Likewise, since it is not a subject, the capitalist state does not, and indeed cannot,
exercise power. Instead its powers ́ (plural) are activated by changing sets of
politicians and state oYcials located in speciWc parts of the state in speciWc
conjunctures. If an overall strategic line is discernible in the exercise of these
powers, it is due to strategic coordination enabled through the selectivity of the
state system and the role of parallel power networks that cross-cut and unify its
formal structures. Such unity is improbable, according to Poulantzas, because the
state is shot through with contradictions and class struggles and its political agents
must always take account of (potential) mobilization by a wide range of forces
beyond the state, engaged in struggles to transform it, determine its policies, or
simply resist it from afar. This approach can be extended to include dimensions
of social domination that are not directly rooted in class relations (for example,
gender, ethnicity, ‘‘race,’’ generation, religion, political aYliation, or regional
location). This would provide a bridge to non-Marxist analyses of the state and
state power (see below on the strategic-relational approach).
2 The Origins of the State and
State-building
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State formation is not a once-and-for-all process nor did the state develop in just
one place and then spread elsewhere. It has been invented many times, had its
ups and downs, and seen recurrent cycles of centralization and decentralization,
territorialization and deterritorialization. This is a rich Weld for political
archeology, political anthropology, historical sociology, comparative politics,
evolutionary institutional economics, historical materialism, and international
relations. Although its origins have been explained in various monocausal ways,
none of these provides a convincing general explanation. Marxists focus on the
emergence of economic surplus to enable development of specialized, economic-
ally unproductive political apparatus concerned to secure cohesion in a
(class-)divided society (see, classically, Engels’ ( 1875 )Origins of the Family, Private
Property, and the State); military historians focus on the role of military conquest in
state-building and/or the demands of defense of territorial integrity in the expan-
sion of state capacities to penetrate and organize society (Hintze’s (e.g. 1975 )work
is exemplary; see also Porter 1994 ). Others emphasize the role of a specialized
priesthood and organized religion (or other forms of ideological power) in giving
symbolic unity to the population governed by the state (Claessen and Skalnik
1978 ). Feminist theorists have examined the role of patriarchy in state formation
114 bob jessop