State power and social forces: domination and transformation in the Third World

This collection of essays on Third World politics provides, through a variety of themes and approaches, an examination of "state theory' as it has been practiced in the past, and how it must be refined for the future. The contributors go beyond the previously articulated "bringing the state back in' model to offer their own "state-in-society' approach. They argue that states, which should be disaggregated for meaningful comparative study, are best analyzed as parts of societies. States may help mold, but are also continually molded by, the societies within which they are embedded. States' capacities, further, will vary depending on their ties to other social forces. Other social forces will be mobilizable into political contention only under certain conditions. Political contention pitting states against other social forces may sometimes be mutually enfeebling, but at other times, mutually empowering. Whether the political struggles analyzed ultimately prove empowering or not, this volume shows why and how our understanding will be improved by greater sensitivity to the mutually transforming quality of state-society relations. Six papers are abstracted separately in International Development Abstracts. -Publisher