Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

State Power Developmental Trends

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
Book cover Critical Theory and Political Modernity

  • 318 Accesses

Abstract

Mobilizing a large number of authors with more empirical intent, although conceptually articulate, Domingues discusses in this chapter the workings and development of the modern state. It is very strongly analytically elaborated. State power enhancement and state strengthening, the concentration of power in the state and power sharing as well as the state’s capabilities (taxation, managing, moulding, materialization, surveillance, coercion) are analytically defined. Mann and Foucault stand out in the discussion. State rational expediency is detailed, including its hidden aspects, which are a thorn in the side of liberalism. This is both a key imaginary element and a strong institutional feature of the modern state. State domination and its processes lie at the core of this chapter. The generative mechanisms that have brought about these developments, with centrality for a critical discussion of Elias’ thesis about state development, also feature in the chapter.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 29.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 37.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD 99.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    David Harvey, A Brief History of Neoliberalism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005).

  2. 2.

    Jürgen Habermas, Theorie des kommunikativen Handelns (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, [1981] 1988), especially vol. 2, in its concluding reflections.

  3. 3.

    See, for the modern state’s decisive initial global push, Christopher A. Bayly, The Birth of Modern World, 1780–1914 (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, 2004), chaps. 7, 13.

  4. 4.

    Sudipta Kaviraj, ‘A state of contradictions: the post-colonial state in India’ (2003), in The Imaginary Institution of India (New York: Columbia University Press, 2010), pp. 210–11.

  5. 5.

    Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution, vol. 1 (London: Sphere Books, [1932–1933] 1967), chap. 1. He called this ‘uneven and combined development’.

  6. 6.

    Anthony Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence (Cambridge: Polity, 1985), pp. 120, 172.

  7. 7.

    Already noted by Georg Jellinek, Allgemeine Staatslehre (Berlin: O. Häring, [1900] 1914), chap. 8. He attributed this—likewise overall state growth—to an ill-defined social demand of efficiency and solidarity.

  8. 8.

    Hans Kelsen, Reine Rechtslehre. Einführung in der rechtswissenschaftliche Problematik (Vienna: Verlag Österreich, [1934, 1960] 2000, 2nd edition), §34-f, pp. 212ff, §34 h, pp. 221ff, § 5.35.k, p. 282.

  9. 9.

    Max Weber, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft. Grundriβ der verstehenden Soziologie (Tübingen: J. C. B Mohr [Paul Siebeck], [1921–22] 1980), pp. 656ff; Franz Oppenheimer, The State: Its History and Development (New York: B. W. Huebsch, [1909, 1914], 1923), pp. 248–50, 267–71; Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, The Political System of Empires (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, [1963, 1993] 2010), pp. 27, 30, 91ff.

  10. 10.

    Francis Fukuyama, Political Order and Political Decay: From the Industrial Revolution to the Globalization of Democracy (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2014), p. 468; Keneth Scheve and David Stasavage, Taxing the Rich: A History of Fiscal Fairness in the United States and Europe (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press and Russell Sage Foundation, 2016). For a somewhat different assessment, see Wolfgang Streek, ‘A new regime. The consolidation state’, in Desmond King and Patrick Le Gales (eds), Reconfiguring European States in Crisis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017). An overview and a thorough analytical discussion of ‘fiscal sociology’, as well as of recent developments, is found in Lars Döpking, ‘Fiskalregime – eine andere Geschichte des modernen Staates’, Mittelweg, vol. 36 (2018).

  11. 11.

    Fritz Karl Mann, ‘The sociology of taxation’, Review of Politics, vol. 5 (1943).

  12. 12.

    S. Kaviraj, ‘On the construction of colonial power: structure, discourse, hegemony’ (1994), in op. cit.

  13. 13.

    A. Giddens, Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), passim. This does not imply at all an arbitrary view of knowledge, as we could infer from some sort of reading of Foucault’s work. This would after all entail a performative contradiction, if at the same time someone took his views as representing some kind of truth. But, if not that, then what would that mean? The degree of scientificity of knowledge must not be taken as homogenous.

  14. 14.

    Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Les modes de domination’, Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, vol. 2 (1976). This was one of his lifelong concerns.

  15. 15.

    Walter Benjamin, ‘Zur Kritik der Gewalt’ (1920/1921), in Zur Kritik der Gewalt und andere Aufsätze (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1965).

  16. 16.

    Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870–1914 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1976); Wolfgang Knöbl, ‘State Building in Europe and the Americas in the Long Nineteenth Century: some preliminary considerations’, in Miguel A. Centeno and Agustin E. Ferraro (eds), State and Nation Making in Latin America and Spain: Republics of the Possible (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013).

  17. 17.

    Michel Foucault, Surveiller et punir. Naissance de la prison (Paris: Gallimard, 1975); Idem, Naissance de la biopolitique. Cours au Collège de France, 1977–1978 (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2004); Idem, Histoire de la sexualité, vol. 1. La volonté de savoir (Paris: Gallimard, 1976), pp. 177–91; Idem, Sécurité, territoire, population. Cours au Collège de France, 1977–1978 (Paris: Gallimard/Seuil, 2009); Idem, ‘Michel Foucault. Les réponses du philosophe’ (1975), p. 1680; ‘Entretien avec Michel Foucault’ (1977), p. 151; ‘La société disciplinaire en crise’ (1978), p. 533; ‘Pierre Boulez, l’écran traversé’ (1982), p. 1060, where he speaks as if the state were as to power the, although not exclusive, ‘most important’ instance. The first piece is in vol. 1, all others in vol. 2, of Dits et écrits (Paris: Gallimard, [1994] 2001). The concept of ‘governmentality’ and its attendant pair (‘biopolitics’) varied, initially referring only to the general administration of populations (size, health, reproductive habits), later on being more directly related to ‘discipline’ through the concept of ‘norm’.

  18. 18.

    A. Giddens, op. cit., chaps. 2, 7, 11; The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge: Polity, 1990), pp. 57–58, 62–63; Michael Mann, ‘The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results’, European Journal of Sociology, vol. 25 (1984); Idem, The Sources of Social Power, vol. 1. A History of Power from the Beginning to A.D. 1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), chap. 1; vol. 2. The Rise of Classes and Nation-States, 1760–1914 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993).

  19. 19.

    Antonio Gramsci, Quaderni del carcere (Turin: Einaudi, [1929–35] 2001), passim, especially ‘Americanismo e fordismo’ (1934), in vol. 3; Louis Althusser, ‘Ideologie et appareils idéologiques d’État (Notes pour une recherche)’ (1970), in Positions (1964–1975) (Paris: Les Editions Sociales, 1976).

  20. 20.

    Peter Wagner, A Sociology of Modernity: Liberty and Discipline (New York and London: Routledge, 1994). I have drawn upon his views, though modifying them, for my periodization of modernity’s three phases.

  21. 21.

    Bob Jessop, The Future of the Capitalist State (Cambridge: Polity, 2002), pp. 168–71, 193–204; Paul Pierson, ‘The rise and reconfiguration of activist government’, in P. Pierson and T. Skocpol (eds), The Transformation of American Politics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007); Gilles Deleuze, ‘Post-scriptum sur les sociétés de contrôle’ (1990), in Pourparler, 1972–1990 (Paris: Minuit, 1990); Nikolas Rose, Powers of Freedom: Reframing Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

  22. 22.

    See David Garland, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2001).

  23. 23.

    Among his books on the topic, Peter D. Scott, The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Truth of America (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007), pp. 3–12, 267–71; Eric Wilson (ed.), The Dual Parapolitics, Carl Schmitt and the National Security Complex (Surrey and Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012); Patricia Putschert, Katrim Meyer and Yves Winter (eds), Gouvernamentalität und Sicherheit. Zeitdiagnostische Beiträge im Anschulusse an Foucault (Bielefeld: transcript, 2008); Stefan Huster and Karsten Rudolf (eds), Vom Rechtssaat zum Präventionsstaat (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008). Foucault discussed this especially in his Sécurité, territoire, population. The paradigmatic, overwhelming example of contemporary surveillance is of course the programmes of the United States’ National Security Agency (NSA). See David P. Fidler (ed.), The Snowden Reader (Bloomington and Indiana, IN: Indiana University Press, 2015).

  24. 24.

    John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, [1832, 1861, 1885] 1995), Lecture VI, pp. 224–25ff; Carl Schmitt, Politische Theologie. Vier Kapitel zur Lehre von der Souveränität (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot [1922] 2009); Idem, Der Begriff des Politischen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot [1932] 2009).

  25. 25.

    Hans J. Morgenthau, ‘The corruption of patriotism’ (1955), in Politics in the Twentieth Century, vol. 1. The Decline of Democratic Politics (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1962).

  26. 26.

    A rare acknowledgement of the problem is found, despite his arguable overall rendering of the relation between public and private, in Norberto Bobbio, ‘La grande dicotomia: publico/privato’ (1981), in Stato, governo, societa. Per una teoria generale della politica (Turin: Einaudi, [1980] 1985), pp. 18–22.

  27. 27.

    B. Guy Peters, The Politics of Bureaucracy (New York and London: Routledge, [1995] 2010), chap. 1.

  28. 28.

    I am here, therefore, at variance with Weber’s (op. cit., p. 566) thesis about the increasing centralization (in his own words ‘concentration’) of the means of administration in the hands of rulers: they may be dispersed across society and still, or rather because of that, state power has more societal impact. I do not think either that, especially in this third phase of modernity, though this is indeed in a sense an era of ‘total bureaucratization’, we can simply speak of bureaucracy, public and private, as ‘knit together in a single, self-sustaining web’, contrary to David Graeber, The Utopia of Rules: on Technology, Stupidity, and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy (New York: Melville House, [2015] 2016), pp. 18, 42. Besides, it is obviously not simply liberalism, as he argues (p. 9), instead a more complex process—in which the state largely follows its own logic—that brings about bureaucratization, as I have tried to show here.

  29. 29.

    Mann, ‘The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results’; The Sources of Social Power, vols 1–2; P. Bourdieu, Sur l’Etat. Cours au Collège de France 1989–1992 (Paris: Raison d’Agir and Seuil, 2012), pp. 14, 209.

  30. 30.

    Interesting though sometimes forced suggestions, in the context of a discussion of power games, surface in Talcott Parsons, ‘On the concept of political power’ (1963), in Sociological Theory and Modern Society (New York: Free Press, 1967). Enthralled by analogies with economics, he spoke of ‘inflationary’ and ‘deflationary’ movements of power (too many commitments and the incapacity to honour them, respectively).

  31. 31.

    Manuel Castells, Communication Power (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 45ff, 203.

  32. 32.

    Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, [1968] 2006), pp. 145–46. See also Charles Tilly, Coercion, Capital and European States, ad 990–1992 (Oxford: Blackwell, [1990] 1992), p. 28.

  33. 33.

    Giddens, The Nation-State and Violence, pp. 10–11, 201–02.

  34. 34.

    Jessop, op. cit.; M. Castells, The Power of Identity: The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture, vol. 2 (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, [1997] 2004), chap. 5; Wolfgang Streek, Gekaufte Zeit. Die Vertagte Krise des demokratischen Kapitalismus (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2013).

  35. 35.

    Saskia Sassen, Territory, Authority, Rights: from Medieval to Global Assemblages (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, [2001] 2006), p. 17. While some speak of a ‘state of exception’ in this regard, even authors who reject this view are aware of the diminished democratic character of contemporary states. See, respectively, Giorgio Agamben, Stato di eccezione (Turin: Bollati Boringhieri, 2003); Pierre Rosanvallon, Le bon gouvernement (Paris: Seuil, 2015).

  36. 36.

    Karl Marx, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Ökonomie, vol. 1 (1867, 1873), in K. Marx and Friedrich Engels, Werke, vol. 23 (Berlin: Dietz, [1867, 1873] 1962), chaps. 23–24; vol. 3 (1894), in K. Marx and F. Engels, Werke, vol. 25 (Berlin: Dietz, [1894] 1964), chaps. 13–15. The ensuing debates were summarized by Paul Sweezy, The Theory of Capitalist Development (London: Dennis Dobson, 1946) and Michael Heinrich, Die Wissenschaft vom Wert. Die Marxsche Kritik des politischen Ökonomie zwischen wissenschaftlicher Revolution und klassischen Tradition (Münster: Westfalisches Dampfboot, [1999] 2014). More generally, see José Maurício Domingues, ‘Critical social theory and developmental-trends, emancipation and late communism’ (2016), in Emancipation and History: The Return of Social Theory (Leiden: Brill, 2017 and Chicago: Haymarket, 2018).

  37. 37.

    For an account of the process in South Asia, see Kaviraj, ‘On the construction of colonial power: structure, discourse, hegemony’.

  38. 38.

    Norbert Elias, The Civilizing Process (Malden, MA and Oxford: Blackwell, [1939] 2000), pp. xi, 260–61, 269, 304–05, 369, 379. In later works, he tried to come to grips with twentieth-century wars, which posed insurmountable problems for his theory of pacification and the ‘control of instincts’ associated to it. Idem, Studien über die Deutsche. Machtkämpfe und Habitusentwicklung in 19. und 20. Jahrhundert (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, [1989] 1992).

  39. 39.

    Tilly, op. cit., pp. 30–31, 99, 159–60, 188ff. See also Giddens, Nation-State and Violence, pp. 15–16, 95–96, 113–15, for the ‘centralization’ and ‘concentration’ of ‘administrative resources’ in the state.

  40. 40.

    Weber, op. cit., p. 128.

  41. 41.

    Mann, ‘The autonomous power of the state: its origins, mechanisms and results’; The Sources of Social Power, vol. 2, p. 738.

  42. 42.

    Otto Hinze, ‘Staatenbildung und Verfassungsentwicklung. Ein historische-politische Studie’ (1902), in Staat und Verfassungsgeschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Puprecht, 1970). Social unification under an increasingly centralized and expanded territorial state, with eventually constitutional demands, was at the core of his argument. He was probably the main forerunner of all the authors analysed in this chapter. See, further, Reinhard Bendix, Nation-Building and Citizenship: Studies of our Changing Social Order (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, [1977] 2007); Idem, Kings or People: Power and the Mandate to Rule (Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1978).

  43. 43.

    Gordon Tullock, ‘An essay in the economy of politics’ (1976) and ‘Democracy as it really is’ (1994), in The Economics of Politics (Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2005); Idem, Rent Seeking (Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1993), pp. 51–59. For him, moreover, because they are, albeit a minority, a sizeable one, well informed and politically connected, civil servants have a disproportionate influence in politics, being capable of strong rent-seeking (for themselves and for others, often in collusion with politicians). He goes as far as to suggest to deprive them of voting rights, demonstrating his, at best, mild (Benthamite) support for liberal democracy. For a sharp critique, see Peters, op. cit., pp. 13–15.

  44. 44.

    William A. Niskanen, Jr., Bureaucracy and Representative Government (Chicago: Aldine, [1971] 2007), pp. 39–45; Idem, ‘Bureaucracy: a final perspective’ (2001), in Reflections of a Political Economist: Selected Articles on Government Policies and Political Process (Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2008); Patrick Dunleavy, Democracy, Bureaucracy and Public Choice: Economic Explanations in Political Science (New York and London: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1991), chaps. 6–8.

  45. 45.

    M. Weber, op. cit., pp. 129–30.

  46. 46.

    Anthony Downs, Inside Bureaucracy (Boston: Little Brown & Co., 1965), pp. 32ff, 84–89, 253ff. Actually, the same issue of dedication to the public interest through expertise is found even in Niskanen’s (op. cit., p. 39) ‘budget maximization’ thesis as part of the bureaucrats’ ‘utility’.

  47. 47.

    M. Weber, op. cit., pp. 568–69; Peters, op. cit., chap. 1 and passim; Kaviraj, ‘A state of contradictions: the post-colonial state in India’, p. 230.

  48. 48.

    Graeber, op. cit., chap. 3.

  49. 49.

    Harvey, op. cit.; Wagner, op. cit.

  50. 50.

    Cornelius Castoriadis, L’Institution imaginaire de la société (Paris: Seuil, 1975), pp. 234–40. For those authors, see M. Weber, op. cit., Part 1, chap. 1, for Zweckrationalität; Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, [1944] 1984); Habermas, op. cit., vol. 2, chap. 6 and pp. 453–65. Consult also Foucault’s books cited in former notes above.

  51. 51.

    P. Bourdieu, La Noblesse d’Etat. Grandes escoles et sprit de corps (Paris: Minuit, 1989), pp. 435–39ff; Bernard Manin, Principles du gouvernement représentatif (Paris: Flammarion, [1995] 1996); Yves Cohen, Le Siècle des chefs. Une histoire transnacionale du commandement et de l’autorité (1890–1940) (Paris: Amsterdam, 2013). Not by chance did the Athenians prefer, under democratic isonomy, the lot rather than elections to fill most public offices.

  52. 52.

    Weber did not offer a proper explanation—falling short of identifying mechanisms—for the process of rationalization underwent by the West, especially in the case in point, continuous bureaucratization, except in very general terms and within a plain descriptive account, that is to say, a historical narrative. It is as though a quasi-systemic, automatic logic, prevailed, which is quite an insufficient manner of speaking about unintended consequences of action. M. Weber, Die Wirtschaftsethik der Weltreligionen. Die Protestantischen Ethik und der Geist der Kapitalismus. Gesalmmelte Aufsätze zur Religionssoziologie, vol. 1 (Tübingen: J. C. B. Mohr [Paul Siebeck], [1904] 1988), pp. 198ff; Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft, p. 1ff.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

    José Maurício Domingues

Authors
  1. José Maurício Domingues
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to José Maurício Domingues .

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

Domingues, J.M. (2019). State Power Developmental Trends. In: Critical Theory and Political Modernity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02001-9_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02001-9_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02000-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02001-9

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation