciWc critique of
political science. Rather it is subsumed within a general critique of both modern-
ism and naturalism in the social sciences (as in for example Winch 1990 ).
Discourse theory analyses ‘‘all the practices and meanings shaping a particular
community of social actors.’’ It assumes that ‘‘all objects and actions are meaning-
ful’’ and that ‘‘their meaning is the product of historically speciWc systems of rules.’’
Discourse analysis refers to the analysis of linguistic and non-linguistic material as
‘‘texts... that enable subjects to experience the world of objects, words and prac-
tices’’ (Howarth 2000 , 5 , 8 , 10 ). The ‘‘overallaimof social and political analysis
from a discursive perspective is to describe, understand, interpret and evaluate
carefully constructed objects of investigation.’’ So, ‘‘instead of applying theory
mechanically to empirical objects, or testing theories against empirical reality,
discourse theorists argue for thearticulationandmodiWcationof concepts and
logics in each particular research context.’’ At the heart of the approach is an
analogy with language. Just as we understand the meaning of a word from its
context, so we understand a political institution as sedimented beliefs within a
particular discourse (and for commentary see Critchley and Marchant 2005 ).
If Laclau’s debt to post-structuralism has undermined many of the characteristic
themes of Marxist thinking—for example, his emphasis on the role of discourses
and on historical contingency leaves little room for Marxist social analysis with its
basic materialism—nonetheless he leaves us with the deconstruction of institutions
as discourse.
100 r. a. w. rhodes