216

3 A . Giddens
The Nation-State and Violence
pp . 399, Cambridge, Polity Press
1985, E19 .50 (h/b), ISBN 0 7456 0031 X

Reviewed by Bob Jessop

THIS IS the second volume of a projected

trilogy concerned with a contemporary
critique of historical materialism . This
particular volume focusses on the develop-
ment of the state and its culmination in the
reflexively monitored international system
of modern nation-states . Its value for
readers of Capital and Class is likely to be
found in four areas : the juxtaposition of
the capitalist determinations of modern
societies with two other main influences -
the development of industrialism and the
rise of the nation-state ; the focus on the
international dimension of state formation
in the sense that there is a mutual relation
of production between nation-states and
the international system ; its discussion of
the dimension of internal and external
violence in the state ; and its analysis of the
institutional bases of different social
movements . But readers may also be dis-
appointed that Giddens does not directly
confront Marxist theories of the state (as
opposed to the general evolutionary and
class-reductionist schema of historical
materialism), that he hardly touches on
the connections between the capitalist
economy and the modern state, that he
curiously neglects the modern welfare state
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at Purdue University on May 26, 2015

in favour of the modern warfare state, that
he glosses over differences among modern
capitalist states as well as among tradi-
tional states, and that he does not develop
his arguments in relation to the more
general theory of structuration with which
he is so closely identified . Before amplify-
ing some of these comments, let us briefly
review the main arguments in this book .
Giddens's main criticism of historical
materialism is that its positive contribu-
tions to the analysis of modern societies
(notably in its discussion of capitalism) are
located in an evolutionary theory which
leads Marxists to underestimate the fun-
damental discontinuity between capitalist
societies and all preceding societies . His
own work stresses this discontinuity .
Giddens also argues that capitalism is only
one of four key institutional orders in
modern societies and that historical
materialism is less incisive on the other
three orders . The latter are industrialism
(which historical materialism does not
properly distinguish from capitalism), the
extension of internal surveillance as the
key source of modern state power, and the
industrialisation of war . Thus, although
Giddens strongly defends the concept of
capitalist societies against sociological
theorists of industrial society and does not
simply restrict capitalism to the organisa-
tion of the economic sphere, he also criti-
cises historical materialist approaches as
inadequate to the task of analysing such
societies . For these are always industrial,
always linked with the nation-state system,
and always associated with specific forms
of internal and external surveillance, con-
trol, and violence .
Giddens correctly describes his text as
typological and comparative . It does not
develop a theory of the state nor does it
provide detailed historical genealogies of
particular state systems . The key typo-
logical contrast is between traditional
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at Purdue University on May 26, 2015
C&C 29--u
Book Reviews
states and the modern nation-state and 217
history is invoked largely to underpin the
decisive break involved in the transition
between these state forms . The absolutist
state occupies a crucial position in this
regard . It has some modern features but it
remained traditional rather than modern .
In discussing absolutism Giddens reverses
normal accounts by first focussing on the
emergence of a reflexively monitored inter-
national system of states (whose energising
force was changes in the organisation of
war rather than in that of production) as a
key indicator of the modernity of absolut-
ism . But he also stresses the more general
development of the concept of sovereignty
linked to the notion of centralised, im-
personal administrative power and the
dissolution of the traditional distinction
between city and countryside such that
the nation-state becomes the key `power
container' and develops firm borders .
Giddens emphasises that traditional
states are very different, as `social systems',
from modern ones . Indeed their internal
heterogeneity means that they are com-
posed of numerous societies . Moreover,
although traditional states are able to gen-
erate both authoritative and allocative
resources through the intersection of city
and countryside, they remain fundamen-
tally segmental in character and can sustain
only limited administrative authority . That
such states have frontiers rather than
boundaries indicates their relatively weak
level of system integration . Indeed Giddens
claims that traditional states did not actu-
ally `govern', if this means to provide
regularised administration of the overall
territory they claimed as their own . Their
policies were mainly limited to governance
of conflicts within the dominant classes
and/or within the main urban centres . This
overall lack of administration was com-
pensated by sporadic resort to military
force .
 Capital & Class
218 We can develop this contrast between
traditional (class-divided) and modern
(capitalist) societies by considering six
points of comparison emphasised by
Giddens . Firstly, whereas traditional
societies have a ruling class (i .e . the
dominant class occupies the key political
positions) with limited governing capaci-
ties, modern societies have a governing
class which is relatively insulated from the
economically dominant class but whose
power is extensive . Secondly, although
traditional societies do have classes, they
do not have endemic class conflict . In
contrast modern societies have such con-
flict both in the workplace and in the state
system and their overall development is
strongly shaped by their class relations . In
part this contrast is related to the form of
economic organisation in traditional soci-
eties and in part to their lack of a broad
public sphere . In the latter respect Giddens
claims that they lacked a discursive sphere
for the articulation of generalised policies
and their integration with the systematic
collation of information with the result
that those excluded from the political
centre had limited opportunities to press
their class (or other) demands .
Thirdly, economic and political life are
`severed' in traditional societies : the
economic existence of peasant communi-
ties is conducted independently of what
happens in the state . But these two spheres
are closely intertwined in modern societies
but are also insulated from each other
through the dominance of the commodity
form in the economy and the resulting
problems this poses for state intervention
by the modern state . This third point
should be understood in terms of the lack
of a clearly demarcated economy in tradi-
tional societies coupled with a restricted
sphere of state action in contrast with the
clear institutional separation of the econ-
omy in modern societies coupled with a
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at Purdue University on May 26, 2015
much broader scope for state intervention .
Fourthly, whilst property is not readily
alienable in class-divided societies, it is
highly mobile and fluid in capitalist soci-
eties . Fifthly, whereas labour markets are
largely absent in traditional societies, a
highly organised labour market exists in
modern societies . And, sixthly, whilst the
main sanction over subordinate classes in
traditional societies is the use of violence,
in capitalist societies it is the economic
compulsion to work .
For Giddens the rise of the modern state
is associated with (a) a centralised legal
order, (b) centralised administration, (c) a
centrally organised taxation system articu-
lated with a rational monetary system,
(d) major innovations in military organis-
ation reflected in the international state
system and the separation of external mili-
tary force from internal policing, (e) the
development of the modern nation in con-
junction with the nation-state, (f) the
development of communication, informa-
tion, and surveillance possibilities,
(g) internal pacification through the
disciplinary society, and (h) the develop-
ment of democracy in the sense of a plural-
ist polyarchy and citizenship rights - as
the reciprocal of the enhanced surveillance
and the ideology of the general interest
involved in the modern state .
In the last three chapters of his book
Giddens considers how the nation-state
system became global in the twentieth
century . Among other elements which
receive detailed discussion are the indus-
trialisation of war (particularly under the
impact of two world wars), the world
military order (with its super-power
hegemony, arms trade, and military alli-
ances), the development of a capitalist
world economy, the rise of inter-
governmental organisations as a means of
consolidating the spread of nation-states,
the phenomenon of totalitarianism as an

ever-present possibility in all modern
nation-states, and the types of protest
movement which develop in response to
the four key institutional orders of modern
society (capitalism, industrialism, the
nation-state, and military and police force) .
In the last respect Giddens emphasises
that no critical theory of modern society
which merely poses the choice between
capitalism and socialism can do justice to
the complexities and problems involved in
modernity .
In many ways this book must be read in
conjunction with two other recent studies
by Giddens : A Contemporary Critique of
Historical Materialism and The Constitution
of Society . But this does not always resolve
difficulties with the present book . Thus,
although CcHM provides a more detailed
critique of Marxist theories of the capitalist
state, it remains the same limited connec-
tion between state and economy . This is
restricted to a general comment that the
modern state has a key role in maintaining
the `insulation' of economy and state, that
the modern state is asymmetrically de-
pendent on the economy because it is a tax
state, and that politicians have an interest
in securing the reproduction of capital .
Thus Giddens does not explore the prob-
lems involved in the modern state form for
its functions for capital ; the structural or
strategic selectivity of the state in class or
non-class terms ; the limits to polyarchy ;
the economic functions of the warfare
economy ; the rise of the welfare state (as
opposed to civil, political, and economic
rights) ; nor many other issues raised in
recent theories of the state from a Marxist
or state-centred perspective (on the latter,
see, for example, Evans et al, 1985) .
In posing these questions I am influ-
enced by Giddens's own insistence that
modern societies are capitalist societies .
This implies a priority for their capitalist
character of such societies which fits ill
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at Purdue University on May 26, 2015
Book Reviews
with his emphasis on the need to consider 219
their four institutional orders as distinct
elements . In turn this raises the problem
of how modern societies are successfully
reproduced as capitalist societies . This
question does not mean that I am calling
for a return to a class reductionist or func-
tionalist `capital logic' account . In many
respects I find Giddens's criticisms of
historical materialism compelling and his
insistence on the need to consider other
dimensions of the state is clearly right .
But I am asking Giddens to spell out what
his approach implies for the expanded
reproduction of capitalism . Giddens ap-
pears to adopt none of the usual non-
reductionist explanations : he has no
concept of hegemony, global strategy,
dominant institution, or master discourse .
Instead we seem to be faced with the con-
cept of a gradual co-evolution of four
different spheres without any serious
attempt to move beyond an historical
account to an analysis of system integration
around the capitalist character of modern
societies . Here one could have benefitted
from a more specific application of
Giddens's general theory of structuration
(e .g . as presented in TCS) to the state and
capitalism .
It should be noted that I am not asking
Giddens to develop a general theory of the
modern state . For such a theory is impos-
sible . Giddens does succeed in providing a
general account of crucial historical and/
or institutional preconditions for the rise
of the modern state and he provides an
interesting analysis of the fundamental
discontinuities that this transition involves .
But in presenting his account of the mod-
ern state in genealogical and typological
terms he reduces this state to a set of insti-
tutions whose functions and implications
for capitalism are basically unclear . What
we have is an institutional analysis of the
state and an account of its institutional
 Capital & Class

220 logics as a system of administration, as a

site for industrialised warfare, and as a
component in the international order . But
these logics are not connected (even con-
tingently) with a detailed account of how
they affect the reproduction of capitalism .
That Giddens provides a broader-ranging
analysis than do orthodox Marxist texts is
to be welcomed . In this respect his book
represents a fundamental challenge to
historical materialism and a call to develop
a more wide-ranging and non-reductionist
analysis of the state . But, for those working
within a historical materialist approach, it
is disappointing that Giddens gains addi-
tional scope through neglecting fundamen-
tal questions about the expanded reproduc-
tion of capitalist societies . Let us hope that
these worries will be resolved in the final
volume on capitalism and socialism .
References
Evans B ., Rueschemeyer D . & Skocpol T ., eds of rule' . It concludes that the Marxist ethic
(1985) Bringing the State Back In (Cambridge, is disabling in certain crucial respects,
Cambridge University Press) .
Giddens A . (1983) A Contemporary Critique of
Historical Materialism (London, Macmillan) .
Giddens A . (1984) The Constitution of Society The book contains three chapters outlin-
(Cambridge, Polity Press) .
Downloaded from cnc.sagepub.com at Purdue University on May 26, 2015
Steven Lukes
Marxism and Morality
pp . 163, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1985 .
ISBN 0 19 876015
Reviewed by C .J. Arthur
is concerned with what Marxist
THIS BOOK
theory has to say about morality . It also
addresses to some extent the alleged effect
of this theory on `the moral record of
Marxism as a social movement and system
notably its disregard for human rights,
and that socialism should break with it .
ing, and resolving, the `paradox' in Marx's
thought that moral criticism and exhorta-
tion is both rejected and adopted . There
follow chapters on `Justice and Rights',
`Freedom and Emancipation', and `Means
and Ends' . The book is thoroughly re-
searched and clearly argued . It poses a
considerable challenge to Marxist theory .
Although I think Marxism does have
conceptual resources with which to meet
it, it must be admitted also that most of
the work remains to be done .
Lukes resolves the above-mentioned
paradox by distinguishing the morality of
Recht (rights and duties) from the morality
of emancipation . The former is inherently
abstract and ideological . It springs from
material conditions predisposing individu-