Recent developments in state theory

In recent years the ascendancy of the neo-Weberian perspective that came to dominate the revival of interest in the state in the 1970s has been challenged. Two theoretical currents are here particularly noteworthy: the development of a distinctly feminist theory of the state, and the rejection of the very notion of the state by poststructuralists (in particular Foucauldians and discourse-analysts).

Feminism, or so it is often argued, lacks a theory of the state. Yet where once Judith Allen’s comment that ‘where feminists have been interested in the state their ideas on its nature and form have often been imported from outside’ (1990: 21) was certainly warranted, things are now somewhat more complicated. Some argue that feminism has no (independent) theory of the state and needs one urgently; others, that feminism has no theory of the state and has no need for one; while yet others suggest that feminism not only needs but has at last begun to develop precisely such a theory. The evidence of recent scholarship would seem to support this latter view: that in recent years feminists have indeed begun to establish the basis for very adequate and distinctively feminist theories of the state (see Chapter 6). Indeed many of the most exciting and original developments in contemporary state theory have come from feminist scholars. Such insights include a number of key observations: (i) if the state can in some instances be seen to act as if an ‘ideal collective capitalist’ it may also be seen as a ‘patriarch general’, a key site in the reproduction of relations of patriarchal domination within society; (ii) with the growing feminization of poverty, ever-increasing numbers of women are becoming dependent upon the state for their very survival, giving the state a historically unparalleled prominence in the lives of women;

(iii) paradoxically, at the same time the state is ever more dependent upon the unpaid domestic labour of women in an era of welfare retrenchment;

(iv) as this demonstrates, the reproduction of capitalist social relations is integrally bound up with the reproduction of patriarchal relations - an adequate theory of either must deal with their mutual articulation.

If in recent years feminists have increasingly turned to a theory of the state then the rise of Foucauldian and discourse-analytical perspectives marks something of a counter move - a move from the state (see Chapter 8).