democratic state based on the rule of law), then explored the typical forms
of political class struggle in bourgeois democracies (concerned with winning
active consent for a national-popular project), and concluded with an analysis
of the relative autonomy of state managers. Whilst not fully abandoning
his earlier approach, Poulantzas later argued that the state is a social relation
(see above).
The best work in this period formulated two key insights with a far wider
relevance. First, some Marxists explored how the typical form of the capitalist
state actually caused problems rather than guaranteed its overall functionality for
capital accumulation and political class domination. For the state’s institutional
separation from the market economy, a separation that was regarded as a necessary
and deWning feature of capitalist societies, results in the dominance of diVerent
(and potentially contradictory) institutional logics and modes of calculation in
state and economy. There is no certainty that political outcomes will serve the
needs of capital—even if (and, indeed, precisely because) the state is operationally
autonomous and subject to politically-mediated constraints and pressures. This
conclusion fuelled work on the structural contradictions, strategic dilemmas, and
historically conditioned development of speciWc state forms. It also prompted
interest in the complex interplay of social struggles and institutions. And, second,
as noted above, Marxist theorists began to analyze state power as a complex social
relation. This involved studies of diVerent states’ structural selectivity and the
factors that shaped their strategic capacities. Attention was paid to the variability
of these capacities, their organization and exercise, and their diVerential impact on
the state power and states’ capacities to project power into social realms well
beyond their own institutional boundaries. As with theWrst set of insights, this
also led to more complex studies of struggles, institutions, and political capacities
(see Barrow 1993 ; Jessop 2001 ).
4 State-centered Theories
.........................................................................................................................................................................................
The Xourishing of Marxist state theories in the 1970 s prompted a
counter-movement in the 1980 s to ‘‘bring the state back in’’ as a critical explanatory
variable in social analysis. This approach was especially popular in the USA and
claimed that the dominant postwar approaches were too ‘‘society-centered’’ be-
cause they explained the state’s form, functions, and impact in terms of factors
rooted in the organization, needs, or interests of society. Marxism was accused of
economic reductionism for its emphasis on base-superstructure relations and class
state and state-building 117