poulantzas nicos orignality legacy and actuality

8/3/2019 Poulantzas Nicos Orignality Legacy and Actuality

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On the Originality,Legacy, and

Actuality of Nicos

Poulantzas

BOB JESSOP

It is now some twelve years since the tragic death of

Nicos Poulantzas.' His name will be familiar to many

SPE readers for two main reasons. First, he was a major

contributor to the nee-Marxist rediscovery of the state

(notably through the much-cited debate which he began with

Ralph Miliband);2 and, second, he also provoked controver-

sy for his account of changes in postwar capitalism and

their implications for classes and the class struggle?

Curiously, while he is often praised for his agenda-setting

contribution in state theory, he is also condemned for his

role in demoting or even denying the primacy of the working

class in the struggle for socialism.4

Unfortunately his

celebrity or notoriety (depending on one's theoretical and

political viewpoint) in these debates has hindered a fuller,more nuanced appreciation of Poulantzas 's overall contribu-

tion to modern social theory. For his interests and contribu-

tions actually went much beyond these two fields; and, even

with regard to state theory and class analysis, they also

revealed significant shifts in approach which have too often

passed unremarked. Thus this paper aims to reconsider the

significance of Poulantzas's work.

Elsewhere I have argued that Poulantzas is the singlemost important Marxist political theorist of the postwar

period.S Here I want both to reaffirm and qualify this view

by arguing that his studies are not so much "contemporary"

as "classical" in their current standing. This useful distinc-

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Studies in Political Economy

tion derives from Niklas Luhmann. Luhmann suggests that

a theory can be seen as "classical" when it offers an inter-connected set of claims that has been superseded by later

theoretical developments and is, therefore, no longer con-

vincing in its original form. Nonetheless it still survives as

a challenge on a theoretical level as long as its way of

posing problems can still be accepted. Thus its authoritative

character is ambivalent: one can infer from such a theory

what must be achieved, but no longer how to achieve it.6

Such an approach is useful because it helps us to identify

problems in Poulantzas's work while at the same time treat-

ing it as a crucial source for a continuous theoretical tradi-

tion on the nature of the state, social classes, and political

mobilization in modern capitalism.

Here I will argue that Poulantzas's stature rests on his

intellectual originality, theoretical legacy, and political ac-

tuality or relevance. This needs to be qualified in three quite

different respects. First, while reaffirming a claim for his

importance, I explain why he was so original. This I do interms of the intellectual and the political sources of his

breakthrough in Marxist theory. Second, since it is hard to

compare the influence of a single theorist (whether "clas-

sical" or "contemporary") with that of broader schools in

which many theorists and researchers are involved, a few

comments on Poulantzas's relation to other currents would

be appropriate. In this way I hope to establish his immediate

legacy for state theory. And, third. although Poulantzas

remains a major figure within postwar Western Marxism,

the overall influence of Marxist political theory has declined

since his death. Thus, after citing some reasons for this, I

also discuss whether other developments in state theory

mean that Poulantzas's work has since become more mar-

ginal. Overall I conclude that his work is still relevant and,

despite its obvious problems in many respects, in many

others it has not yet been superseded.

The Significance of Poulantzas Perry Anderson identifies

the following key questions as those which Western Mar-

xism has left unanswered:

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JessoplPoulantzas

[W]hat is the real nature and structure of bourgeois democracyas a type of State system, that has become the normal mode

of capitalist power in the advanced countries? What type ofrevolutionary strategy is capable of overthrowing this historicalform of State - so distinct from that of Tsarist Russia? Whatwould be the institutional forms of socialist democracy in theWest, beyond it? Marxist theory has scarcely touched these threesubjects in their interconnection.?

Whatever the validity of this last claim for other theorists

(and things have certainly been changing), there can be no

doubt that these three subjects preoccupied Poulantzas from1964 until his death in 1979. Poulantzas was almost alone

among postwar Marxists to address and answer the really

crucial questions within Marxist politics. His first influentialbook, Political Power and Social Classes published in 1968,

was concerned with the real nature and structure of bour-

geois democracy. Fascism and Dictatorship which appeared

in 1970, dealt with the nature of fascist regimes and the

failure of the labour movement either to check their rise

or to overthrow them. It was also directly concerned withthe distinction between the "normal mode of capitalist

power in the advanced countries" and various "exceptional"

modes of bourgeois political domination. In his third and

fourth books, Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (1974)

and Crisis of the Dictatorships (1976), Poulantzas related

problems of revolutionary strategy to democratic and ex-

ceptional regimes in both advanced and dependent capitalist

countries. And his final book, State, Power, Socialism,which appeared in 1978, reviewed the current threats to

bourgeois democracy and the institutional forms which

socialist democracy might assume in the West. Moreover,

not only did Poulantzas tackle each of the three subjects

which Anderson identifies as central to Marxist politics, he

was also increasingly interested in them "in their intercon-

nection."

Poulantzas also went beyond such concerns to other im-portant issues in Marxist theory. Here again Anderson is

useful since he mentions four other failures of contemporary

Marxism: failure to tackle the meaning and position of the

nation as a social unit and its relationship to nationalism;

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ignoring the contemporary laws of motion of capitalism as

a mode of production and the forms of crisis specific tothese laws; neglecting the true configuration of imperialism

as an international system of economic and political domina-tion; and failure to confront the nature of the bureaucraticstates which arose in those backward countries where

socialist revolutions had occurred. Clearly Poulantzas could

not examine all these complex issues in the same detail

and with the same rigour which he devoted to the capitalist

state in the West. But he did deal with each of them to

some extent. He was particularly concerned with contem-

porary imperialism and with the nature of modern capitalism

as a system of political economy. He also touched on the

nation and nationalism, bureaucratic socialism and

Stalinism. In short among Western Marxists, he was unusual.

The Originality of Poulantzas It is often said that Marx's

originality lies in his unique synthesis of three different

sources: German philosophy, French politics, and English

economics. As he worked at synthesizing these different

currents, however, both his theoretical focus and his phil-

osophical position underwent several changes. He was also

influenced by quite specific political conditions and objec-

tives. Thus, although he started out as a radical liberal

democrat, his major theoretical breakthroughs occurred after

he became a communist. Nor was he content to interpretthe world from his seat in the British Museum. He made

various practical interventions to advance the cause of theinternational socialist movement. Thus a full account of

Marx's originality would require us to look not only at the

intellectual shifts involved in his theoretical development

but also at the impact of changing political commitmentsand conditions.I

Here we are not concerned with Marx himself but with

someone bold enough to have claimed that he had completed

Marx's theory of the state.? Even if one rejects this par-ticular claim, Poulantzas certainly made major contributions

to Marxist political analysis. Curiously his work involved

shifts in theoretical object which are remarkably similar to

those of Marx himself. Both men moved from legal

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JessoplPoulantzas

philosophy to the state and then to political economy. The

shifts in Poulantzas's political position might seem less radi-cal but they are nonetheless important. From an existen-

tial-marxist approach he tried to combine Althusserian

philosophical positions and Gramscian political positions

within an essentially Marxist-Leninist outlook and then went

on to adopt a left Eurocommunist position. Naturally Marx

and Poulantzas also undertook rather different shifts in their

respective philosophical positions. Poulantzas moved from

a Sartrean approach through Althusserian structuralism to

a revolutionary materialism different in several respects

from that of Marx. Nonetheless his theoretical and political

shifts were more or less closely associated with shifts in

philosophical position.

1. The Three Sources of Poulantzas Thought Poulantzas also

found himself at the confluence of three rather contrasting

theoretical streams and his originality also lies in the unique

synthesis he produced from them. But his sources were

somewhat different from those that inspired Marx. ForPoulantzas they were French - not German - philosophy;

Italian - not French - politics; and, not English economics,

not any economics, but Romano-German law. More specifi-

cally, he drew successively on three French philosophical

traditions: first, Sartre and existentialism, then Althusser

and structuralism, and, finally, Foucault and the micro-

physics of power and strategy. In the field of Italian politics

he was influenced above all by Gramsci and, later, the In-grao left (a left Eurocommunist tendency in the Italian Com-

munist Party). And, third, in relation to Romano-German

law, the key influences were the Vienna school associated

with Hans Kelsen and, more generally, the constitutional

and administrative law which he had acquired at Law

Schools in Athens, Munich, Heidelberg, and Paris.

Poulantzas went on to synthesise these sources in a unique

manner within the overarching framework of Marxist politi-

cal economy. He was, of course, influenced by other

theoretical sources but they were always filtered through

the three main traditions. Thus Maoist themes were taken

up through an Althusserian perspective. Certain Austro-Mar-

xist themes (notably the need to combine direct democracy

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with representative democracy) were likewise appropriated

through their influence in Italian political debate."These different streams were combined and developed

in a quite specific manner within the context of Marxist

political economy. For Poulantzas firmly opposed the tradi-

tions of the Second International and the Comintern. Both

allegedly reduced the nature of the state to a simple reflec-

tion of the economic base and/or suggested that political

class struggles followed the course of economic develop-

ment. More generally Poulantzas noted that orthodox Mar-

xism had systematically neglected the question of the state.

He tried to remedy this. In particular he stressed the sui

generis nature of political class struggle and the relative

autonomy of the state. This is especially clear in capitalist

societies with their characteristic institutional separation be-

tween market and state, bourgeois and citizen, private and

public. Initially Poulantzas justified this emphasis through

a Sartrean approach to structural analysis. Thus he used the

'internal-external' dialectic to explore the complex internalorganization of different institutional orders and their dif-

ferential determination by external factors. Later Poulantzas justified his focus on the political in terms of Althusser's

account of the relative autonomy of the political sphere

within a complex "structure in dominance" determined in

the last instance by the economic. Eventually he developed

his own distinctive approach to the state as a social relation,

i.e., to state power as an institutionally-mediated conden-sation of the balance of forces in political class struggle.

As his work developed Poulantzas connected these ar-

guments more closely and coherently with traditional Mar-

xist economic themes. These had largely been ignored inhis early work and only became prominent in his work on

Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. With his last major

work on state theory, however, Poulantzas had synthesised

the three sources of his approach firmly within the

framework of classical Marxist political economy. He had

also brought new insights to this framework. In particular

he analyzed the labour process in terms of a complex

economic, political, and intellectual division of labour and

examined social classes from the viewpoint of their "ex-

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tended reproduction" rather than in restricted economic

terms. Thus, although sometimes criticized for giving too

much weight to ideological factors in defining the class

position of the new middle classes.l! Poulantzas always

placed the social relations of production in their integral

sense at the heart of his analysis of class struggle.12 Indeed

his problem was not so much a retreat from the primacy

of the economic and the crucial role of class analysis as it

was a continuing commitment to some of the more deter-

ministic and class reductionist versions of these principles.

For he remained trapped within classical Marxist politicaleconomy. At a time when there was a general hue and cry

about the 'crisis of Marxism', Poulantzas remained com-

mitted to the ultimately determining role of. the mode of

production for the whole of societal organization and to theprimacy of proletarian class struggle in the transition to

socialism. Only in his last year, 1979, did he begin seriously

to question these fundamental tenets of Marxism and try to

move beyond them.2. The Philosophical Preconditions of Poulantzas's Theory

In his Sartrean phase Poulantzas's main philosophical con-

cern was to establish the unity of fact and value. But he

also drew on Sartre's method of dialectical reasoning to

establish the complex 'internal-external' determinations of

bourgeois law in terms of its own, sui generis properties

and its overall position in capitalist societies. In turning to

an Althusserian approach Poulantzas mainly sought to jus-

tify a separate political theory against more conventional

base-superstructure arguments. Thus he drew heavily on

Althusser's arguments about the movement from abstract

to concrete, the overdetermination of concrete conjunctures,

and the notion of relative autonomy. But there was little

mileage to be derived from Althusser's philosophical posi-

tion in developing the substantive concepts for a theory of

the state. Here Poulantzas needed to supplement Althus-

serian concepts with others drawn from Italian Marxismand legal theory.

In his last theoretical phase Poulantzas used a relational

approach. When he claimed to have discovered the Marxist

theory of the state, he was alluding to his thesis that the

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state is a social relation. This did entail a fundamental philo-

sophical shift and a return to the revolutionary materialismof Marx. For it was Marx who elaborated the paradigmatic

thesis that capital is a social relation. In steadily abandoning

structuralism, Poulantzas was influenced by Foucault. But

this relational turn was essentially rooted in the dynamic

of his own thought and political involvements and its germs

can already be seen in his first work on state theory.

Poulantzas's changing theoretical and political positions

were clearly linked to changes in his philosophical ap-

proach. In turn, although Poulantzas was mainly concerned

with political rather than philosophical questions, changes

in his ontological and/or methodological assumptions were

clearly vital mediating links in his changing views of the

state and political strategy. In the specific conjuncture in

which Poulantzas was working on Political Power and So-

cial Classes, for example, his crucial theoretical innovations

would have been unthinkable without the influence of AI-

thusserian structuralism. Some institutional elements of hisnew approach occur in his earlier work on law, some 'class-

theoretical' aspects in his preliminary remarks on hegemony.

But they could only be adequately brought together and

combined with other arguments when these different ele-

ments were located at different levels in the movement from

abstract to concrete, as well as in relation to the overall

structure of the capitalist system as an economic, juridico-

political, and ideological whole. In the intellectual and

political conjuncture of France in the mid-sixties this

framework could only be provided by Althusser. In this

sense, just as Marx needed Feuerbach to move beyond

Hegel, Poulantzas needed Althusser to move beyond Sartre.

But Althusserianism in its initial form also blocked further

theoretical and political advance. Thus Poulantzas needed

to go beyond Althusser and to rediscover Marx's non-struc-

turalist, revolutionary materialism (or at least its 'relational'

kernel) to develop his mature theory of the state. I thinkthat this stress on revolutionary materialism is correct. For,

if Poulantzas's subsequent shift towards a relational theory

of the state and a left Eurocommunist politics were as-

sociated with a move towards Foucauldian positions, the

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JessoplPoulantzas

latter are nonetheless best interpreted as means through

which new ideas were expressed rather than as their essen-tial precondition. Poulantzas certainly acknowledged the in-

fluence of Foucauldian language and ideas as he thought

through new problems. But he also stressed that it was

Foucault as an analyst of power - not Foucault as an epis-

temologist or methodologist - who inspired him. His

philosophical breakthrough was his own. It involved both

a fundamental return to Marx and a partial movement

beyond him.

3. The Motor-force of Political Involvements We must also

ask what drove Poulantzas beyond a philosophy of law writ-

ten from the perspective of 'existential-marxism' to a hybrid

Althusserian and Gramscian account of the state and thence

to a leftwing Eurocommunist position. The key to this move-

ment appears to be his involvement in Greek and French

politics. Otherwise nothing would have happened. It is

equally clear that not all those involved in Greek or French

politics developed Poulantzas's theoretical framework. Hisinnovations assume both his involvement in three distinctive

theoretical traditions and his commitment to a particular,

Marxist method of theoretical and political analysis. At the

same time they presuppose changes in his philosophical

position.

The political involvements that provided the motor force

here were the result of political events well beyond

Poulantzas's control. Marx had to await the Paris Communebefore he was finally able to work out his views on the

'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Likewise Poulantzas had

to await the collapse of the Greek junta in 1974 before he

could finally develop his views on the 'dictatorship of thebourgeoisie' and its implications for socialist strategy.

Moreover, even if it were true, as Althusser has suggested,

that it was only by adopting proletarian political positions

that Marx could make his major scientific breakthrough, a

crucial factor for Poulantzas's break was surely his partial

abandonment of a 'pure' proletarian class posttion.P The

latter characterised his Marxist-Leninist phase and

prevented him from understanding the nature of politics in

modern societies. Thus Poulantzas had to await the collapse

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of the Union de la Gauche at the prompting of the French

Communist Party in 1977 before he could re-evaluate the

leading role of the vanguard communist party and the work-

ing class in the struggle for socialism. Only then did he

seriously consider popular-democratic struggles and the ac-

tivities of the new social movements with their cross-class

character. And not until then did he develop the full force

of his strategy for a democratic transition to democratic

socialism.

Thus Poulantzas's originality also depended on his at-

tempts to understand and influence leftwing policy towardspolitical events in Greece and France. For Greece his prin-

cipal concern was to understand its military dictatorship,

the conditions leading to its overthrow, the absence of work-

ing class hegemony in the democratization process, and the

prospects for moving from an anti-dictatorial alliance to an

anti-imperialist, anti-monopoly alliance. Two key turning

points for him were the Greek coup in April 1967 and its

eventual collapse under the weight of its own internal con-tradictions in May 1974. The coup itself posed starkly the

fundamental difference between democracy and dictatorship

and also led him to a more active political role. The way

in which the dictatorship collapsed, especially the absence

of mass struggles directly concerned to confront the state,

posed equally stark problems. It confirmed his rapidly grow-

ing suspicion that the state was far from monolithic and

that class struggle penetrated deep within the state itself.In turn this implied that a left Eurocommunist strategy

aimed at intensifying the contradictions internal to the state

as well as mobilising the popular masses outside the state

could prepare the ground for the eventual democratic trans-

formation of the state system as a whole.

This view was reinforced by the failure of the so-called

Portuguese Revolution despite the more favourable positionof left-wing forces in the initial struggle for power. For

Poulantzas was particularly scathing about the reformists'

attempts in Portugal simply to infiltrate the leading person-

nel of the state at the expense of mass struggle, and the

ultra-left's equally misguided belief that socialism had ar-

rived and that the state would simply wither away and could

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Jessop/Poulantzas

therefore safely be ignored. Instead Poulantzas called for

a strategy which would democratise the state and permit itto be used in defense of autonomous rank-and-file move-

ments at a distance from it.

In relation to France Poulantzas's concerns ranged fromthe rise of authoritarian statism to the problems of left unity

around an anti-monopoly, democratic socialist programme.

May 1968 was a crucial moment for Poulantzas as for other

intellectuals in Paris. In subsequent years he became active

in the ideological struggle for left unity. Much of his work

can be seen as an attempt to provide the theoretical jus-tification for class alliances (especially between proletariat

and new petty bourgeoisie rather than between worker and

peasant); and, later, the theoretical justification for combin-

ing class struggles with those of social movements. If theGreek coup and its eventual collapse proved significant insome respects, the struggle for left unity in France and its

temporary collapse in 1977 proved significant in others. It

was this latter event that led Poulantzas to turn away froma simple faith in proletarian struggles and the leading role

of the vanguard communist party and towards a more com-

plex and more problematic alliance strategy, both pluriclas-

siste and pluripartiste, which denied any a priori privilege

to the working class or communist party, and which em-

phasised the autonomous role of non-class forces and social

movements in the struggle for democratic socialism.

In this way Poulantzas arrived at his final political posi-

tion. He called for a combination of struggles at a distance

from the state, within the state, and to transform the state;

and he advocated a combination of representative and direct

democracy as the best means to avoid the statist degenera-

tion of socialism which had occurred in the Soviet bloc.

This final position was achieved because Poulantzas adopted

positions in the political class struggle in both Greece and

France. The surprises which events in these countries

presented for him caused a continual reappraisal of hispolitical and theoretical positions and their interrelations.

His continued efforts to understand these surprises led him

to effect a new synthesis among his three theoretical tradi-tions as well as to advocate a new political strategy.

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The Legacy of Poulantzas Suggesting that Poulantzas left

behind some rich and original theoretical work, does notreally address the question of his legacy. For the legacy of

a theorist does not consist in his/her literary remains: instead

it comprises the ways in which these remains are taken up

and used by contemporaries and successors, and encompas-

ses the marginalisation, or exclusion of certain works, or

their use as controversial or negative reference points. Or

as Prezzolini put it, "the real life of an author emanates

from his readers, disciples, commentators, opponents,

critics. An author has no other existence. "14 In short, theinfluence of theorists, for good or ill, continues as long as

their work leaves identifiable traces on the work of others.

In these terms the legacy of Poulantzas is ambivalent.

In certain respects Poulantzas made a major contribution

to the theoretical agenda in state theory in the 1970s. This

is particularly apparent in the concern with the so-called

"relative autonomy" of the state. In creating a space for a

"relatively autonomous" Marxist political science as wellas in defining the more general concern with the capacities

of the state and the nature of state power, Poulantzas was

clearly influential. This can also be seen in his contributions

to debates on the middle classes and productive and un-

productive labour, on imperialism and the changing forms

of internationalization and fractionation of capital, and, for

a time, on the problems involved in a democratic transition

to democratic socialism. In other respects Poulantzas had

limited influence. Thus his invariably interesting and often

incisive comments on the specificity of capitalist law, the

issues posed by the nature and dynamic of exceptional

regimes, the forms of ideological class struggle, or the dif-

ficulties involved in a Foucauldian "micro-physics" of

power - all these appear to have fallen .largely on deaf

ears. Indeed, even where he did help to set the theoretical

agenda, it was not his particular solutions to these problems

which came to be accepted as the conventional wisdom in

state theory or class analysis or to define the terms of debate

in political strategy. Moreover, if he was once influential,

it is clear that this influence has been much reduced inrecent years.

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Jessop/Poulantzas

Three general points are worth making in this context.

The first will be painfully self-evident to many readers. It

is not easy to follow Poulantzas's work; nor are its political

and strategic implications very evident from his books as

opposed to his many interviews. Now this has not stopped

equally or even more obscure thinkers achieving an impact

- readers will probably nominate different candidates for

this dubious honour - but it does prove an initial hurdle

to be surmounted. It is possibly for this reason that so much

of Poulantzas's immediate legacy stems from the Miliband-

Poulantzas debate in which the issues at stake were rela-tively clear-cut and arguments were simplified to the point

of distortion for the sake of polemic. Poulantzas's book-

length studies were more difficult to read and follow.

Moreover, with the subsequent decline of structuralism and

related intellectual currents which had provided such an im-

portant context for his approach, it is even harder for modern

readers to follow his often tortuous lines of argument.

Second, precisely because Poulantzas first won real at-tention in the anglophone world through his debate with

Miliband, his later work usually has been read as struc-turalist. This unjustifiable interpretation is still the dominant

one within the anglophone world - with his work either

being explicitly charged with 'structuralism' or else sub-

sumed under the more qualified label of 'structural

Marxism'. With this stigma attached, it is hardly surprising

that Poulantzas's work is often cited gesturally; or that all

too frequently it remains unread.

Third, since Poulantzas followed Marx in presenting his

theoretical arguments in terms of the movement from

abstract to concrete, a certain familiarity with this mode ofpresentation (Darstellung) and its underlying methodologi-

cal assumptions is needed to make sense of the gradual

unfolding of his analyses. This method is rather uncommon

in the anglophone social sciences with their penchant for

positivist theories and systematic empiricism and for her-meneutic, interpretive traditions which are unsympathetic

to arguments rooted in a realist epistemology which stresses

the ontological depth of the social world. 15 Indeed, in the

same year that Poulantzas's last book appeared in English,

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Gerry Cohen's pathbreaking work in analytical marxism,

Karl Marx's Theory of History was also published. This

used "state of the art methods of analytical philosophy and

'positivist' social science;"16 and it came to define anglo-

Marxism as the centre of gravity of 1980s marxist theory.!?

Certainly, in contrast with so-called "standards of clarity

and rigour which distinguish twentieth-century analytical

philosophy,"18 Poulantzas's works are not books that can

be dipped into for a good read or for a quick insight into

a specific problem.

For all three reasons, therefore, Poulantzas's work facedan up-hill struggle in reaching a sympathetic and apprecia-

tive readership even when the overall theoretical and politi-

cal conjuncture was favourable. In turn this helps explain

why there is no identifiable Poulantzasian school to act as

the bearer of his theoretical and political approach.

1. Poulantzas's Impact in the Seventies Even during his own

life time, Poulantzas's work encountered a complex theoreti-

cal and political environment which varied from country tocountry. For example, one might expect Poulantzas to have

been influential in Germany. Law and the state are both

key fields of enquiry there and the state was rethematized

by the West German Marxists at more or less the same time

as Poulantzas was rediscovering it in France. Yet, though

his early work on legal philosophy and Marxist legal theory

was well received, his work on state theory had but little

impact. This can partly be explained by the over-all strength

of the postwar Marxist-Leninist "state monopoly capitalism"

approach among those who were aligned to communist par-

ties;19 and, more importantly, by the vitality of the home-

grown West German Ableitungsdebatte (state derivationdebate) concerned with more abstract features of the

capitalist state and their derivation from the basic features

of capitalism. In short, as far as most contemporary German

state theorists were concerned. Poulantzas was too little con-

cerned with developing the critique of political economy,and too much concerned with just one form of capitalist

state, the bourgeois democratic republic. In this respect

Poulantzas has suffered the same fate in West Berlin and

West Germany as Gramsci, whose studies have yet to gain

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Jessop!Poulantzas

even a 'selected works' series there. Conversely, it is

precisely the importance and vitality of the Gramscian tradi-

tion in Italy which seems to have limited Poulantzas's im-

pact there. Indeed, as noted above, it was not so much

Poulantzas who influenced Italian politics, as 'Italian

politics' which influenced Poulantzas.

By contrast it was the relative weakness of state theory

in the anglophone world which made it easier for

Poulantzas's work to penetrate there once interest began to

develop in the 1960s and 1970s. Indeed one of his earlier

papers on political theory (as opposed to the philosophyand sociology of law) was a critique of Marxist political

theory in Great Britain in the mid-60s.20 In turn it was a

controversy in the pages of New Left Review between two

Marxist scholars, Poulantzas and Miliband, which did much

to stimulate anglophone interest in the 1970s. Once this

interest was aroused, Poulantzas's work proved an important

(if sometimes negative) reference point not only in state

theory and analysis but also in theoretical and empiricalwork on social class. Indeed its impact has probably been

stronger in the latter area than it has been in state theory.It has had a direct and indirect impact through the debate

he initiated on the structural determination of class and its

contingent articulation with the position adopted by class

forces in specific conjunctures. To single out only the most

important works within the continuing debate we can men-

tion studies by Carchedi, Hindess and Hirst, Laclau, Wright,

and Przeworski.U There is also a host of secondary analyses

concerned with developing and applying these and related

concepts of class location and struggle.

In France, on the other hand, his influence was more

directly related to his initial identification with structural

Marxism. And in both France and Greece his involvements

in political debate and ideological struggles were also cru-

cial in mediating his role in theoretical developments. Final-

ly, for a time in the 1970s, Poulantzas had some influencein the Iberian peninsula as both Portugal and Spain ex-

perienced political renewal. Likewise, throughout his most

productive period of work on state theory, it seems that

Poulantzas was widely read and discussed in Latin America.

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Here his works on Fascism and Dictatorship and on the

current forms of imperialism were as influential as his more

general work on the state. Thus Poulantzas's influence was

mediated in different ways in different countries.

2. The Crisis and Decline of Marxist State Theory We must

also note that, in the years since Poulantzas's death, Marxist

state theory itself has declined in importance. This decline

has four main causes: two internal to Marxism itself and

two concerning the relation between Marxism and other

theories.

First, as Poulantzas himself recognised, Marxism ex-perienced a political and theoretical crisis in the seventies:

this has been particularly strong in France but can also be

seen in other countries which once had a strong communist

movement. Second, both for Marxism in particular and for

the Left in general, there have been significant shifts of

interest. In political theory old problems (such as

democracy) have been rediscovered and new issues have

emerged (such as new social movements, ecology, andfeminism). Although these have a state-theoretical dimen-

sion they are not always directly related to state theory as

such. This can be seen in the growing interest in discourse

theory and its implications for Marxism and socialist

politics.22 In addition, the crisis in capitalism over the last

decade or so has also provoked a resurgence of interest in

Marxist political economy (long wave theory, the labour

process, economic crisis theory, regulation theory, etc.) at

the expense of state theoretical concerns as such. Neither

its internal crisis nor the shift of interest within Marxism

imply that state theory is no longer relevant. They do require

state theorists to show that it can address these new issues

and problems in a fruitful manner.

A third reason for the decline of Marxist state theory is

rooted in theoretical developments elsewhere. For many

other disciplines have become interested in questions of

legal and state theory. They have drawn on and/or developedmany different theoretical perspectives besides those em-

bodied in Marxism. This has made the pioneering work of

Marxist political theory in the sixties and seventies more

marginal for contemporary theoretical work and has forced

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JessoplPoulantzas

Marxist theories to compete with other approaches for con-

tinued attention. Among those who would have been inter-

ested in Poulantzas's later work, the growing vogue for the

work of Foucault (as well as deconstructionist and 'post-

modern' theorists such as Derrida) has clearly reduced his

impact. This occurred not just because of changing fashion

among the more fickle aficionados of French theory (al-

though this has clearly played a role) but also because

Foucauldian disciplinary analyses and Derridean de-

construction inevitably displace the focus of attention from

the state and class struggle to the micro-physics of powerand the problem of identity formation. Yet, although

Poulantzas himself acknowledged the influence of Foucault,

he could still show that the latter's emphasis on the micro-

physics of power provided no theoretical or practical pur-chase on the complexities of political class domination and

its mediation in and through the strategic selectivity of the

state and the development of more global political

projects.23 Likewise, although he did not directly addressthe issues raised by deconstruction, Poulantzas was well

aware of the problematic unity of the state and the ambiguity

and instability of its boundaries with other institutional or-

ders in society. In both respects measured appreciation of

his work has been hindered by an ill-judged emphasis on

his commitments to Althusserian structuralism. Indeed, asI have argued elsewhere, Foucault's account of power rela-

tions involves a number of problems which can be resolved

by resorting to the arguments of the mature Poulantzas.24

Finally, within state research itself, a challenge has been

mounted from what one might call a 'state-theoretical' posi-

tion which is opposed to the 'capital-theoretical' and/or

'class-theoretical' traditions embodied in Marxism as well

as to the pluralist and behaviouralist traditions in orthodox

political science. This so-called 'state-centred' approach de-

serves attention here less because of its coherence as an

alternative account of the state,25 than because it is often

presented in the form of a critique of Poulantzas's alleged'society-centred' approach.

In this specific theoretical context Poulantzas's work has

been marginalized. This is not only because he is no longer

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around to engage in new debates and controversies as for-

cefully as he did in earlier matters for theoretical and politi-

cal contestation. It is also because he left no school behind

to continue his work and because the continuing relevance

of his work to such issues has been lost to view. The initialsuccess of the Miliband-Poulantzas debate surely has some-

thing to do with this. For the apparently structuralist position

he adopted therein has given rise to the impression that his

work was, in currently fashionable jargon, 'society-centred'

as well as rigidly structurally determinist. It is certainly in

this context that his work is largely cited today by the op-posing supporters of the state-centred approach.

While there is much to be said for 'bringing the state

back in', there is little to be said for the 'state-centred'

theorists account of the work of Poulantzas. For Poulantzas

did actually address, directly or indirectly, many of the key

issues raised by 'state-centred' studies. Thus he always

stressed the impact of state forms and juridico-political

ideology in shaping the nature of social and political forcesand emphasized the role of state structures and capacities

in maintaining the cohesion of society. This is particularly

clear in his account of its unique incarnation of mental

labour within the overall division between mental and

manual labour and in his more general discussion of the

specificity of the legal and institutional form of the modern

state. In turn he related this to the decisive role of strugglesfor hegemony in capitalist societies. He also traced the

potential autonomy of state managers or bureaucrats to the

institutional separation of the state and the distinctive state

identities and ideologies which emerged within different

branches of the state apparatus. And, in describing the crea-

tive capacities of the state in constituting and reproducing

the capitalist social order, Poulantzas also touched on the

issue of what Michael Mann has termed its "infrastructural

power."26 Indeed, in his last book, State, Power, Socialism,

Poulantzas offered many observations on the state's role inshaping the overall spatial, temporal, corporeal, and social

order of capitalist societies.

None of this should be taken to mean that Poulantzas

came to abandon his earlier claim that the state as such did

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Jessop/Poulantzas

not (and could not) exercise a "state power" independent

from "class power. "27 Instead he refined this argument in

two ways: first, by delineating the various potential struc-

tural powers (or state capacities) inscribed in the state as

institutional ensemble; and, second, by insisting that the

ways in which such powers (as well as any associated

liabilities) are realized depends on the action, reaction, and

interaction of specific social forces located both within and

beyond this complex ensemble. In short, the state does not

exercise power: its powers (in the plural) are activated

through the agency of definite political forces in specificconjunctures. It is not the state which acts - whether in

an 'infrastructural' or a 'despotic' mode - but specific sets

of politicians and state officials located in specific parts ofthe state system and confronting specific resistances from

specific forces beyond the state. It is the interplay between

them which both activates and limits specific powers and

state capacities inscribed in particular institutions and agen-

cies. This confirms the point made by Poulantzas that thestate is a social relation, i.e., that state power is an institu-

tionally-mediated condensation of the changing balance of

forces. The balance of forces in turn can never be class-

neutral. State power is always already selective in class

terms by virtue both of its structural selectivity and of the

class character of the balance of forces.28

Furthermore, these structural powers or capacities andtheir realization cannot be understood by focusing on the

state alone - even assuming one could precisely define its

institutional boundaries. For, considered as an institutional

ensemble rather than a real (or fictive) subject, the state

comprises an ensemble of centres which offer unequal chan-

ces to different forces within and outside the state to act

for different political purposes. This is what it means to

talk about the strategic selectivity of the state system.

Moreover, although the state system does have its own dis-

tinctive resources and powers, it also has distinctive

liabilities as well as needs for resources which are produced

elsewhere in its environment. This means that the powers

of th~state are alwa)'s conditional and relational. Poulantzas's

final account of the state often stressed this and thereby

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superseded his earlier, more structuralist analyses. In so

doing it also offered a superior alternative to more orthodox,state-centred studies.

In some respects, then, Poulantzas moved toward a state-

centred account. Indeed his work is often criticised for beingheavily 'politicist' in character and for treating capitalist

reproduction from a statist perspective. Nonetheless

Poulantzas was clearly not a 'state-centred' theorist in the

sense attached to this label by its own partisans. For not

only did he neglect many issues central to the newly emer-

gent 'state-theoretical' approach (such as the constitution

of nation-states in and through the international state system

or the role of military organization and warfare in the making

and remaking of states) but he also rejected the assumption

which seems to underpin much of this recent 'state-theoretical'work, namely, that the state system is in some sense a subject

and not merely a specific site or strategic field of action

with distinctive properties. It is in this context above all

that I would defend the superiority of Poulantzas's approachover that of many accounts currently jostling for buyers in

the academic market place.

The Actuality of Poulantzas Despite his declining in-

fluence, Poulantzas's work is still relevant to contemporary

concerns. This continuing 'actuality' rests on his contribu-

tions in four areas: his theory of the state as a social relation,his analysis of changing forms of the state (under the rubric

of "authoritarian statism"), his views on political partiesand new social movements, and his discussion of the

problems of the democratic transition to democratic

socialism.

1. Bringing the State Back In First, one could well argue

that the concept of the state as a social relation offers a

middle way between 'state-centred' and 'society-centred'

approaches. Poulantzas himself certainly did not develop

all the implications of a 'state-centred' approach. Hisprimary point of reference was, after all, the state's role in

reproducing the dominance of the capitalist mode of produc-

tion. It was certainly not the state's role in reproducing

itself or the more general system of nation-states. Rather

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Jessop/Poulantzas

the strategic-theoretical approach adumbrated in his notion

of the state as a social relation provides the theoreticalmeans to relate both state- and society-centred analyses.

In arguing that the state is a social relation (or, somewhat

less elliptically, that state power is an institutionally-

mediated expression of the changing balance of forces),

Poulantzas clearly treated the form of the state as sui generis

and as having a distinctive impact on social and political

organization. It is their strategic selectivity and distinctive

capacities that enable state systems to determine (in part)

the outcome of political actions. But the capacities of the

state cannot be separated from the overall balance of forcesin a given social formation. Nor can one treat state managers

as a unitary social category that can be isolated from social

forces more generally. Even their distinct economic-cor-

porate interests as a social category, which lives off the

state or politics, could be differentiated, according to

Poulantzas, in terms of the overall structure and functions

of the state apparatus.Thus Poulantzas often stressed the links between the ac-

tivities of state managers and specific class or fractional

interests in society and their mediation through the changing

balance of forces. There are obvious class reductionist

dangers in this approach but it does have the merit of em-

phasising the need to calculate the class-relevance of even

the independent actions of state managers. This does not

mean that one should follow Poulantzas to the letter in his

insistence that the relative autonomy of the state is always

that degree of autonomy which is required to reproduce the

dominance of capital in a given conjuncture. One can follow

the spirit of his emerging approach to the state withoutembracing all of his often class-reductionist conclusions.

Without this approach, there is a clear danger that a pure-

ly 'state-centred' approach would merely invert 'society-

centred' approaches.s? One should not substitute the logic

of the state and the interests of state managers for the logicof capital and the interests of antagonistic classes. We

should reject the false dilemma which requires one to argue

either that the state or society is primary: instead one shouldfollow Poulantzas in treating the state as a social relation.

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A 'state-centred' approach would then focus more on the

state's role in the "form-determination" of social reproduc-tion through its "infrastructural power" and its strategic

selectivity, a 'society-centred' approach would focus more

on the changing balance of forces (including the role of

state managers) which is condensed in and through the dis-

tinct structures and functions of the state. But neither ap-

proach can be properly developed without detailed studies

of how the state's own institutional forms, with their specific

capacities and vulnerabilities, condition the changing char-

acter of the political forces (at a distance as well as inside

the state).

2. A New State Form in Modern Capitalism Second,

Poulantzas was particularly concerned with the political im-

plications of recent trends in advanced capitalist states. He

argued that a new form of state was emerging ('authoritarian

statism ') and his discussion is even more pertinent today

than when it was first conceived. He argued that the basic

developmental tendency in this new state form is

intensified state control over every sphere of socio-economiclife combined with radical decline of the institutions of politicaldemocracy and with draconian and multi-form curtailment ofso-called 'formal' liberties.30

In general authoritarian statism involves enhanced roles

for the executive branch, its dominant 'state party' (whose

function is to act as a transmission belt from the state to

the people rather than from the people to the state), and a

new, anti-democratic ideology. This further undermines the

already limited involvement of the masses in political

decision-making, severely weakens the organic functioning

of the party system (even where a plurality of parties sur-

vives intact), and saps the vitality of democratic forms of

political discourse. Accordingly there are fewer obstacles

to the continuing penetration of authoritarian-statist forms

into all areas of social life. Indeed Poulantzas actuallyclaims that "all contemporary power is functional to

authoritarian statism."31 All this might seem alarmist. Cer-

tainly one should neither over-estimate the capacities of the

state and its technologies of power nor underestimate

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JessoplPoulantzas

capacities for resistance. But this is no reason to ignore the

general tendencies which Poulantzas identified.

To give flesh to this bare description we can identify

nine, more specific features of this state form: 1) power is

transferred from the legislature to the executive and the

concentration of power within the latter - typically within

the office of prime minister or executive president with the

resultant appearance of personalistic rule; 2) the fusion be-

tween the three branches of the state - legislature, execu-

tive, and judiciary - accelerates and is accompanied by a

decline in the rule of law in favour of particularistic anddiscretionary regulation; 3) as their ties to the power bloc

and the popular masses are weakened, political parties tend

to lose their functions as the privileged interlocutors of the

administration and as the leading forces in organizing

hegemony; 4) this is reflected in a shift in the political

significance of parties away from their traditional functions

in elaborating policy through compromise and alliances

around a party programme and in legitimating state powerthrough electoral competition towards a more restricted role

as the transmission belts for executive decisions as the ad-

ministration itself assumes the legitimation functions tradi-

tionally performed by political parties; 5) dominance within

the ideological state apparatuses is displaced from the

school, university, and publishing house to the mass media,

which now play a key role in political legitimation and

mobilization and, indeed, increasingly draw both their agen-

da and symbolism from the administration and also ex-

perience a growing and multiform control at its hands; 6)

linked to these shifts is the growth of new plebiscitary and

populist forms of consent alongside new technocratic and/orneoliberal forms of legitimation; 7) parallel power networks

cross-cutting the formal organization of the state have also

grown - networks which exercise a decisive share in its

activities, promote a growing material and ideological com-

munity of interest between key civil servants and thedominant mass party, and consolidate policy communities

which cement dominant interests outside the state apparatus

with forces inside at the expense of popular forces; 8) a

reserve repressive para-state apparatus has grown too, paral-

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lel to the main organs of the state and serving in a pre-

emptive capacity to police popular struggles and other

threats to bourgeois hegemony; and 9) the dominant ideol-

ogy has been reorganised by integrating certain liberal and

libertarian themes from the sixties as well as displacing

notions such as the general will and democracy in favour

of instrumental rationality and technocratic 10gic.32

In this context we should recall that Poulantzas distin-

guished among levels of analysis. He treated authoritarian

statism as a new form of the capitalist state, one which

characterised metropolitan and dependent capitalist statesalike. It could be associated with different forms of regime:

more neoliberal in France, for example, more authoritarian

in Germany.V Thus, while drawing attention to these

general tendencies, he was also well aware that their realiza-

tion and impact could vary. To what degree authoritarian

statism could be consolidated depended on measures taken

to combat and resist it as much as to further it. Both the

theoretical arguments and the political implications would

merit further study.

3. Crises in Communist Politics and its Party Form In

reflecting on the political and state crises of his time,

Poulantzas clearly identified the problems inherent in the

dominant form of socialist and communist party organiza-

tion and its associated inability to forge links with new

class forces and new social movements - a form which he

himself rejected and whose resulting incapacities he

regretted. Thus he argued that communist and socialist par-ties in Europe had for too long been organized primarily

as workers' parties and had focused on the contradictions

of the productive apparatus (the factory) and the relativelyhomogeneous working conditions which characterized it

during the industrial revolution and the Fordist era. In tum

this prompted a twofold division between parties and unions,

state and enterprise. But the growing penetration of the state

into all areas of everyday life and radical shifts in economicorganization and activity provoked new forms of economic

crisis, new movements opposed to the impact of statism in

civil society, and cross-class struggles located far from the

site of production. Thus, at the very time when their

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JessoplPoutantzas

presence seemed to be necessary to guide political action,

the mass workers' parties were themselves weakened and

thrown into crisis by these very same conditions. Poulantzas

concluded that only new forms of party organization, in-

ternal democratization, new links between the party and

mass organizations, and new types of linkage with the new

social movements would resolve these crises.

This new strategy clearly posed dilemmas. For, as

Poulantzas repeatedly stressed, such changes could leadworkers' parties down the populist road just as surely as

refusing to change would isolate them in a few decliningproletarian ghettoes. Likewise he noted the dangers of too

close a link between the party and social movements (which

could result in the latter's absorption into the party organiza-

tion) as well as the risks of encouraging single micro-

revolts, scattered resistances, and isolated experiments

(which could result in their degeneration into fragmented,

de-politicized, and egoistic organizations). The only feasible

solution seemed to be to permit a certain irreducible tension

between social movements and parties, direct democracy

and representative institutions. Indeed Poulantzas some-times concluded that such a tension is an integral element

in the dynamic of a democratic transition to democratic

soclalism.U

It is no part of my argument to claim that Poulantzas

solved these problems in practical terms nor that he was

alone in identifying them on a theoretical plane. Nor would

I want to disguise the fact that his own conversion to thisnew strategic approach came late in the day and was not

worked through in a full and consistent manner. But I do

want to highlight the currency of these issues and to notehow they merit continued attention. Moreover, by locating

them in a more general 'strategic-theoretical' framework

and relating them to his arguments about the relational char-

acter of state power, Poulantzas did reveal aspects of these

problems which are often neglected.4. Democratic Socialism and Eastern Europe Given the

renewed interest in the problems of a democratic transition

to democratic socialism, it is worth looking again at

Poulantzas's work. His guidelines for such a transition in-

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elude recommendations for institutional change as well as

for political strategy. In relation to institutional design he

advocated a 'third way', rejecting any exclusive reliance

on parliamentary change or on direct democracy. He iden-

tified clear and present dangers in both representative

democracy (with its statist tendencies) and direct democracy

(with its tendencies towards egoism and fragmentation and

thence to the dictatorship of the experts or statist despotism).

This was coupled with support for a supra-class popular

front embracing new social movements as well as two or

more political parties. This popular front should pursue athreefold strategy: a) rank-and-file movements should link

together at the base, build their own self-help and subsidiary

organizations, and engage in struggles and campaigns at a

distance from the state in order to increase leftward pressure

on it; b) parties should engage in electoral politics, par-

liamentary politics, and administration in order to influence

the exercise of its undoubted capacities and to help intensify

the internal contradictions of the state so that its internal

balance of forces was polarized leftward - without, however,

so weakening or paralyzing it that it could not intervene to

protect and provide infrastructural support for popular

movements, organizations, and initiatives; and c) the in-

stitutional structures of the state should be changed so that

it loses many of its bureaucratic, centralizing features and

becomes progressively more accountable to the people."

In commenting both on issues of institutional design and

political strategy Poulantzas continually emphasised thedilemmas and contradictions involved. Indeed, as I have

noted elsewhere, he was far better at noting these dilemmas

and contradictions than he was at proposing solutions tothem.36

Although his analyses (presented not only in books and

articles but also in many interviews) have been neglected,

I would claim that they are still very pertinent. Although

there has recently been a spate of interest in detailed plansfor socialism and how to get there, the details are often

stressed to the detriment of the dilemmas and contradictions

they involve. Poulantzas may well have been less concerned

with the details but he did bring out the dangers of one-sided

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Jessop/Poulantzas

political solutions. Many of his ideas are advocated (often

without recognition that he ever worked on such themes)

in the current literature on democracy and civil society. To

take just one recent illustration from many, John Keane, in

a fine historical, philosophical, and theoretical work on

democratic socialism presents many arguments reminiscent

of those developed by Poulantzas. But he does not acknow-

ledge this affinity - probably because he shares the same

dismissive view of Poulantzas as so many of our contem-

poraries.t?

To restrict our discussion to the West in this context,however, is to belittle Poulantzas's actuality. For it is recent

(and continuing) events in the East which demonstrate

beyond a shadow of doubt that Poulantzas still has much

to teach us. The timing, rhythms, and pace of change in

Eastern Europe in 1989 and 1990 as well as its nature and

direction have been truly astounding and almost wholly un-

expected. There can be few, if any, 'actually existing'

theories in the social sciences which fare well in the faceof such rapid and disconcerting patterns of change. Thus it

is not inappropriate to recall here that Poulantzas developed

his relational approach to the state because his earlier

theories were quite unable to explain the sudden decom-

position or collapse of the military dictatorships in Southern

Europe.38 Obviously the form and pace of decompositionor collapse have proved even greater in the Central and

Eastern European states which were once in the iron grip

of the Soviet (or simply Russian") empire. And, even moreself-evidently, they have already had much more radical

implications for the resurgence of market ideologies and

proposals for the reintroduction of international and domes-

tic market forces. Yet in both respects the approach

adumbrated by Poulantzas would seem useful - not as a

simple grid to be imposed for the purpose of mechanically

deciphering past and future events but as a heuristic frame-

work for sensitizing us to relevant factors and mechanismsand indicating possible strategies. This is not to argue that

Poulantzas himself anticipated - let alone successfully the-

orized - the events in Eastern Europe. It is simply to argue

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that employing his strategic-relational approach provides an

excellent starting point for such a theorization.

Thus, regarding the collapse or decomposition of these

regimes, we might note that the character of state power

as a social relation and the importance of all political strug-gles - at a distance from the state, within the existing

state, and to transform the state - are as relevant to the

democratic revolution in the East as they are in the West.

In particular the role of struggles at a distance from the

state (even when they assume essentially peaceful forms

and involve little more than - and what a lot this little word'little' implies - mass demonstrations or symbolic general

strikes) in the collapse of state socialist regimes reveals

how far the state apparatus and its personnel had become

internally fissured and at odds with each other. Such strug-

gles intensified the internal conflicts within the state ap-

paratus - causing it to decompose, destabilising and

immobilising its repressive apparatus,39 polarising its petty

bureaucrats and communist party officials for and againstmass demands, and forcing the whole system on to the

defensive. Obviously the mass movements had to have con-

flicts to work on and the chronic economic crisis and the

ageing of the party leaderships played a key role here. A

fuller analysis of the concrete (and rapidly changing) con-

junctures in each country is, of course, needed to show how

these factors interacted from case to case.

Likewise, regarding the turn towards neoliberalism in the

aftermath of the collapse (at least outside the Soviet Union),

we might recall that Poulantzas stressed that the equally

disappointing outcome of the revolutions in Greece, Por-

tugal, and Spain stemmed from the Left's failure to hege-

monize the struggle for democratization. Since it was the

transition to liberal democracy that defined the immediate

horizon of action in Southern Europe and not the transition

to socialism, Poulantzas had emphasized the need for left

forces to take the lead in formulating democratic demands.Failure on this score would mean that rightwing and statist

forces would hegemonize the democratization process and

thereby weaken the chances of later movement towards a

democratic socialist future. The problems confronting de-

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Jessop/Poulantzas

mocratic socialist forces in the Eastern European countries

are even greater since their repressive, bureaucratic statismhad seriously weakened civil society. Thus, while weak so-

cial movements could topple the internally fissured state

socialist regimes, they lacked the organizational and

strategic capacities to hegemonize the struggle over

democratization. This is particularly clear in the rapid ab-

sorption of GDR into a unified Germany under the

hegemony of West German capitalism; but the same story

is unfolding in other East European countries as capitalist

interests throw their weight behind rightwing and neoliberalforces. All the dilemmas and difficulties anticipated by

Poulantzas in the attempts to link social movements and

party organization, direct democracy and representative in-

stitutions, are evident in Eastern Europe. And they are fur-ther complicated by the decomposition of the state apparatus

as a possible source of support for rank-and-file initiatives

and struggles at a distance from the state to maintain the

leftward momentum of the transition process. Thus, just asin the Southern European states studied by Poulantzas,

political conditions are ripe for a gradual reimposition of

bureaucratic, authoritarian forms of government.

Concluding Remarks In this article I have tried to assess

the originality, the legacy, and the actuality of Poulantzas.

I believe that he was the most original postwar WesternMarxist state theorist and I have suggested some reasons

for this originality both in his location at the confluenceof three very different theoretical currents and in quite

specific political struggles. I have also noted with regret

that this originality has largely gone unrecognized. This fact

is reflected in his theoretical and political legacy. Although

Poulantzas had a significant impact on the agenda of state

theory in the 1970s his particular solutions to the problems

he identified were far less often accepted. Since his tragic

death in 1979, his legacy has become marginal in manyareas. Notwithstanding this decline (which is closely linked,

of course, to the more general crisis of Marxist theory and

communist political parties and, more recently still, to the

collapse of the Stalinist regimes in the Soviet Bloc), I have

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also argued that Poulantzas's work should still be treated

with respect and serious consideration because the problems

which he addressed are still actual and the arguments and

ideas he proposed are still pertinent.

This is why I would conclude that Poulantzas's theory

is both classical and contemporary. I am not of course ad-

vocating a passive acceptance of his work. His approach

on issues of political economy (as tackled more recently,

for example, in regulation theory) or on issues of ideology

(a distinct theoretical object in Althusserian structuralism

which has been steadily deconstructed under the impact ofdiscourse analysis) are relatively underdeveloped. But we

can consider his work as a crucial source in a continuous

theoretical tradition concerned with the state. Approached

critically it can help us to make theoretical advances notonly in terms of the more traditional 'society-centred'

analyses but also in terms of the newer 'state-centred'

analyses. And, as a source of political inspiration, it remainsvital.

There is no question here of instituting a cult of per-

sonality. It is more an issue of continuing the unfinished

work of a basic theoretical revolution in Marxist analyses

of the state. We should approach Poulantzas's work in the

same critical spirit as he himself tackled his own studies

and those of others: to appreciate its significant theoretical

ruptures, to fill its gaps, to assess its relevance to new

problems and theoretical currents, to develop it in new direc-

tions. But we should also try to avoid that theoreticismwhich deforms and stultifies so much Marxist analysis, and

consciously aim to link theoretical analysis with issues of

political strategy. Poulantzas himself fought long and hard

for left unity in France and Greece and tried to provide the

theoretical foundations for an effective strategy oriented to

a democratic transition to democratic socialism under the

conditions of contemporary capitalism. This was certainly

a struggle worth fighting.In conclusion, although his theoretical work is sadly

neglected today (apart from gestural references to the

Miliband-Poulantzas debate, whose current relevance is

close to zero), I would still claim that Poulantzas legacy is

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valid and vital. It would be wrong to ascribe this legacy

solely to Poulantzas. He participated, after all, in a more

general movement towards left Eurocommunist political

positions. Perhaps one can continue it in other ways by

participating in the general movement to which he con-

tributed and from which he drew so much.

Notes

This article was written for a conference held in Berlin, November 1989,

to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the death of Nicos Poulantzas,It has been revised in the intervening year to take account of recent develop-

ments in Eastern Europe and in the light of friendly criticisms from the

editors of SPE. Panicular thanks to Rianne Mahon for steering the article

to its final publication.

1. The following is a chronologically ordered list of works by Nicos

Poulantzas discussed or cited in this article: "Marxist PoliticalTheory in Great Britain," New Left Review, 43 (1967), pp. 57-74.

Political Power and Social Classes (London: NLB, 1973 [orig.1968]). "The Problem of the Capitalist State," New Left Review 58

(1969), pp. 67-78. Fascism and Dictatorship (London: NLB, 1974[orig. 1970]). Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (London: NLB,

1975 [orig. 1974]). Crisis of the Dictatorships (London: NLB, 1976[2nd edn.]). "The capitalist state," New Left Review 95 (1976), pp.63-83. State, Power, Socialism (London: Verso, 1978). "Lestheoriciens doivent retourner sur terre," Les nouvelles litteraires 26June 1978. "L'etat, les mouvements sociaux, le parti," Dialectiques28 (1979). "La crise des partis," Le Monde Diplomatique 26 Sep-tember 1979. "Interview with Nicos Poulantzas," Marxism TodayMay 1979, pp. 198-205. "Es geht darum mit derStalinistischen Tradi-tion zu brechen,' Prokla 37 (1979), pp. 127-40. "Is there a Crisis

in Marxism?" Journal of the Hellenic Diaspora 6/iii (1979), pp 7-16."La deplacement des procedures de legitimation," in Universite deVincennes, Le nouvel ordre interieur (Paris: Moreau, 1980) pp. 138-

43.2. See especially Poulantzas, "The Problem of the Capitalist State"

(1969) and "The capitalist state" (1976); R. Miliband, "The Capitalist

State - Reply to Poulantzas," New Left Review 59 (1970), pp. 53-60,and idem "Poulantzas and the Capitalist State," New Left Review82 (1973), pp. 83-92.

3. This was especially true regarding the exact boundaries, size, and

continuing primacy of the working class as well as the nature and

political significance of the new middle classes.4. For a particularly scathing onslaught on Poulantzas for his alleged

contribution to the demotion of the working class and the rise of a

new "true" socialism, see E.M. Woods, The Retreat from Class: a

New Trae' Sodalism (London: Verso, 19&5) pp. 15-46.

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5. B. Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory and Political Strategy(London: Macmillan, 1985); See also B. Jessop, "The non-struc-

turalist legacy of Nicos Poulantzas,' in L. Appignanesi (00.), Ideas

from France: the Legacy of French Theory (London: Institute ofContemporary Arts, 1985) pp. 38-41.

6. N. Luhmann, The Differentiation of Society (New York: Columbia

University Press, 1982).

7. P. Anderson, Considerations on Western Marxism (London: Verso,

1976) p. 103.8. For a fuller account, see Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory ...

9. Poulantzas, "Les theoriciens doivent retoumer sur terre" (1978).

10. Cf. Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory ...

11. E.g., Wood, The Retreat from Class ... pp. 30-31. Wood also falselyaccuses Poulantzas of suggesting that the state had acquired the

dominant role in economic exploitation (pp, 40-41). But she over-looks the fact that Poulantzas used the concept of 'economic' intwo senses: liberal market forces and the organization of production.

Thus his analysis of displacement referred only to the relative demo-tion of free market forces in favour of the state's role in mediating

the relations among private capitals in late capitalism. On this see

Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory... pp. 84-87.

12. This phrase derives, of course, from Gramsci's analysis of the state:he defined the state in its integral sense as political society plus

civil society. Likewise Poulantzas analyzes classes from the view-point of their expanded reproduction. Classes in Contemporary

Capitalism (1975 [orig, 1974]); State, Power, Socialism (1978). In-deed. with the exception of his overly politicized and ideologistic

view of the petty bourgeoisie in Fascism and Dictatorship (1974[orig. 1970]), he always defined classes in terms of the social rela-

tions of economic exploitation, ownership. and control. At the same

time, however. he stressed that other institutional orders (notablythe state) were deeply involved in reproducing the social relations

of production.

13. See L. Althusser, For Marx (London: Allen Lane, 1969).

14. C. Prezzolini, Machiavelli (London: Robert Hale, 1967) p, 190.

15. Cf. R. Bhaskar, Reclaiming Reality (London: Verso, 1989).

16. J. Roemer, Analytical Marxism (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress 1986) pp. 1-2.

17. Cf. P. Anderson. In the Tracks of Historical Materialism (London:Verso 1983); A. Callinicos (ed.), Marxist Theory (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press. 1989) pp. 1-6; B. Hindess, Rationality, Choice,and Action (London: Unwin Hyman, 1988).

18. G.A. Cohen, Karl Marx's Theory of History (London: Oxford Univer-

sity Press, 1978) p, ix.19. This tradition emphasized the fusion ofthe state and monopoly capi-

tal into a single mechanism of economic exploitation and political

domination to the detriment not only of the popular masses but also

of non-monopoly capital.20. Poulantzas, "Marxist Political Theory in Great Britain" (1967).

21. G. Carchedi, "On the Economic Identification of the New Middle

Class," Economy Qnd Society 411 (1915); Hindess, Rationality,

106

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Jessop/Poulantzas

Choice. and Action; E. Laclau, Politics and Ideology in Marxist

Theory (London: NLB, 1978); A. Przeworski, "Proletariat into a

Class: the process of class formation from Karl Kautsky's The ClassStruggle to recent controversies," Politics and Society 7/4 (1977),

pp 343-402; E.O. Wright, Class. Crisis, and the State (London: Verso,

1978).22. E.g. E. Laclau and C. Mouffe, Hegemony and Socialist Politics (Lon-

don: Verso, 1985).23. See Poulantzas, State, Power. Socialism (1978); Jessop, Nlcos

Poulantzas: Marxist Theory ...; and idem, State Theory: PuttingCapitalist States in Their Place (Cambridge: Polity, 1990).

24. Jessop, State Theory ...

25. On the absence of which, see ibid.

26. Cf. M. Mann, "The Autonomous Power of the State," Archives Europeennes de Sociologie 25 (1983), pp. 187-213.

27. Poulantzas, Political Power and Social Classes (1968).

28. Jessop, State Theory ...

29. See, for example, T. Skocpol, "Bringing the State Back In: Strategies

of Analysis in Current Research," in P.B. Evans et al. (eds.), Bringing

the State Back In (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985)

pp. 3-37.

30. Poulantzas, State, Power, Socialism (1978), pp. 203-4.31. Ibid, p. 239.

32. Cf. ibid; idem, "L'etat, les mouvements sociaux, le parti" (1979);

"La crise des partis" (1979); "Interview with Nicos Poulantzas"(1979); "Es geht darum mit der Stalinistischen Tradition zu brechen"

(1979); "La deplacemem des procedures de legitimation" (1980).

33. Cf, idem, "Interview with Nicos Poulantzas" (1979).

34. Cf. idem, "Es geht darum mit der Stalinistischen Tradition zu

brechen" (1979); "Is there a Crisis in Marxism?" (1979).

35. Idem, State, Power, Socialism (1978); "L'etat, les mouvementssociaux, le parti" (1979); "La crise des partis" (1979); "Interview

with Nicos Poulantzas" (1979); "Es geht darum mit der Stalinistis-chen Tradition zu brechen" (1979).

36. cf. Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory ...

37. J. Keane, Democracy and Civil Society (London: Verso, 1988) pp.101151.

38. This is not the place to discuss whether these regimes are best

described as 'military' dictatorships: the point is, rather, to stressthe unexpected nature of their collapse. For a critique of Poulantzas's

views on these regimes, see Jessop, Nicos Poulantzas: MarxistTheory ...

39. To the extent, indeed, that unarmed civilians can storm secret policeheadquarters in search of evidence of corruption.

poulantzas nicos orignality legacy and actuality

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