The state past present future

Tai Lieu Chat Luong The State The State Past, Present, Future Bob Jessop polity Copyright © Bob Jessop 2016 The right of Bob Jessop to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. First published in 2016 by Polity Press Polity Press 65 Bridge Street Cambridge CB2 1UR, UK Polity Press 350 Main Street Malden, MA 02148, USA All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purpose of criticism and review, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-3304-6 ISBN-13: 978-0-7456-3305-3(pb) A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jessop, Bob. The state: past, present, future / Bob Jessop. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.1–dc23 2015013426 Typeset in 10.5 on 12 pt Sabon by Toppan Best-set Premedia Limited Printed and bound in the United Kingdom by Clays Ltd, St Ives PLC The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press. However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.

Every effort has been made to trace all copyright holders, but if any have been inadvertently overlooked the publisher will be pleased to include any necessary credits in any subsequent reprint or edition. For further information on Polity, visit our website: politybooks.com In Memoriam, Josef Esser (1943–2010) Contents Preface viii Tables x Abbreviations xi 1 Introduction 1 Part I The State as Concept, Relation, and Reality 13 2 The Concept of the State 15 3 The State as a Social Relation 53 4 Power, Interests, Domination, State Effects 91 Part II On Territory, Apparatus, and Population 121 5 The State and Space–Time 123 6 State and Nation 148 7 Government + Governance in the Shadow of Hierarchy 164 Part III Past and Present (Futures) of the State 187 8 The World Market and the World of States 189 9 Liberal Democracy, Exceptional States, and the New Normal 211 10 The Future of States and Statehood 238 Notes 250 References 257 Index of Names 290 Subject Index 292 Preface The present book is the latest in an unplanned series on state theory, states, and state power that reflects changing conjunctures and shift- ing interests. It differs in three main ways from its precursors. First, rather than focusing on postwar capitalist states or states in capitalist societies, it comments on the genealogy of the state, the periodization of state formation, contemporary states, and likely future trends discernible in the present (in other words, present futures).

Second, reflecting this broader scope, it offers a conceptual framework for studying the state that can be used in more contexts, integrated with more theoretical approaches, and applied from several standpoints. Third, while it draws on diverse theoretical positions and occasion- ally provides brief critiques, it is concerned, not to draw sharp divid- ing lines between them, but to synthesize them – where this is both possible and productive. Thus, even where I focus on one particular approach, I also note possible links, intersections, or parallels with other approaches that are not developed here. This book draws on many years of intermittent engagement with questions of state theory and critical investigation of actual states, above all in Europe.

At other times I have been more preoccupied with the critique of political economy, especially postwar capitalism, the development of the world market, and their crisis tendencies. This explains why my analysis often adopts a capital- or class-theoretical entry point. But, as noted above, this is one of many options, none of which can be privileged on a priori grounds but only in terms of its explanatory power for particular problems in particular contexts (see chapter 3). Many scholars have influenced my understanding of Preface ix the state through their reflections and historical analyses or through personal discussions with me – and, in several cases, through tren- chant criticisms! My personal interlocutors know who they are and their influence is clear in the text and references.

I do want to mention eight sources of continuing inspiration: Nicos Poulantzas, whom I met only once, but to whose work I return regu- larly, for fresh insights and stimulation; Alex Demirović, who is a tireless and enthusiastic source of critical intelligence and theoretical wisdom; Joachim Hirsch, who has produced some of the best histori- cal materialist analyses of the state and applied them critically to Germany; Jupp Esser, who emphasized the importance of rigorous empirical testing of state-theoretical claims; Martin Jones, who intro- duced me to economic and political geography, who has been a sup- portive co-author and interlocutor over many years, and whose influence is evident in chapter 5 and throughout; Ulrich Brand, who reminds me that theoretical engagement can be combined with social and political activism; Michael Brie, who welcomed me at the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation in Berlin and emphasized the importance of an emancipatory unity of theory and practice; and, last but not least, Ngai-Ling Sum, with whom I have been elaborating a cultural turn in political economy with implications for the state as well as for economic analysis. Special thanks are also due to Louise Knight and Pascal Porcheron at Polity Press for gently nudging and steering this book through the final stages of writing to submission of the final version in 2015. The final version of the text benefited from comments by Colin Hay and three anonymous referees and the knowledgeable and highly profes- sional copy-editing of Manuela Tecusan. The writing of this book was undertaken in part during a Profes- sorial Research Fellowship funded by the Economic and Social Science Research Council, 2011–2014, under grant RES-051-27-0303.

Neither the ESRC nor the friends and colleagues named above are responsible, of course, for errors and omissions in this text. Indeed, the usual disclaimers apply with unusual force. I dedicate this book to the memory of Jupp Esser, an inspiring colleague, critical interlocutor, and dear friend, who died too soon from cancer in 2010. Den Haag 21 March 2015 Tables 1.1 Six approaches to the analysis of the state 6 2.1 Cumulative genesis of the modern state 30 2.2 Aspects of the traditional three-element theory 36 3.1 Six dimensions of the state and their crisis tendencies 58 4.1 Some key features of the capitalist type of state 108 4.2 Capitalist type of state versus state in capitalist society 116 5.1 Four aspects of sociospatiality 134 5.2 Towards a multidimensional analysis of sociospatiality 140 6.1 A typology of imagined political communities linked to nation-states 152 7.1 Modes of governance 168 7.2 Second-order governance 170 8.1 Three trends and counter-trends in state transformation 201 9.1 Normal states and exceptional regimes 219 Abbreviations BC before Christ DHS Department of Homeland Security ECB European Central Bank ESM European Stability Mechanism EU European Union IMF International Monetary Fund KWNS Keynesian welfare national state MECW Marx/Engels Collected Works, 50 vols (Progress Publishers: Moscow, Lawrence & Wishart: London, and International Publishers: New York, 1975–2005) OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development Q quaderno (notebook) SRA strategic–relational approach STF spatiotemporal fix TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership TPSN territory, place, scale, network xii Abbreviations TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership UK United Kingdom UN United Nations USA PATRIOT Act Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (2001) 1 Introduction The ‘modern state’ has been part of the political landscape for several centuries, if sometimes only faintly visible on its horizon.

Yet social scientific interest has waxed and waned, its foci have shifted, and approaches vary with fad and fashion. Indeed, here as in other fields, it seems that social scientists do not so much solve problems as get bored with them. Interest revives when another generation of scholars or another epistemic community finds new potential in older theories, encounters new problems and research opportunities, or adopts insights, metaphors, or paradigms from other schools or disciplines. In this spirit, my analysis aims to show the continued relevance of theoretical work on states and state power and the need to renew state theory as its referents change.

This is reflected in five related tasks that are pursued in part sequentially and in part iteratively, at different places in this book. Limitations of space meant that not all of these tasks are pursued to the same extent or with the same intensity, but I hope to have written enough about each of them to demonstrate their respective heuristic values and the benefits of com- bining them. The first, initially question-begging, task is to outline six strategies for analysing states and state power that, if we combine them to exploit their respective strengths, might offer a powerful heuristic for addressing the complexities of these topics. This does not commit me to developing a general and transhistorical theory of the state – an ambition that I have long rejected for reasons given elsewhere (Jessop 1982: 211–13).

It does imply support for (meta)theoretical, episte- mological, and methodological pluralism in analysing the state and 2 Introduction careful consideration of the most appropriate entry points and stand- points in particular theoretical and practical contexts. The second, provisionally question-answering, task is to define the state in ways that capture its distinctiveness as a form of political organization and support analyses of its institutional and spatiotem- poral variability. Starting from the continental European tradition of state theory, which highlights three core elements of the modern state, I add a fourth one: the sources of its legitimation in state projects. These four elements can be extended and qualified for diverse theo- retical and practical purposes.

The revised approach also provides a basis for exploring the multiple pasts and presents of the state and for speculating about possible futures. The third, briefer, task is to consider the historical semantics of the modern state, that is, the emergence and consolidation of a spe- cialized vocabulary to describe the state – and indeed its role in constituting, consolidating, reproducing, and guiding the various institutions, modes of calculation, practices, and imaginaries, whether in high politics or in everyday life, referred to in this semantic frame- work. This task matters, even if one maintains that the state, regarded as a form of political organization, preceded its own explicit concep- tualization in terms of statehood. The task involves more than exam- ining the history of ideas, intellectual history, or the history of political thought: it extends to the links between semantic change and societal transformation and, in this context, to contestation over the nature and purposes of the state.

It also invites critical reflection on the language used to describe state-like political authority before the semantics of the state emerged and on the societal changes that have prompted the semantics of governance and meta-governance to describe emergent political institutions and practices that are less territorially focused than their statal counterparts. The historical semantics of the state also poses questions about the Eurocentric nature of state theory and, on this basis, about the relevance of (Eurocentric) state theory to territorially organized forms of political authority beyond the centres of European state formation, especially before the rulers and subjects of these other political regimes encoun- tered the representatives of European states – as plunderers, traders, explorers, missionaries, diplomats, conquerors, or in some other guise. Such reflections can help reveal the historical specificity of different forms of political organization, political regime, and types of state. The fourth task, building on the first three but influencing their pursuit, is to offer some theoretically informed reflections on key aspects of the state and state power, especially in advanced capitalist Introduction 3 regimes in the world market.