political process. A need was seen to ‘bring the state back in’ to political
analysis. This was not only a reaction against modernization theory which
replaced the state by a concept of the political system in which governments
mechanically converted demands into policy ‘outputs’. There was also dis-
satisfaction with economistic interpretations of the state as epiphenomenon,
giving economic and property relations such a determining significance that
other institutions – political, legal, cultural and ideological – become
merely a reflection of them. Such economic reductionism was found in
dependency theory, with its implication that the dominant class in a periph-
eral society could only play a compradorrole.
Marxism has provided a useful analytical framework for the analysis of
the Third World state. However, if we turn to Marxism for a view of the state,
we find not one but four or five (Jessop, 1977; Ziemann and Lanzendorfer,
1977). There is the idea of the state as a kind of parasite, particularly through
a privileged, bureaucratic caste. The state extracts resources from society not
for purposes of social reproduction, but to sustain an élite. There is the idea
of the state as epiphenomenon, when economic and property relations are
given such a determining significance that other institutions – political, legal,
cultural and ideological – are merely a reflection of them and entirely
explained by their dependence on prevailing economic relations. There is the
idea of the state as an instrument of class domination, an executive commit-
tee for managing the affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. This comes close to
being a view of the state as a neutral instrument which can be controlled
equally effectively by any class which achieves a position of economic dom-
inance. The state is not pluralistic in the sense of being a neutral arbiter, but
is a set of institutions existing independently of social forces and which at
different stages in history will be controlled in the interest of a dominant eco-
nomic class, whether it be the landed aristocracy in a feudal economy or the
industrial bourgeoisie of early capitalism.
Then there is the notion of the state as a factor of cohesion, where the
state is involved in regulating struggles between antagonistic classes and
using both repression and concession to moderate and manage those con-
flicts while sustaining the economic and political dominance of the most
powerful economic class and preserving the social relationships which a
capitalist economy requires.
That is very close to yet another view of the state found in Marxism – and
here we come to one that has had the greatest impact on the study of politi-
cal change in the Third World – which is the Bonapartist. The idea of the
state being a factor of cohesion, managing and manipulating class struggles
without fundamentally damaging the economic system that preserves the
112 Understanding Third World Politics