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Lecture 16. Sociology 621 What Makes the Capitalist State a Capitalist State? What Makes the Patriarchal State a Patriarchal State? October 28, 2009 I. INTRODUCTION 1. Pivotal Contrast: “State in Capitalist Society” versus “a Capitalist State”: Instrumentalist approaches see the state as institutionally neutral but manipulated by powerful actors, especially classes. The state is a state in capitalist society ÷ the political task is to seize this apparatus and wield it for other purposes Structuralist approaches see the very form of the state as embodying class principles. The state is a distinctively capitalist type of state ÷ it cannot just be seized: its form must be transformed (or, in a more extreme version: smashed). The very form of the state generates effects that serve the interests of capitalists. Note on Patriarchal State: The same question can be asked about patriarchy: does the state serve the interests of men primarily because (a) it is controlled by men, or (b) its very form is inscribed with patriarchal elements. 2. Central question for which instrumentalist and structuralist approaches are answers: QUESTION: Both of these approaches observe that, broadly speaking, the policies and actions of the state in capitalist societies generally contribute to the reproduction of capitalism in one way or another. While there may be policies from time to time that disrupt capitalism, these are rare and almost always quickly reversed. The question is why? How do we explain the fact that the state broadly functions to serve the interests of the capitalist class and reproduce capitalism? Instrumentalist answer = the state fulfills this function by being controlled by capitalists or their direct agents who act in the interests of capital. The state acts at the behest of capital. Structuralist critique = the ruling class is often too divided and too myopic to guarantee its own interests. The basic mechanism through which capitalism is sustained by the state, therefore, must be institutionally embodied in the very organization of the state, not (in general) its external manipulation. The state acts on behalf of capital, but generally not at the behest of capital. We have several tasks here: 1. Examine methodological problem of establishing the class character of properties of the state. 2. discuss some of the candidates for properties of the state which have a distinctively bourgeois character 3. discuss some of the candidates for properties of the state which have a distinctively patriarchal characterLecture 16. The Capitalist State 2II. METHODOLOGICAL PROBLEMS (Claus Offe) Offe explores two issues: (1) what do we mean precisely when we say that the state has a “class” character? (2) how do we empirically demonstrate or discover these properties? 1. THE MEANING OF CLASS CHARACTER 1.1. Negative Selectivity: Offe argues that the pivotal concept for understanding the class character of the state is the negative selectivity of state institutions: The structure of the state is such that it makes certain state actions impossible and others improbable, i.e. it systematically imposes biases into the process of policy formation. The thesis that the state has a class character is then treated as a proposition about the content of this selectivity: the state is organized in such a way that it excludes certain possibilities on a class basis -- the selectivity has a systematic class bias to it. EXAMPLES: 1. explanation for the agenda of political debate: exclusion of issues from the table 2. explanation for the range of political choices in an election: excluded kinds of alternatives 1.2. Nested Filter Mechanisms Offe elaborates this notion of selectivity in terms of four nested selective filter mechanisms built into the state: 1) structural/constitutional properties: eg. public/private spheres; electoral institutions 2) ideological filters 3) process/procedures of policy formation, bargaining, etc. 4) repression 2. HOW TO DEMONSTRATE CLASS BIAS: the logic of explaining “nonevents” Offe’s approach to the problem of the class character of the state is similar in certain critical ways to what is sometimes called the analysis of nonevents or nondecisionmaking = explaining what does not happen. This is important because if nonevents are systematically produced, then the methodological decision to restrict empirical research to variations among actual events necessarily gives a distorted picture of the process. It could, for example, be the case that conventional pluralist theory could completely explain the choice of a policy alternative by theLecture 16. The Capitalist State 3state among the range of alternatives on the table while class theory could explain why some alternatives were excluded from the table altogether. 3. Methodological problem = there is an infinity of things that do not happen. Problem is to distinguish the systematically excluded from two other categories: (1) Contingently excluded: Some nonevents are just potential events that have not yet happened; they are only contingently or accidentally excluded. There was no course in the Marxist sociology in this department before I was hired; now there is. This did not reflect a systematic exclusion, but just the fact that students had not yet demanded such a course. (2) some nonevents are “epochally” excluded because no social category could conceivably support them: the practice of sacrifice of animals by the state at harvest time is not systematically excluded in an interesting way. 4. Strategies for identifying systematically excluded possibilities and the mechanisms which accomplish this exclusion. Possible strategies include: (1). normative criteria: problem = arbitrariness (2). objective interests: problem = difficulty in specifying what are objective interests of actors. (3). empirical comparisons: (eg. Crenson on the unpolitics of air pollution). Problem = exclusions may be common to all cases. (4). voiced claims: if exclusions are strong enough, then excluded alternatives may not be even voiced. (5) CRUCIAL METHODOLOGICAL SOLUTION = the limits of possibility created by negative selections are observable under those special historical situations in which they are challenged and transformed. Upshot = there may not be historically ripe opportunities for testing certain class-exclusion hypotheses. All of the approaches discussed above may give some


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UW-Madison SOC 621 - Lecture 16

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