Skocpol – Bringing the State back in

The autonomy of the state does not imply that the state is never responsive to pressure from
social actors. It merely states that the state can pursue goals and instigate projects that are
beyond the scope of what could be determined if the state was simply reacting to social pressure.

It is also not deterministic. The state does not create without societal pressure, and neither does it
always create what it ‘intends’ to create – think of the Old Regime.

It allows class a place, but a variable place. The ‘classness’ of societies is highly variable, and
different classes can have very different political capacities across societies. The state has a hand
in the formation of these classes as well.

The state can even have a hand in determining the limits of the political. Think about how
nobody ever attacks the American constitution, but speaks in the name of it.

Factors that go into determining how autonomous the state is are many. They can include.
– Their connections to other political power players, and who they are against.
– The degree of their ‘omniscience’
– The financial resources that they can gather and deploy
– The place that their officials are gathered from.

And moreover, even if all these conditions are satisfied, there is no guarantee that the state will
be able to engage in powerful projects in multiple spheres.

All in all, we must entertain a more Weberian notion of the state that brings in more than just
government.

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