State-Society Relations

Understanding relations among centralized political organizations (states) and the social collectivities (societies) they govern remains a perennial theme of social scientific, historical, and philosophical inquiry. With almost all the world's territories and peoples formally under state authority—or some form of pooled sovereignty—any discussion of governance builds on an understanding of these associations. Their centrality, however, belies their essential indescribability: Defining state and society continually tests scholars, to say nothing of efforts to characterize the wide diversity of state-society relations across time and space. Rather than presenting a single, comprehensive definition, this discussion points to a series of critical considerations for evaluating these configurations' historical emergence and contemporary manifestations.

Two primary concerns serve as the locus around which approaches to state-society relations typically diverge or overlap: the demarcation of states from their societies and the character of their engagement. The degree to which one can (or should) differentiate states from societies is critical to any conceptualization of domestic politics and governance. Moreover, there are compelling reasons for viewing the two in tandem or as inexorably coupled. After all, few societies of contemporary interest exist, or have ever existed, without some form of institutionalized political leadership or governing bodies. Similarly, it is difficult to imagine a set of formal political institutions disconnected from both a constituent population and territory. (Governments in exile may be one exception, although even they make claims to both a society and a territory.) Analyzing or comparing states alienated from their social context consequently risks undue formalism (i.e., focusing on empty institutions) or reifying (i.e., speaking of the state as a unified actor) what is in fact a conglomeration of potentially competing and overlapping institutions, officials, laws, and socioeconomic interests.

Recognizing the complexity of state forms, some scholars understand states as expressions of their social and historical contexts. However, such an approach is not without its hazards. Assuming that state behaviors and forms reflect broader social trends may mean ignoring the often-decisive role states play in shaping societies' preferences and interests, and those critical instances in which states act more or less independently. This is most evidently important in international relations (e.g., war, diplomacy, trade negotiations), where national government representatives occasionally make decisions or commitments with relatively limited reference to domestic political opinion or social interests.

The autonomy of socially embedded states is also visible in the domestic sphere. Although Karl Marx famously once defined the modern state as little more than a tool for the bourgeoisie, his more sophisticated writings describe a semiautonomous state that balances competing interests within the ruling classes. [Page 926]Even the pluralists, who see government priorities and actions primarily as an expression of social interests, grant states a certain level of autonomy as they mediate conflict in pursuit of collective goals. In almost all cases, states are at once captured by (or responsive to) social interests while retaining some capacity to act independently against powerful social actors. Such discussions appear again in Joel Migdal's influential work, especially his dialogue of strong and weak states and, later, in his state-in-society approach. While useful, the question of where the boundaries lie between states and societies remains a matter of debate.

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