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SOCIAL
THEORY
A New Introduction
Mark Murphy
Social Theory
Mark Murphy
Social Theory
A New Introduction
Mark Murphy
University of Glasgow
Glasgow, UK
ISBN 978-3-030-78323-5 ISBN 978-3-030-78324-2 (eBook)

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78324-2
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature
Switzerland AG 2021
This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether
the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of
illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and
transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar
or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the
editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional
claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Cover illustration: Carol Yepes / Getty Images.
This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG.
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
For Cristina
Preface
The book offers a ‘new’ introduction to social theory in a number of ways: first, I
have adopted the position that social theory is a politicised field, and this aspect
should be brought very much to the fore in our attempts to come to grips with the
nuances, motivations and complex arguments put forth in social theory. Any efforts
to portray the field as value-free or politically neutral are doomed to failure, and as
a result, the political aspect needs to be acknowledged, appreciated and just as
importantly understood. This objective is assisted by another key feature of the
book, which is its organisation around key thematic areas, such as culture, the econ-
omy and the self. Thematic grouping can be more effective and engaging pedagogi-
cally than the standard approach of grouping chapters by schools of thought, as it
helps readers grasp the significance of the issues and how they reflect current social
challenges. Each chapter is used as a platform to compare and contrast competing
approaches to different themes.
The third key feature of the book is its underpinning pedagogical approach. The
book connects to current social issues (austerity, conflict, identity, inequality) in
order for the reader to better engage with the material ahead. It is also important to
ensure that the reader is not left at their own unique starting point but encouraged to
think more critically about issues such as power, identity and inequality.
The book is designed to deliver the kind of text that readers can ‘dip’ in and out
of, and in this regard it provides features such as boxes detailing key theorists and
concepts. The features included are:
• Key movements: More detail on key movements in social theory, such as postco-
lonialism and feminism, are distributed across the chapters in box form.
• Key terms: As well as key concepts, there are a range of key terms outlined in
boxes across the text, such as ‘Cartesianism’ and ‘dialectics’.
• Questions: Each chapter details a set of relevant questions at the end.
• Glossary: There is a glossary provided at the end of book (note that glossary
items are identified in bold in the text).
• Modernity and postmodernity: A section that summarises the main differences
between modernity and postmodernity is included in Chap. 6.
vii
viii Preface
• Key theorists: Each chapter identifies and features in box form a key thinker in
social theory—for example, Habermas in Chap. 3.
• Key concepts: Each chapter highlights a key concept, such as ‘Embodiment’ in
Chap. 10.
• Social theory applied: This feature covers key applications of a social theory in
the research literature, such as ‘The degradation of labour’ in Chap. 4.
• Debates in social theory: Scattered across the chapters are a number of important
debates that have occurred in the field, for example, the positivism debate, featur-
ing Adorno and Popper (Chap. 8).
• Suggested readings: A section on suggested readings is included at the end of
each chapter, detailing relevant texts.
• In Summary sections: Each chapter concludes with a section that briefly sum-
marises each key issue detailed in the chapter.
Glasgow, UK Mark Murphy

Acknowledgements
In a field as dense and complex as social theory it always helps to seek out the opin-
ions of others when it comes to decisions over the content, structure and style of an
introductory text. This book benefited from the regular chapter readings undertaken
by Cristina Costa, who was always happy to cast a comradely eye over the chapters.
Constructing a text such as this can be a daunting exercise, so it was a major help to
have someone ‘on site’ to provide support as well as useful direction.
There are a number of other colleagues who also gave up their time to read sec-
tions of the book, including Ellen Vanderhoven, Tadeu Lunardi, Robert Aman, Ted
Fleming, Sarah K, St John, Robert Allan and Ali Sameer. Alongside these, a range
of anonymous reviewers commented on earlier drafts of the book, and I am grateful
for their thorough and rigorous appraisal of the contents. A special mention must go
to the staff at Palgrave Macmillan who have been supportive through the book’s
development as well as being very patient and understanding. Thank you all.
ix
Contents
1 Introduction�� 1
What Is Social Theory?�� 1
Organisation and Content of the Book�� 2
Chapter Content �� 3
Reference �� 5
Section I Understanding the State 7

2 The State �� 9
Introduction�� 9
Freedom and the State�� 10
Elites and the State�� 13
The Capitalist State�� 14
The Miliband–Poulantzas Debate�� 15
Statification�� 17
The Welfare State as Crisis Management�� 20
From the Dependent to the Postcolonial State�� 21
Globalisation and the State�� 23
The Rise of the Neoliberal State�� 26
In Summary�� 28
References�� 30
3 Governance �� 33
Bureaucracy and Its Discontents�� 34
The Totally Administered Society�� 37
The Colonisation of the Lifeworld�� 40
New Public Management and the Governance Turn�� 42
Governance and Street Level Bureaucracy�� 45
The Social Pathologies of Juridification�� 47
Governance, Risk and Blame�� 50
In Summary�� 52
References�� 54
xi
xii Contents
4 The Economy�� 57
Capital and the Commodification of Labour �� 59
The Great Transformation�� 64
The Coming of Post-Industrial Society�� 66
The Labour Process and the Degradation of Work�� 68
Automation: The End of Work? �� 70
The Classed Nature of Economic Life�� 72
The Gendered Nature of Economic Life�� 74
In Summary�� 77
References�� 79
5 Civil Society�� 81
State, Economy and Civil Society�� 82
Civil Society and Class Struggle�� 83
Civil Society and Radical Democracy �� 86
Assessing the Politics of Civil Society�� 87
Uncivil Society�� 88
Social Movements: Old and New�� 91
Social Movements in Times of Austerity�� 92
On Subaltern Counter Publics�� 95
In Summary�� 98
References�� 101
Section II Understanding the Social 103

6 Culture�� 105
The Significance of Culture in Social Theory�� 106
The Culture Industry�� 107
Cultural Studies and the Cultural Turn�� 110
Education, Culture and Social Class�� 115
Culture and Orientalism�� 118
Cultural Identity and Diaspora�� 120
The Cultural Politics of the Subaltern�� 123
In Summary�� 127
7 Language�� 131
The Linguistic Turn in Social Theory�� 132
From Structuralism to Poststructuralism �� 134
Language and the Dialogic Imagination�� 137
Discourse and Discursive Practices �� 139
Language and Communication�� 142
Contents xiii
The Symbolic Power of Language�� 145

The Hidden Curriculum of Language�� 147
8 Knowledge�� 155
Knowledge and Objectivity�� 156
Adorno Versus Popper: The Positivism Debate �� 159
The Social Construction of Knowledge �� 160
Power and the Archaeology of Knowledge�� 163
Indigenous Knowledge and Postcolonial Theory�� 166
The Politics of Academic Knowledge�� 168
The Politics of Academic Knowledge: Curriculum �� 169
The Politics of Academic Knowledge: Gatekeeping �� 171
The Politics of Academic Knowledge: The Public Intellectual �� 173
Section III Understanding the Self and Selfhood 181

9 The Self �� 183
Anomie, Alienation and the Self�� 184
Self and the Spirit of Capitalism�� 185
Modernity, Postmodernity and Self-Identity�� 187
The Self as Relational�� 189
Self as Performance �� 192
Self as Subjectivation�� 195
Self as Performativity�� 197
10 Emotions �� 205
Psychoanalysis and Social Theory�� 206
Dissent and the Fromm-Marcuse Debate�� 207
The Politics of Desire and the Capitalist Machine�� 210
Emotions and the ‘Shared Third’ �� 212
Social Theory and Respect�� 216
Social Theory and Shame�� 219
Social Theory and Trust �� 221
xiv Contents
11 The Body �� 229

The Body as a Cultural Text�� 230
Throwing Like a Girl: Gender and the Body �� 233
Habitus and Bourdieu�� 237
Elias and the Habitus �� 240
Bodies and Bio-power�� 241
The Body and Performativity�� 243
Sexuality and Queer Theory�� 245
12 Social Justice�� 253
Justice as Fairness�� 254
Justice as Capability�� 256
The Rawls-Habermas Debate�� 259
Theories of Justice: A Critique�� 259
Debate: Recognition or Redistribution?�� 261
Bringing Solidarity Back In �� 262
Solidarity as a Work in Progress�� 263
The Politics of Care �� 266
13 Conclusion�� 275
Further Reflections�� 276
Social Theory and Hybridisation �� 278
Hybridisation and the Art of Social Theory �� 281
Glossary �� 283
Index�� 303
Introduction
1
What Is Social Theory?
So far, the twenty-first century has witnessed a number of significant developments,

including increased globalisation, accelerated technological advancement, massive
shifts in migration across geographical locations and a highly uncertain and precari-
ous economic climate. These sets of circumstances are joined by a politics of iden-
tity that affects many aspects of life, but is especially pronounced in the retreat from
globalisation into the comfort of nationhood and ethnic solidarity.
The implications of these developments for society require some form of analy-
sis and explanation, a requirement that provides the core rationale for the develop-
ment of social theory, an intellectual field of inquiry that has been generated in
tandem with social, cultural and economic developments since the nineteenth cen-
tury. Broadly speaking, social theories are analytical frameworks or paradigms used
to examine social phenomena. The term ‘social theory’ covers a range of key issues,
such as societal change, power and control, the nature of social behaviour, gender
and ethnicity, capital and social class, as well as theories of justice, solidarity and
freedom. In contemporary social theory, certain core themes take precedence over
others, themes such as the nature of social life, the relationship between self and
society, the structure of social institutions and the role and possibility of social
transformation.
Alongside the existence of this broad range of issues, there is also a large number
of what can be termed social theories (e.g., see the key movement boxes throughout
the book). Prominent among those branded as social theorists are the likes of
Jacques Derrida, Pierre Bourdieu, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault, Nancy Fraser and
Jürgen Habermas. The influence of these theorists has extended well beyond their
home disciplines and into the broader public sphere, combining the role of social
theorist with that of public intellectual. Intellectualising the problems and issues of
the day, they provide spaces within which researchers as well as others can adopt an
intellectual stance to their subjects with some level of legitimation and credibility.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

M. Murphy, Social Theory, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78324-2_1
2 1 Introduction
It is also evident that their theories are delivered with political intent, whether it
be Derrida’s deconstructive approach, the democratic theory of Habermas, the criti-
cal social science of Bourdieu or the archaeology and genealogies of Foucault. In
this way, they can be viewed as heirs to the tradition of social philosophy, a tradition
that stretches at least as far back as Jean-Jacques Rousseau and his Discourse on the
origin of inequality (1755/2004). This tradition aimed to use philosophy to examine
problems in society, an aim not too dissimilar to the social theories so popular today.
It is not surprising, then, that a common thread in much contemporary social theory
is a fascination, even obsession, with how the dynamics and forms of power play
themselves out via institutions, linguistic traditions, texts, cultures and forms of
selfhood.
The focus on theories such as these for the purpose of this book is not to deny the
existence or significance of other forms of theory. More psychologically oriented
sets of ideas (such as the work of Jean Piaget) have been used extensively in aca-
demic research, although the research questions tend to be of a different type.
Organisation and Content of the Book
In order to introduce and detail the scope of social theory, the book is structured
around a set of chapters devoted to three core issues in social theory:
• Section I: Understanding the state (The state, Governance, The economy, Civil
society)
• Section II: Understanding the social (Culture, Language, Knowledge)
• Section III: Understanding the self and selfhood (Self, Emotions, The body)
The final thematic chapter is devoted to social justice, an overarching theme of
social theory that finds itself embedded in the other core themes. The conclusion
also explores the concept of theory hybridisation and offers some useful advice for
novice social theorists in their quest to make better sense of theory.
The book takes advantage of other forms of pedagogical features such as boxes
to highlight key thinkers/traditions. At the same time, it is important to address the
beginnings of social theory also (e.g., Marx and Hegel) and to emphasise the impor-
tance of historical transformations (enlightenment, industrialisation, democratisa-
tion) as a backdrop to the development of social thought.
While the discipline of sociology is inevitably well-covered in the book, the
content is far from exclusively sociological. The interdisciplinary nature of much
social theory requires a level of ‘undisciplining’, which is a particular focus of the
book, as the discussions do not have to be framed by any particular disciplinary
paradigm (e.g., structure and agency). At the same time, there is an acknowledge-
ment of the important role sociology has played in the development of social theory,
and the book’s opening set of chapters reflect this importance (e.g., in the focus on
Chapter Content 3
the state and the economy, and the emphasis placed on scholars such as Marx and
Weber). This acknowledgement is vital to familiarise readers with the foundations
of social theory before guiding them through the theories that have been generated
across other disciplines in more recent years.
Chapter Content
The book starts with a focus on the state in Chap. 2, a consistent theme in social
theory since the time of Hegel who argued that the state was in the best position to
fulfil the potential of the French Revolution and its desire for equality, freedom and
solidarity. Hegel’s account is detailed in the chapter, followed by twentieth-century
accounts of the state that deliver a more downbeat assessment of the state’s capacity
to deliver justice. These include the work of C. Wright Mills on the economic power
elite, theories of the capitalist state as detailed by Nikos Poulantzas and Ralph
Miliband, which debate the relation between capital and the state, and Claus Offe’s
critical analysis of the welfare state approach to democracy. The chapter includes a
discussion of Foucault and his approach to ‘statification’ as well as a summary of
dependency and postcolonial approaches to state theory. The chapter returns to the
relationship between capital and the state by focusing on globalisation and the rise
of neoliberalism.
Theories of the state have often gone hand in hand with theories of governance,
which is the subject of Chap. 3. Max Weber’s concept of the ‘iron cage’ has been a
touchstone for much of the subsequent theory on governance, and Chap. 3 explores
this development via some intellectual spin-offs. This includes how Theodor Adorno
and Max Horkheimer took Weber’s iron cage to what they considered its logical
conclusion—the ‘totally administered society’. The chapter examines how later
incarnations of the Frankfurt school, in particular Habermas, adapted this idea and
reshaped it into a theory of lifeworld colonisation. The chapter also takes a close
look at the rise of new public management and its consequences for street-level
bureaucracy, including juridification and risk avoidance. Foucault’s work on gov-
ernmentality is also covered, providing a different view to the strong Weberian slant
evident elsewhere in the chapter.
Chapter 4 explores the relation between social theory and the economy, covering
topics such as social class and the commodification of labour. These ideas, which
have been central to social theory since the nineteenth century, have managed to
keep their explanatory power in a globalised world. At the same time, such ideas
have been reimagined in the context of changing historical circumstances and
changing political demands for justice from social groups such as women and new
types of twenty-first-century worker in the gig economy. To reflect this, the chapter
includes a discussion of the economics of both class and gender. As well as the
theory of Karl Marx, two alternative theories of capitalist development are also
outlined: the great transformation (Karl Polanyi) and the post-industrial society
(Daniel Bell).
4 1 Introduction
Chapter 5 introduces the social sector known as civil society (sometimes known
as the third sector), the voluntary social sphere that sits between the state and the
economy and is the home for numerous struggles for justice and the social move-
ments engaged in these struggles. This chapter explores the significance of these
social movements while also emphasising the role of the public sphere, the vital
debating chamber of civil society made famous by Habermas in his book The struc-
tural transformation of the public sphere (1989). This chapter explores the meaning
of the public sphere in the digital age, while also examining the ways in which
changing economic conditions have reshaped the organisation and fabric of social
movements in the twenty-first century.
The focus of the book shifts towards more social concerns in Chap. 6 with the
topic of culture. Although a subject of interest in classical social theory, for example
in the work of Emile Durkheim, studies of culture came more to the fore in the
twentieth century via theorists who saw culture as both a tool of domination and
resistance. The work of Antonio Gramsci and the concept of hegemony are covered
here, alongside the downbeat assessment of popular culture delivered by Theodor
Adorno. The relation between culture and class is detailed, while the second half of
the chapter is devoted to some important postcolonial offshoots of cultural studies
(Edward Said, Stuart Hall, Gayatri Spivak).
The study of language has become a key area of interest in modern social theory,
and this is the focus of Chap. 7. The interest in language is shared across many of
the major social theorists, including Derrida, Habermas, Bourdieu and Foucault, a
fact that testifies to the enormous significance of the ‘linguistic turn’ undertaken by
social theory in the twentieth century. The chapter includes important examples of
this turn, including: Derrida’s method of deconstruction and theory of différance;
Bourdieu’s analysis of the symbolic power of language and its effects on social class
relations; Habermas’ search for universal foundations for critical theory via formal
pragmatics; and Foucault’s highly influential concept of discourse. Also detailed in
the chapter is the significance of language in studies of schooling and inequality via
the work of Basil Bernstein.
Closely associated with studies of language is the concept of knowledge, another
central focus in modern social theory and the subject of Chap. 8. The chapter begins
with a study of Karl Mannheim, whose early twentieth-century concerns over the
objectivity of knowledge are mirrored in contemporary debates over the meaning of
truth and the value of evidence and facts. His ideas influenced the positivism debate
in the 1960s, as well as the arguments put forward by Berger and Luckmann in their
influential text The social construction of reality. Since the 1960s other ideas have
come to the fore, including Foucault’s analysis of the relation between knowledge
and power, the situatedness of knowledge (Donna Haraway) as well as the theory of
indigenous knowledge. These are all covered in Chap. 8 which also incorporates a
special section on the politics of academic knowledge.
The book then takes a turn into matters of the self, the subject of Chap. 9. The
chapter provides an overview of social theory and the self since the time of Durkheim
and Marx, whose work on concepts such as anomie, alienation and modernisation
have been joined in more recent times by a focus on reflexivity and relationality in
Reference 5
theories of the self. The chapter details this turn, covering the work of Anthony
Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman, Judith Butler, Michel Foucault and Erving Goffman.
Important debates over the self in relation to class, race and gender are incorporated
into the chapter with a particular focus on how relations of power impact concep-
tions of selfhood.
Chapter 10 examines the subject of emotions, which is closely tied to studies of
self and selfhood in the social theory canon. Emotions is another theme that has
risen to prominence in social theory in more recent times, with theorists arguing that
emotional life, which is often construed as a private concern, is a valid subject of
intellectual inquiry from a social perspective. While authors such as Marx and
Georg Simmel engaged in different ways with emotions, contemporary theorists
such as Axel Honneth and Jessica Benjamin have adopted a much more concerted
effort to study the relation between emotions and the social world. Their contribu-
tions are included here, as well as the important influence of psychoanalysis on
social theory in the twentieth century. Also covered are case studies of specific emo-
tions that have attracted considerable interest from social theorists: respect, shame
and trust.
Alongside the self and emotions, the body has become a focal point for social
analysis and is the focus of Chap. 11. A concern with the body has been present in
social theory for some time, for example in the work of Mary Douglas and Maurice
Merleau-Ponty who are both introduced in this chapter. In the digital age it is diffi-
cult to escape body politics in its various guises such as fat shaming and heated
debates over female body representation and sexual identity. The way these debates
have manifested themselves in social theory is covered in this chapter via the work
of theorists such as Foucault (bio-politics), Iris-Marion Young (gender and physical
space) and Judith Butler (the body and heteronormativity). Also included are two
different takes on the concept of habitus from Pierre Bourdieu and Norbert Elias.
The final thematic chapter in the book, Chap. 12, is devoted to the topic of social
justice. A topic at the heart of social theory, concerns over fairness, equality and
rights are never too far away from socio-theoretical analysis, generating much dis-
cussion in the literature. This chapter includes a summary of key theories of justice
including the work of John Rawls, Martha Nussbaum, Amartya Sen, Nancy Fraser
and Axel Honneth. As an alternative to social justice theories, the chapter includes
a section on care ethics developed by feminist thinkers such as Carol Gilligan, as
well as a section on the related topic of social solidarity as represented in the work
of Richard Rorty.
Reference
Habermas, J. (1989). The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Enquiry into a
Category of Bourgeois Society. MIT Press.
Section I
Understanding the State
The State
2
Introduction
One of the major events of the twenty-first century was the 2008 global financial
crisis, an event with damaging and lasting effects on states across the world.
Numerous states were blindsided by the ‘crisis’ and found themselves caught in
a combination of excessive debt and hugely reduced income. For many this
meant a cap in hand to the International Monetary Fund; since 2008, there have
been over 40 state bailouts, including those in Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Colombia, Greece, Mexico and Morocco, the price for state bailouts the imposi-
tion of capitalist orthodoxy. The effects are still experienced today and are behind
a more general spread of precarity and austerity (through the proliferation of
zero-hours contracts, the loosening and even dismantling of workers’ rights and
environmental protections) as a policy response to the calamitous effects of the
recession on public expenditure. The state, as an entity, seems to be facing a
never-ending crisis.
This crisis of the state has been received differently depending on the receiver–
advocates of neoliberalism (see key term box) see the state as an inconvenient obsta-
cle to the efficiency of marketisation and privatisation and hence a weakened state
is a step in the right direction. Also evident post-2008 is a surge in nationalist senti-
ment, with populist movements viewing the state as a place to shelter from the
global economic storm—see the rise of populist leaders Jar Bolsanaro in Brazil,
Donald Trump in the United States and Boris Johnson in the United Kingdom. This
dual conception of the state, as both a problem and a solution, is mirrored in social
theory, which is why the state is a key concept in the field and one of the most con-
tested. Questions of sovereignty, nationhood and territory (core issues in Political
Science) take something of a back seat in social theory, where instead the role of the
state in relation to the social and in particular social justice takes centre stage.
The content of this chapter reflects this intellectual hinterland, beginning with a
summary of Hegel and his theory of the state, in which the debate took a distinct

10 2 The State
social-theoretical turn around the concept of freedom. This is followed by an over-

view of a number of interrelated theoretical developments, including the power
elite, the capitalist state and the welfare state, all of which to some extent position
the state alongside and in conjunction with the process of capitalist modernisation.
The chapter includes a discussion of Foucault and his approach to statification as
well as a summary of dependency and postcolonial approaches to state theory. The
chapter returns to the relationship between capital and the state by focusing on glo-
balisation and the rise of neoliberalism.
Specifically the chapter is organised around the following themes:
• The state as the home of freedom (Hegel)
• Alternative theories of the state: the elitist state (Mills); the capitalist state
(Miliband-Poulantzas) and the welfare state (Offe)
• Postmodern and postcolonial theories of the state
• Globalisation, neoliberalism and the state
Freedom and the State
A sensible starting point in a discussion of social theory and the state is the work
of Georg Wilhelm Hegel (see Key Theorist Box). Hegel, is, according to Weil
(1998: 76), ‘the philosopher of the modern state’. This is no mean achievement
given the number of authors that could potentially lay claim to such a position.
But Hegel stands out in the context of social theory for a number of reasons. His
influence is evident in the way in which his core ideas have formed intercon-
nected conceptual threads running through social theory until the present day.
Hegel’s formidable body of work helps connect current concerns over social
justice, freedom and reason with the heady days of the Enlightenment and the
French Revolution, his ideas resonating with the present; the spectres of Hegel
‘still haunt us’ (Bartelson 2001: 42). Modern social theory is still haunted by
Hegel precisely because theory is still enamoured with the concept of the state
and being citizens of which makes it impossible to escape from the Hegelian
legacy. This citizenship aspect sets Hegel apart—it gives him a social component
lacking in other appraisals of the state.
What was it about the state that resonated with Hegel? For him, the state rep-
resented the fulfilment of the ideals of the Enlightenment, ideals that centred on
liberty (freedom), equality and solidarity. This explains Hegel’s fascination with
the French Revolution and its aftermath, and also helps explain why his ideas on
the state have endured. And yet it should also be noted that Hegel was no flag-
waver for the French Revolution. Hegel was deeply ambiguous about the events
of 1798, worried about the after-effects of the revolution and the reign of terror
it unleashed. Social progress for Hegel was not the inevitable outcome of revolu-
tions and was more wary of initiatives ‘from below’ and the attendant
Freedom and the State 11
‘irrational’, ‘barbarous’ mass movements and expected ‘nothing good to come of

them at the political level’ (Kouvelakis 2003: 44).
Revolutionary fervour did not appeal to Hegel, but it was not just the violence
that concerned him; it was also if not more so the conception of freedom that
drove this violence, a problematic conception he lays squarely at the feet of the
Swiss philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau. Hegel considered Rousseau to repre-
sent a narrow conception of freedom, one that dissolves the state into the sphere
of exchanges between contracting property holders. This for Hegel was an atom-
istic, isolated and inherently restricted concept of freedom, which, judging by
numerous passages in his famous text Philosophy of Right (Hegel 1991) infuri-
ated Hegel.
This is because the state represents for Hegel a novel and moral formation that
is greater than the sum of its parts, not just a collection of isolated individuals. He
believed that Rousseau’s contractual idea of freedom, famously outlined in The
Social contract (Rousseau 2003[1762]), overlooked the social element to free-
dom. It made no sense to Hegel to split the notion of freedom into atomised sin-
gular units of free individuals, each with their own social contract. Hegel had a
chilling word he used in the Phenomenology of Spirit, to sum up what he felt was
the inevitable outcome of this form of freedom——death, or specifically, ‘death
that has no inner depth or fulfilment; … the coldest, shallowest of deaths, with no
more significance than cleaving a cabbage head or swallowing a gulp of water’
(Hegel 1977: 360). Revolutionary violence, according to Hegel, was the fanatical
form which had been adopted by Rousseau’s abstract idea of absolute freedom,
when in practice ‘it confronted institutions incompatible with its own self-
realization’ (Wokler 1998: 44).
Hegel’s take on the state and freedom was quite different, describing freedom as
‘being at home with oneself in another’. Freedom as ‘being at home with oneself in
another’ summarises his response to the problem of freedom classically formulated
by Rousseau: namely, how is it that a person can be autonomous or self-determining
despite their inevitable dependence on others? (Baynes 2002: 1). Hegel refers to this
conception of freedom as ‘absolute freedom’, in contrast to relative, partial or
dependent forms, or ‘concrete freedom’, in contrast to abstract or formal notions of
freedom that were popular at the time. Importantly for Hegel, membership of a
community is necessary for individual freedom to flourish. The state provided the
highest form of this community while also demanding a commitment to ethical life,
or sittlichkeit. Hegel’s theory of freedom was therefore an intersubjective one, as
well as a contextualised conception, and far removed from what he considered the
common-sense understanding of freedom as ‘being able to do as one wants’
(Philosophy of Right §15).
12 2 The State
Key Theorist: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

Born in 1770 in Stuttgart, Germany, Hegel was a master thinker, a ‘panlogi-
cist’ according to Jacques Lacan, and a major influence on numerous social
theorists including Lacan but also Louis Althusser, Alain Badiou, George
Herbet Mead and Herbert Marcuse. As Singer (2001) puts it, ‘with perhaps
the exception of Marx, no philosopher of the nineteenth or twentieth century
has had as great an impact on the world as Hegel’. His influence stems from
his capacity as a ‘systematic’ thinker, able to expertly combine ideas from a
range of disciplines and philosophical approaches to develop a grand theory.
Core elements of his theory include conceptions of freedom, reason, self-
consciousness and recognition, which have endured to this day, and can be
witnessed in their influence on contemporary thinkers such as Jessica
Benjamin, Judith Butler, Axel Honneth and Slavoj Žižek.
His major works include the Phenomenology of Spirit (sometimes referred
to as Phenomenology of Mind), which is his account of the evolution of human
consciousness, and where he explains in detail his concept of Geist/Spirit
(1977[1807]); the Science of Logic, the logical and metaphysical core of his
philosophy (2015a[1831]), Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences
(2015b[1817]), a summary of his entire philosophical system, and the
Philosophy of Right (Hegel 1991), an outline of his political philosophy
(including that of the state), published in 1820. One of Hegel’s most influen-
tial ideas is that of Geist, a German word that is normally translated as ‘spirit’
or ‘mind’ in English versions. Broadly speaking, Hegel uses the term to refer
to the collective consciousness of society, as opposed to individual private
forms of awareness. This dimension has similarities to Emile Durkheim’s
later notion of collective consciousness and is not dissimilar to the more mod-
ern conception of culture.
During his life Hegel was unafraid to be controversial and to take on the
ideas of prominent thinkers of the time—for example, he was a prominent
critic of the philosopher Emmanuel Kant. His politics also caused consterna-
tion, some commentators then (and now) portraying Hegel to be a nationalis-
tic apologist for the Prussian State of the early nineteenth century. Hegel’s
work can be claimed and interpreted in various ways, illustrated by the fact
that elements of both the political left and right have championed/condemned
Hegel at various points since his death. He himself during his life dramatically
changed his opinions, for example when it came to Kant and Rousseau, both
of whom he had admired in his early work but later significantly disagreed
with (as is evident in his account of freedom).
His impact after his death in 1831 can be seen in the establishment of the
Young Hegelians, a group of German intellectuals who dedicated themselves
to continuing his legacy. One of the young Hegelians was a young Karl Marx
who later developed his own take on Hegel’s legacy (see Chap. 4).
Elites and the State 13
Elites and the State
While Hegel baulked at the over-zealous righteousness of French revolutionaries

and their struggle for justice, he viewed the revolution as the birthplace of the state
in its greatest form—a home for freedom to flourish, the freedom to be at home with
oneself in another. But with the passage of history this romantic conception of the
state has at times become difficult to defend or even envisage. The ideal of Hegel’s
state of freedom, according to numerous commentators, is sorely tested by elites, by
corruption, and by the power of money. C. Wright Mills, who already had written a
number of sociological texts and would later write The Sociological Imagination
(1959), published his book The Power Elite in 1956 in the context of a conservative
America which took as a given the rightness of pluralism and state-protected democ-
racy. But instead of a society built on the principles of separation of powers, free-
dom and equality, Mills painted a wholly different picture—a society run by a
self-interested and self-serving cabal, made up of interconnected members of the
political, economic and military elite. For Mills, the elite called the shots, control-
ling central pillars of American life, including family, schools and church:
Families and churches and schools adapt to modern life; governments and armies and cor-
porations shape it; and, as they do so, they turn these lesser institutions into means for their
ends. Religious institutions provide chaplains to the armed forces where they are used as a
means of increasing the effectiveness of its morale to kill. Schools select and train men for
their jobs in corporations and their specialized tasks in the armed forces. The extended fam-
ily has, of course, long been broken up by the industrial revolution, and now the son and the
father are removed from the family, by compulsion if need be, whenever the army of the
state sends out the call. And the symbols of all these lesser institutions are used to legitimate
the power and the decisions of the big three. (Mills 1956: 6)
This undermining of the great American dream was a result of the concentration of
power in the hands of a relatively small number of people (these are outlined in
some detail in Mill’s book). Those in top positions in government, for example, the
Secretaries of State and Defence, had close associations with CEOs and other senior
members of top US corporations. This analysis of American life contradicted not
only the prevailing self-perception of the United States as a bastion of democracy,
but also the notion that it represented a classless society. Most of the members of
this elite, according to Mills, were from the very comfortable upper third of the
income and occupational groups. They graduated from the same Ivy League univer-
sities, such as Harvard and Princeton, and joined the same clubs and societies. They
represented in effect an American high society version of the old school tie.
This power elite has risen to prominence in a country whose power structure in
the 1920s revolved around what Mills calls ‘local society’ partly at least because of
a power vacuum when it came to international matters. This international dimension
became much more significant during and after the Second World War:
Since the governing apparatus of the United States has by long historic usage been adapted
to and shaped by domestic clash and balance, it has not, from any angle, had suitable agen-
cies and traditions for the handling of international problems. Such formal democratic
14 2 The State
mechanics as had arisen in the century and a half of national development prior to 1941, had
not been extended to the American handling of international affairs. It is, in considerable
part, in this vacuum that the power elite has grown. (Mills 1956: 274–275)
The international dimension to elites is just as significant in the twenty-first century,

if not more so according to authors like Leslie Sklair, who argues that the most
important power elite today is what he calls the ‘transnational capitalist class’
(TCC), which includes the directors of transnational corporations who identify
more with each other than with their compatriots. Sklair argues that the economic
interests of TCC members are increasingly globally linked rather than exclusively
local and national in origin (Sklair 2000).
The Capitalist State
Mill’s approach focused on the way the state served particular interests and not the
universal citizen interests so desired by Hegel. This tendency to favouritism and
elitism has been a long-running issue of interest to social theory, particularly when
it comes to capitalism. One corner of social theory has devoted itself doggedly to
the question of this relationship between the state and capitalism. Much of this
debate is inspired by the work of Karl Marx and falls within the strand of social
theory normally referred to as Neo-Marxism. The debate continues today in jour-
nals such as Capital and Class and the Radical Journal of Political Economy, but
had its heyday in the 1970s with what has become known as the Miliband-Poulantzas
debate. This had its roots in earlier debates and ideas, including those of Mills’, but
also one of the foremost neo-Marxists of his time, the French sociologist Louis
Althusser. The starting point was the critique of what has been called ‘orthodox’
Marxism which supposedly posits a rigid functionalist view of the state as deter-
mined by the economic forces of production—that is, the state as an epiphenome-
non of the economy.
The theory developed by Althusser rejected economic determinism, instead
arguing for the relative autonomy of the state from the economy—a significant
departure from ‘orthodox’ Marxism. He was able to do this because of his adher-
ence to a form of structuralist thinking, an approach to structuralism that puts
centre stage the structures of a given social formation. By social formation, Althusser
was referring to society as a totality, including every aspect of society and not just a
single mode of production that could only form part of the whole. Such structures
included not only the economy but also the political-judiciary system and ideology
(Althusser 2005). Each of these structures was governed by their own set of rules
and their own reality. These structures, although derived from Marx’s concept of the
mode of production, differed in the sense that any one of them ‘can be the structure
in dominance’ in a particular mode of production (Carnoy 1984: 90), and were not
just by-products of the economic structure. So, depending on the given social form
of life, any of these could be dominant, not just the economic.
The Capitalist State 15
This was an important mission for Althusser—he wanted to ‘rescue’ what he

considered the true Marx from such humanist interpretations. Althusser arguably
also had a much more developed theory of how state power works than other
theorists, as evidenced in his most famous essay (and one of the most well-
known in social theory) Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (Althusser
1971). Published originally in a collection called Lenin and Philosophy and
other essays, the essay was concerned with identifying the ways in which the
state exercises its power, Althusser identifying two key elements in this regard.
One was the ‘repressive state apparatus’ comprised of the police, army and the
law courts, and the other was the ‘ideological state apparatus’—comprised of the
educational system, media, religious and cultural institutions. What made the
essay famous was the latter focus, Althusser branding supposedly civil and dem-
ocratic institutions such as schools as instruments of ideological state repression.
The following quote from the essay positions the school as the dominant ideo-
logical apparatus:
It takes children from every class at infant school age, and then for years, the years at which
the child is most vulnerable; squeezed between the family state apparatus and the educa-
tional state apparatus, it drums into them, whether it uses new or old methods, a certain
amount of ‘know-how’ wrapped in the ruling ideology (French, arithmetic, natural history,
the sciences, literature) or simply the ruling ideology in its pure state (ethics, civics instruc-
tion). (Althusser 1971)
Althusser’s rebranding of ideology as a form of social reproduction allows compari-

son not only with Marx but also with the work of Antonio Gramsci and his concept
of hegemony as manufactured consent (see Chap. 3).
The Miliband–Poulantzas Debate
The Miliband–Poulantzas debate unfolded in the late 1960s and early 1970s, via the
much-admired New Left Review journal—a magnet for those who were grappling
with the events of 1968 while still exhibiting sympathy for Marxist approaches to
social issues. It was the ideal home for this debate to unfold, a classic case of two
juxtaposed positions on a significant and theoretical issue of the day. The signifi-
cance of the debate lay in its theoretical implications as well as its practical conse-
quences for Marxist revolutionary struggle. This period after all saw the continuing
Cold War saga cement itself via the proliferation of nuclear weapons, the capitalist-
communist proxy wars of Vietnam, Rhodesia, Chad and Sudan (among numerous
others) and the communist insurgencies taking place in countries such as Thailand
and Malaysia, revolts that were often tied to nationalist movements for indepen-
dence. So there was much at stake when it came to assessing the capitalist nature of
the liberal democratic state, not least the desire of many European socialists to dis-
tance themselves from the terrors of Stalinist Marxism.
16 2 The State
The debate was between two sets of ideas, embodied in the figures of two promi-
nent left intellectuals: Ralph Miliband, a British sociologist, and Nicos Poulantzas,
a Greek-French sociologist heavily influenced by Althusser. Miliband had published
a book in 1969, The State in Capitalist Society, where he outlined what is some-
times referred to as the ‘instrumentalist’ theory of the capitalist state—or what
Marinetto (2007: 21) calls the ‘proxy’ approach. Dedicated to C. Wright Mills, the
book made the case for defining the state as effectively a capitalist patsy:
The state in these class societies is primarily and inevitably the guardian and protector of
the economic interests which are dominant in them – its ‘real’ purpose is to ensure their
continued predominance, not to prevent it. (Miliband 1969: 22)
Put simply, the role of the state is to serve the interest of capitalists. This role is
made possible by the crossover between members of the political and economic
classes (much evidence for which is detailed in the book). Miliband’s book was
reviewed in New Left Review by Poulantzas, and in the review, he sets out his own
structural theory of the state. Broadly following Althusser, Poulantzas argues that
the state is ‘objectively’ capitalist—what he meant by this is that the state ‘can serve
no purpose other than preserving the capitalist mode of production’. The fact that
the political and economic classes are one and the same is entirely coincidental in
his theoretical approach: the state serves capitalism regardless:
The relation between the bourgeois class and the state is an objective relation. This means
that if the function of the state in a determinate social formation and the interests of the
dominant class coincide, it is by reason of the system itself: the direct participation of mem-
bers of the ruling class in the state apparatus is not the cause but the effect…. (Poulantzas
1969: 73)
In a response to Poulantzas’s criticisms published the following year, Miliband

counters that Poulantzas’s position represents a form of super-determinism, which
effectively favours theoretical obscurantism over practical forms of political
struggle:
The political danger of structural super-determinism would seem to me to be obvious.
For if the state elite is as totally imprisoned in objective structures as is suggested, it
follows that there is really no difference between a state ruled, say, by bourgeois con-
stitutionalists, whether conservative or social-democrat, and one ruled by, say, Fascists.
It was the same approach which led the Comintern in its ‘class against class’ period
fatally to under-estimate what the victory of the Nazis would mean for the German
working-class movement. This is an ultra-left deviation which is also not uncommon
today; and it is the obverse of a right deviation which assumes that changes in govern-
ment, for instance the election of a social-democratic government, accompanied by
some changes in the personnel of the state system, are sufficient to impart an entirely
new character to the nature and role of the state. Both are deviations, and both are dan-
gerous. (Miliband 1970: 58)
Statification 17
Although of its time, this debate has echoes of both earlier elite assessments of
the state such as Mills and more recent and seemingly persistent populist views
of the state as owned and controlled by big business (a recurrent theme in popular
discourse).
An interesting corollary to the debates on the capitalist state can be found in the
theories of state capitalism, a term that has been around since the nineteenth century
but still has relevance to today’s politics. One social theorist who focused on the
topic was Frederick Pollock, one of the founders of the Institute for Social Research
in Frankfurt am Main, and a member of the Frankfurt School of critical theory.
His essay, State capitalism: Its possibilities and limitations, was published in 1941,
during the Second World War and at the height of Nazi power. So he had his reasons
for being concerned with this version of statism. In the article (Pollock 1989[1941]:
9), he outlines key aspects of state capitalism including a replacement of the con-
trolling functions of the market relating to production and consumption, by a set of
direct controls mandated by the state apparatus; and state steering of the traditional
market function of regulating and coordinating supply and demand.
In state capitalist societies the state has a much greater say over the mobility
of goods and labour, as well as aligning production with consumption. China
can be judged a version of state capitalism as can Brazil and South Africa which
also embody elements of the approach. See also Singapore and Middle East
states like Dubai. State-backed companies are dominant in both the Russian and
Chinese stock markets, while the top ten oil and gas firms internationally are all
state-owned.
Statification
It is important to include Michel Foucault’s take on the state, given how different it
is to the prevailing approach to state theory. This difference is itself a reflection of
the difference between his thought and the Marxist-inspired theories fashionable
during the time he started writing about the state (1960s). Foucault was careful to
distance himself from any orthodoxy to which he might find his concepts connected:
‘I have never been a Freudian, I have never been a Marxist, and I have never been a
structuralist’ (Foucault 1988: 22). Foucault was interested in the state and the exer-
cise of political power, not because he was concerned about its role in taming,
accommodating or overthrowing capitalism, but rather because of his desire to
develop a more general theory of power. For him, power does not transmit itself
through the workings of economic production and class domination but rather
through people’s experience of interacting with social institutions over and above
the state apparatus.
Foucault’s positioning of the state in this way is fuelled by his desire to displace
the state from political theory and incorporate a ‘more diffuse, random and uninten-
tional view of political power’ (Marinetto 2007, 40). Through his lectures at the
18 2 The State
Collège de France, he provided a deeply revised notion of the state. He broke the
monopoly on power once enjoyed by state theory, instead arguing that power should
be explored via ‘its infinitesimal mechanisms, which each have their own history,
their own trajectory, their own tactics’ (Foucault 1980: 98–9). Power worked
through the practices associated with family life, civil society, schools, prisons and
numerous other sites, and not just the apparatus of the state. In this way Foucault
offers a decentralised theory of politics in which the power of the state ‘is an effect
of both social and self-imposed forms of regulation’ (Sawyer 2015: 136). In his own
famous words, ‘we need to cut off the King’s head’ of state-centric notions of power
(Foucault 1980).
By adopting this approach to the state, Foucault opened a path to thinking about
how different modes of power became ‘statified’ (or not) over time:
It is certain that the state in our contemporary societies is not just one of the forms or one
of the sites – be it the most important – for the exercise of power, but in a certain way all the
other types of power relations refer to it. (Foucault 1982: 793)
But Foucault continues, ‘this is not because they are derived from it. It is rather
because power relations have come more and more under state control’ (Foucault
1982: 793), a process he refers to elsewhere as ‘statification’ (see Foucault 2008: 77).
The influence of Foucault’s approach to the state has been widespread—see the
social theory applied box below for an example of how such ideas continue to
inform studies of the state. Foucault is a helpful antidote to the overpowering view
of the sovereign state, all powerful in its reach. Nevertheless, the concerns of the
‘statists’ cannot be easily dismissed: not everyone is convinced of Foucault’s
approach to the state. Hence it has triggered a range of critiques across social theory.
Habermas has made the claim that Foucault delivers a political dead end—a theory
of the state without any opposing form of resistance, a claim also made by
Poulantzas, who delivered a similar counter-argument in State, power, socialism
(1978: 149). The ways in which the thought of Foucault has diverged so much from
Marxist orientations meant that this debate was effectively conducted in competing
languages, with Foucault uninterested in the language of ‘socialism’ and ‘social
democracy’. Such rhetoric and political positionings were redundant in his theoreti-
cal apparatus. No wonder that Habermas had him branded as a neo-conservative
(Habermas 1990). Indeed, Foucault had little to say in his published work about the
perils of capitalism, a silence of sorts that provides the basis of some of the most
sustained criticism: how do we understand state power, diffuse or not, outside the
context of international political economy? This is a context that sees states not only
competing with one another, according to some, but also doing the bidding of the
capitalist market system—the visible hand of the state controlling the invisible hand
of the market.
Statification 19
Social Theory Applied: Statification

Foucault’s work in general has proven to be a treasure trove for researchers
seeking novel concepts that can be put to practical use in diverse contexts.
Alongside his ideas such as discourse and bio-power, Foucault’s work on
statification (often in conjunction with his work on governmentality (see
Chap. 3) has been deployed in numerous analyses of political power. One of
these is published in book form At the heart of the state: the moral world of
institutions (Fassin 2015) which includes a collection of studies carried out in
France that aims to reflect the morality of the state as practised in various
agencies and services, such as the police, the court system, prison, social ser-
vices and mental health facilities. With a noticeably strong Foucault influ-
ence, Fassin et al. set their approach against what they consider traditional
approaches to researching the state which tend to deploy ‘top-down’ mac-
ropolitical perspectives more concerned with structures, laws and functions.
The contributors flesh out the ways in which sectors such as the legal profes-
sion often embody the ‘heart of the state’—so, for example, in relation to
criminal justice, the work of law enforcement agencies is
inscribed within a moral economy, rest on moral arguments, constructs moral com-
munities, engages moral subjectivities, and provokes moral conflicts—all elements
that are indispensable when considering how to make sense not only on what is
standard practice in their interactions with their public, but also the forms of devi-
ance like brutality or cruelty, racism or discrimination’. (Fassin 2015, 94)
As well as France, Foucault’s work on statification has been put to good use
in a wide variety of geographical settings. Baker-Cristales’ work (2008), for
example, uses the concept to understand the ways in which the state of El
Salvador has dealt with the ‘transnational political struggles’ of their migrants
and the non-governmental organisations that support them. These struggles,
which once appeared to represent a form of alternative to the Salvadoran state
(2008: 358), have instead been converted ‘into projects of incorporation
whereby state actors and institutions recuperate their hold on people imagined
to “belong” to the state.’
Death’s (2018) work on state gatekeeping practices in the case of the Niger
Delta oil industry is something of a rejoinder to Baker-Cristale’s work.
Employing a similar Foucauldian approach, Death argues that, on the one
hand, the Nigerian state plays a significant role in controlling the region’s ter-
ritorial sovereignty, both through ‘military counter-insurgency operations and
in complex partnerships with corporate private security firms to police oil
infrastructure’. However he also emphasises that state power is not monolithic
in the region, its various tentacles unable to control the spread of resistance
and environmental struggle that seeks to unstable and subvert the corruptive
geopolitics of the vast oil industry-state complex of the Niger Delta.
20 2 The State
The Welfare State as Crisis Management
The ideas of Foucault notwithstanding, much of the debate over the state in the late
twentieth century continued to centre on its relation to economics, and especially
capitalism. One strand of this approach focused on theories of the welfare state, a
decidedly political invention of the twentieth century. Associated mainly with
Western European countries such as Germany, United Kingdom and Sweden, wel-
fare states are commonly based on redistributive policies, especially in regard to
progressive tax and national social insurance systems. This is the case with the
British welfare state, which was established at the end of the Second World War and
welcomed with open arms by a society that had suffered major economic depriva-
tion during the war. Its flagship programme, the National Health Service, exists to
this day and still offers free health care at the point of delivery.
The welfare state can be characterised as a form of political compromise between
the laissez-faire capitalism of the United States and the rigid communism of the
Soviet Union, a political entity that was generally seen as a serious threat to Western
capitalism until its demise in 1989. The welfare state in the UK, for example, was
established in the context of strong public and private-sector unions, and progres-
sive systems for redistributing wealth were a clear reflection of both union power
and concerns over the influence of socialist ideology (the red threat of Soviet bol-
shevism a powerful fear for decades). Some theorists have gone further and situated
welfarism in the context of debates over the capitalist state. These include sociolo-
gists such as Claus Offe, who brought a distinctly German take to the issue, utilising
theories of thinkers such as Niklas Luhmann and Jürgen Habermas to cast the wel-
fare state as a mechanism of crisis management.
According to Offe, the welfare state since the Second World War has attempted
to manage the crisis tendencies of the capitalist system, a coordinating function
central to its survival. The state can use the welfare apparatus to regulate and correct
what Offe calls the processes of socialisation (a term borrowed from Marx) and
capital accumulation. It seeks to assure the power of capital and the capacity to
generate profit while at the same time alleviate the more destructive aspects of pri-
vate enterprise on issues such as equality, community, mobility and solidarity:
the capitalist state has the responsibility of compensating for the processes of socialization
triggered by capital in such a way that neither a self-obstruction of market-regulated accu-
mulation nor an abolition of the relationships of private appropriation of socialized produc-
tion results. The state protects the capital relation from the social conditions it produces
without being able to alter the status of this relationship as the dominant relationship. To do
otherwise would sanction such mechanisms as the ‘investment strike’ which would make
the therapy more harmful than the illness it was designed to cure. This precarious double
function of the capitalist state continuously demands a combination of intervention and
abstention from intervention, of ‘planning’ and ‘freedom’. (Offe 1984: 49–50)
Given its multifunctional nature, the welfare state was always placed in an awkward
position, and its inevitable conflicting strategies constitute what Offe refers to as the
contradictions of the welfare state, sowing the seeds of its own weakness in modern
From the Dependent to the Postcolonial State 21
times. Offe argued that the welfare state in the 1970s was already ceasing to be a
viable approach to capitalist crisis—according to him, the strategies used to manage
crisis were themselves generating further crises, for example, in the production of
permanent budget deficits as a result of public expenditure. The welfare state is
certainly under severe pressure in the twenty-first century, both from the after-
effects of the 2008 economic crisis and neoliberal ideology. The effects of austerity
have had enormous impacts on public spending and budgets, while the idea of wel-
fare itself is under attack from those who view such forms of collective care as a
drag on competitiveness and efficiency.
From the Dependent to the Postcolonial State
The welfare state is a model of statism peculiar to the prosperous nations of Western
Europe, a model that has not become embedded elsewhere. This is especially true
for the former colonies of Western Europe in regions such as Latin America, which
have experienced a different historical trajectory to that of countries like the United
Kingdom and Germany. Many of these countries have been mired in economic stag-
nation or in some cases serious financial difficulty, with the notion of a social safety
net a distant ideal in countries such as Bolivia, El Salvador and Venezuela.
Social theory has sought to understand the reasons behind such disparities in
economic development, with one theory standing out in this regard. Dependency
theory was popular in the 1960s and 1970s, especially among researchers keen to
apply versions of Marxist political economy in a more global context. The theory
held that states internationally could be divided into ‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ states,
the former poor and underdeveloped while the latter were rich in resources. These
states were dependent on one another in terms of their status as a result of their
integration into the ‘world system’. Resources and wealth flowed in one direction
due to asymmetrical power relations between states.
Given the issues already explored in this chapter, it was somewhat inevitable that
dependency theory would become prominent at this historical juncture, especially
given the fact that it was preceded by an approach to development called modernisa-
tion theory. This theory, which took shape after the devastation of the Second World
War, saw a need for international development in states (particularly those in the
South) that had failed to develop economically. Modernisation theory reflected a
deficit model of development, with the blame for underdevelopment in Africa, Latin
America and elsewhere placed squarely on the shoulders of factors such as cultural
values, skill shortage, lack of infrastructure and technology. Western-style capital-
ism was deemed the most appropriate form of development, and underdevelopment
could be alleviated via investment, technology transfer and so on. Where the West
led, the rest followed, at least in theory.
Dependency theory rejected this view, instead arguing that underdevelopment is
a result of Western exploitation of labour and resources in the developing world. It
also rejects the idea that underdeveloped countries are mere primitive versions of
22 2 The State
developed countries and have yet to make the leap from traditional to modern.
Instead, these countries have unique features and structures of their own.
There have been numerous versions of Dependency theory developed over the
years, including that of Fernando Henrique Cardoso, who later went on to become
the President of Brazil. As with many other proponents of dependency theory,
Cardoso’s approach has strong roots in Marxist modes of analysis. In Dependency
& Development in Latin America (1979), Cardoso and his collaborator Enzo Faletto
adopt a dialectical approach to development, emphasising the socio-political nature
of the economic relations of production, ‘thus following the 19th century tradition of
treating economy as political economy’ (Cardoso and Faletto 1979: ix). At the same
time, they are keen not to fall into the trap of delivering a mechanistic conception of
history and labelling internal forces purely as side-effects of internal capital accu-
mulation. They included in their analysis ‘social struggles and the particular rela-
tions (economic, social, and political) that give momentum to specific dominated
societies’ (xv) and conceived the relationship between external and internal forces
as forming
a complex whole whose structural links are not based on mere external forms of exploita-
tion and coercion, but are rooted in coincidences of interests between local dominant
classes and international ones, and, on the other side, are challenged by local dominated
groups and classes. (1979: p. xvi)
This desire to foreground the importance of internal politics (in which they assert
the political role of the local middle classes) was a powerful antidote to much of the
simplistic thinking about state relations prevalent at the time. It also offered fresh
ways of exploring practical routes to sustainable state-level development in coun-
tries such as Brazil, Venezuela, Peru and Mexico. Their theory allowed for the pos-
sibility of development and social progress, especially in countries in which
domestic ownership of industry was substantial—in principle, autonomous devel-
opment was possible, a notion that contradicted the often pessimistic and narrow
views of dependency that had become almost a dogma among development thinkers.
Given the countries that were considered dependent or peripheral—those in
Latin America, Asia and Africa—it can be a challenge to separate theories of depen-
dency and dependent development from the reality and experience of colonialism.
Colonialism, a vast power nexus which saw European nations carve up the rest of
the world in order to supply themselves with priceless resources, cheap labour and
territory, has had a long and lasting impact on the viability of postcolonial nation
states. National liberation movements, for all their efforts, have struggled to shake
off the legacy of colonial times. It is noteworthy that so many of the states used as
case studies in dependency theory are postcolonial states that have since become
‘dependent’ in different ways and at different times on their previous masters. This
relationship has been the subject of some commentary in postcolonial circles; David
Slater in his book Geopolitics and the Postcolonial: Rethinking North-South
Relations (Slater 2004) argues that the core issues identified in the 1960s and 1970s
by dependency theorists are still relevant decades on, offering a significant step in
Globalisation and the State 23
the direction of an alternative geopolitical understanding which helped to realise the

potential of a postcolonial approach.
Talk of colonialism and postcolonialism inevitably brings up issues to do not
only with imperialism documented in the history books but also with what some
commentators see as a current form of economic imperialism. In her book
Globalisation and the postcolonial world, Ankie Hoogvelt (1998) explores the ways
in which globalisation has created a tiered world with core and periphery nations
competing for scarce resources. For her, the postcolonial is a description of new
social formations resulting from the meeting of globalisation and the aftermath of
colonialism. She outlines four versions of this marriage of historical events—the
failed states of sub-Saharan Africa with its attendant anarchy and civil collapse;
fundamentalist Islamic states yielding a combination of anti-development ideology
and a rejection of civil society; The East Asian version of state capitalism as a bul-
wark against the unpredictable forces of globalisation and the states of Latin
America with their penchant for experimentation (for instance with neoliberalism)
and resistance again colonising forces.
Globalisation and the State
It is understandable that the 1970s saw Cardoso writing about dependent develop-
ment and Offe writing about a crisis affecting welfare states, as this is the decade
that witnessed the spread of economic globalisation. Since the 1970s there has been
a dramatic transformation in the world order, one that has seen the rise of both mul-
tinational corporations (MNCs) and deregulated international finance that are able
to traverse national borders almost at will. The extent of this shift at a qualitative
level—that is, how much of a fundamental difference does it represent—is a point
of some debate (and will be returned to in Chap. 4 on the economy). But it is not
difficult to see how such a development can unhinge the capacity of states to govern
and maintain order, as well as manage the national economy, create growth and
distribute wealth and employment. But with the rise of these forms of hypermobile
capital, this capacity to govern has been placed under severe pressure. Economic
globalisation places the state in the challenging situation of planning an economic
environment in the context of an uncertain future—one in which international capi-
tal can often usually have the upper hand. The usual levers of state governance when
it comes to economic management such as taxation policy become less effective in
the face of shifting economic units that are all too eager to locate to countries with
reduced corporation tax. States are thus put in the awkward position of effectively
trading economic sovereignty for jobs.
It is because of dilemmas such as this that numerous contemporary authors pro-
claim the end of the nation state, a conception of statism that has a surprisingly long
history. Charles Kindleberger in 1969 argued that the nation state ‘is just about
through as an economic unit’ (1969: 207). It is interesting to note the year of
Kindleberger’s proclamation, 1969, as this was close to the development of eco-
nomic globalisation. There is certainly plenty of evidence to suggest that the
24 2 The State
hypermobility of international capital constitutes an existential threat to the nation

state. This is a significant issue when it comes to global political economy, but suf-
fice to say that it is not a simple case of a rampant economic form of globalisation—
this varies and diverges depending on geography and power. It should also be
pointed that the actions of governments have ‘created many of the basic conditions
within which movement towards greater globalization has taken place’ (Jones
(2000: 4). It is unwise to characterise the state as a passive player in world affairs.
When it comes to the question of the nation state and its decline, there are other
issues to contend with and not just economic ones; it also has an important political
dimension and raises questions about power and control, authority and legitimacy in
a globalised world. Much of the debate around globalisation revolves around ques-
tions of boundaries—boundaries when it comes to nation, sovereignty, control,
legitimacy, identity. When it comes to these core issues of political and social life,
globalisation has the power to both enhance these and also to destabilise. What it
does mean is that the state rests on uneasy foundations, leaving it open to conflicting
interpretations. This is all too evident when for example the issue of migration is
introduced into the discussion.
Such conflicts have implications for various aspects of how the state is under-
stood, not least how one understands the question of nationhood. In particular, it has
consequences for what Benedict Anderson called the ‘imagined community’ of
nationhood (see Key Concept Box). As Anderson puts it, a nation ‘is imagined
because the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their
fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the
image of their communion’. Members hold in their minds a mental image of their
affinity—a strong and durable force based on collective solidarity.
Anderson in a later edition of his famous book remarks that he does not consider
globalisation as a serious threat to national identity, although there are others who
suggest otherwise, who argue instead that the fantasy of particular nationhoods is
forced to confront the reality of competing definitions of nationalism in an intercon-
nected world. For example, Arjun Appadurai (1990) suggests that, in an increas-
ingly globalised world, it becomes more difficult to sustain and foster national
identity. Porous boundaries, the ease of international travel, the rise of digital media
and to some extent the forces of economic globalisation, have all contributed to a
lessening in significance of the nation, or so authors such as Appadurai assert. But
this globalisation effect can work both ways: see for example the spread of new and
vigorous nationalist movements across the world. Populist movements, both left
and right, can be better understood within this context of economic globalisation,
with citizens in numerous countries pitching up behind protectionist policies aimed
at taming rampant capitalism. These movements embody a sense that shelter must
be sought behind the barricades of a strong nation state.
These contradictory effects can be witnessed in their most ironic form in the
context of the European Union (EU). Originally established as an impressive proj-
ect designed to both heal harmful ancient European hatreds and develop a competi-
tive regional political economy, the EU has since the turn of the twenty-first century
been plagued by new forms of virulent nationalism. Arguably, the greatest thorn in
Globalisation and the State 25
the side of the EU, one that strikes right at the heart of the European project, is the
refusal of the nation-state to fully bow to its demands. The great ambition of the EU,
to advance towards a post-national future of an ever-greater union, is threatened by
its own member states, who rather than diminish in significance, are threatening to
multiply. This threat is not just down to the usual suspects, the ones that have threat-
ened to separate for some time (Scotland, e.g., and Catalonia) or who have actually
left the EU (the UK via Brexit). There are significant movements in many other
regions towards separatism, including Flanders, Lombardy, Veneto, Bavaria and
South Tyrol, all of which have prominent separatist or regionalist movements.
At a political level, this wave of separatism is a tragedy for the European project.
One of the original reasons behind the establishment of the EU in the 1950s (then
the EEC) was the desire to minimise the significance of statism—politically, legally
and economically, but just as importantly culturally (it should not be overlooked
that the EU developed in the shadow of a world war started between European
nation states, with the consequent desire to bring France and Germany, in particular,
closer together). But just when Europe desperately needs to pursue an agenda of
further integration, to reduce the significance of statism, statism decides to rear its
problematic head. This is a terrible irony on a grand European scale, meaning that
the gap between the real and ideal of the European project has never been greater.
Key Concept: Imagined Communities

The phrase ‘imagined community’ has taken on a life of its own in recent
years but can be traced back to the publication in 1983 of the book Imagined
Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (revised
and extended, Anderson 1991). Written by Benedict Anderson, it explores the
ways in which nationalism and nationalist movements led to the creation of
nations or, as the title puts it, imagined communities. The emphasis in the
book is on the invention of nationalism, not as a political ideology akin to
Marxism or fascism, but rather as a socially constructed artefact based on
cherished ideas and sentiments about community solidarity and belonging.
There was nothing inevitable about the rise of nationalism according to
Anderson; its origins lay in the migration of Europeans to the Americas, in
particular Creoles who had never been to the ‘motherland’ yet felt a deep con-
nection to their ancestral home (in a time when travel was difficult at best).
The rise of nationalism in Europe was a response to the imagined nationalism
in the European diaspora, and the book argues that this then spread via colo-
nialism to Asia and Africa. The grand irony of the book is that what in the end
defeated colonialism and colonial power was itself an invention of Europe via
the back door—a set of independence movements with a nationalist imagined
community at their core.
The book itself is wide ranging and international in both outlook and evi-
dence. There are plenty of case studies from across the globe that build on the
example of Creole culture in America. What is also of worth in the book is the
(continued)
26 2 The State
argument about the power of shared media in the construction of national

identities. Although in other ways critical of Marx’s legacy, Anderson is at his
most Marxist in his account of the power of print capital and its powerful
effects on identity and solidarity. There are also echoes of Hegel in Anderson’s
conception of nationhood as national sovereignty as a result of people’s desire
for freedom—a freedom that is to be realised and symbolised by a sover-
eign state.
Anderson’s conception of nationhood has been enormously influential but
not without its detractors. Subaltern scholars such as Partha Chatterjee (1993)
argue that Anderson misunderstands the nature of colonial societies, asserting
the existence of sovereign territory before the arrival of colonialism. This
indigenous imagined sovereign community or what Chatterjee calls the ‘spiri-
tual domain’ (as opposed to the material domain) represents the beginnings of
nationalism. Other critics have pointed to the lack of analysis of Arab forms
of nationalism that arguably predated Anderson’s focus on the European
diaspora.
Key Term: Neoliberalism

Neoliberalism is an ideology of privatisation, marketisation and ‘small stat-
ism’ that first became established through the writings of thinkers such as
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) and Friedrich Hayek (1899–1992) in the early
to mid-twentieth century. Friedman and Hayek viewed markets, competition
and consumerism as pathways to prosperity and freedom, and argued that the
modern nation state with its tendencies towards interventionism and
protectionism creates cultures of economic dependency among citizens. This
neoliberal stance was explicitly targeted at restricting the scope and influence
of the state, a stance that has since been implemented globally in the shape of
dismantled welfare states, the decentralising of power and the expansion
of global economic corporations, alongside the more general championing of
private-sector values over those of the public sector in many countries.
The Rise of the Neoliberal State
Globalisation has also witnessed the spread of a powerful ideology across the globe,
neoliberalism. Modern neoliberalism, the bête noire of protest movements such as
Occupy and Podemos, is often associated with the works of twentieth-century econ-
omists such as Friedrich Hayek (1983) and Milton Friedman (1962) and can be
distinguished from earlier versions of classic economic liberalism, for example as
laid out in the work of Adam Smith. In The Wealth of Nations (Smith 1776/1993),
The Rise of the Neoliberal State 27
Smith outlined the blueprint for modern-day capitalism, viewing in the invisible
hand of the market a route to both prosperity and individual salvation. The market
mechanism provided a lever for society to prosper and also a replacement for the
inefficient social market model and corrupt mercantilist economic policies (essen-
tially an early protectionist version of state capitalism) that were prevalent in the
nineteenth century, particularly in Europe.
This proposal of a free-market route to national prosperity was revolutionary for
its time and needed to be actively constructed in order for it to be embedded in
nations. Here the state had a major role to play in intervening in existing economic
activity to create the stage on which the invisible hand could work its magic (see for
a useful account of this, Michael Perelman in his book The Invention of Capitalism,
Perelman 2000). Although sometimes caricatured as a proponent of laissez-faire
economics, Smith was in fact far removed from this stereotype and was as con-
cerned about effective state management and regulation and social inequality as he
was about wealth creation. The state had an important role to play in economics,
which was a reasonable position to take from someone schooled in political
economy.
This is a decidedly different position to that adopted by proponents of neoliberal-
ism, an ideology of laissez-faire privatisation and marketisation that manifests itself
in a set of political practices designed to reduce the role and size of the state. These
practices include a smaller welfare state; diffuse regimes of power; a focus on out-
comes rather than rules and the valorisation of private-sector values. Economic vari-
ants of neoliberal ideologies such as monetarism and supply-side economics have
long been advocated by international elites, and famously made their way into offi-
cial government policy, first in countries such as the USA and the UK in the 1980s,
and subsequently in other nations like Australia, Canada, Korea and Japan. This
shift in economic orthodoxy has inevitably resulted in reduced governmental
regulation.
This spread of neoliberalism resonates with ideas stemming from dependency
and postcolonial theory, as its practices have found a home not only in the world of
international financial markets, but also in agencies that are committed to capitalism
as a world economy—in particular, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Bank. Their Structural Adjustment Programmes have long been their policy levers
of choice in relation to impoverished third world economies but have also increas-
ingly been applied in updated form in first-world states—see, for example, the 2009
bailouts of countries such as Greece and Ireland. Debt crises provide the open door
through which the IMF is only too ready to step through: first in the 1970s and
recently after the 2008 crisis, they have been in a strong position to persuade coun-
tries to implement specific policies as only then would they be eligible for loans. Via
this mechanism they can pursue a neoliberal agenda, including radical reductions in
government spending, cuts in wages or severely constraining a country’s ability to
reduce inflation and make exports more competitive, a liberalisation of imports to
make industry more efficient, and a devaluing of the local currency relative to hard
currencies like the dollar to make exports more competitive. A path through the
state needs to be the cleared for the market to prosper.
28 2 The State
With the proliferation of indebted nations since 2008, the IMF has been in a
strong position to help foster a neoliberal agenda on a global scale. The rise of ‘aus-
terity programmes’ has helped to reshape the power and function of the state in the
global era (Ranis et al. 2006). It is not too difficult therefore to understand why anti-
neoliberal social movements have become so prominent: trickle down supply-side
economics combined with a weak welfare net does little to assuage the fears and
concerns of those facing uncertain futures and precarious employment
opportunities.
The backlash against neoliberalism (while it storms on regardless) is a reflection
of how far the state as an entity has distanced itself from the powerful paternalist
state envisioned by Hegel, with the ideology of small/weak statism offering a much
narrower version of freedom than the collectivist approach he envisaged. As evi-
denced in this chapter, it also reflects the complicated relationship that exists
between states and capitalism, a tense relationship of which Hegel himself was only
too aware of. As was Adam Smith, whose theories of the market were a major influ-
ence on Hegel (Henderson and Davis 1991). Hegel’s notion of freedom included
market freedom for the then-growing bourgeoisie, but this expansive conception of
freedom could never quite reconcile itself with the inequality attributed to an unfet-
tered marketplace. This unresolved dialectic between, on the one hand, the pursuit
of freedom and, on the other, the promotion of social justice paved the way for
Hegel’s greatest student and fiercest critic, Karl Marx, who put forward a different
interpretation of economic freedom—to be outlined in Chap. 4.
In Summary
Freedom and the State Hegel had a major influence on subsequent theories of the
state due to his conception of the relation between the state and freedom. For Hegel,
it was not sufficient that the state be the protector of the freedoms of individual citi-
zens. This approach according to Hegel was too negative and too limited a concep-
tion of democracy. Instead he positioned the state as the ideal sphere within human
solidarity and personal freedom could find common ground. This conception is
reflected in his definition of freedom as ‘being at home with oneself in another’.
Elites and the State In the twentieth century, C. Wright Mills, based on his analysis
of the USA, delivered a much more jaundiced view of the state and its capacity to
provide a home for the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
Instead of a home for freedom to flourish, Mills perceived the state to be a home
where corruption, cronyism and self-serving elites could thrive and expand their
influence at the expense of ordinary citizens.
The Capitalist State The twentieth century also saw a heated debate take place in
social theory around the extent to which the modern state is a capitalist one. This
reflects the concerns of Mills while also building on the work of Karl Marx. Marx
In Summary 29
was the main influence on this debate, as manifested in the Miliband/Poultantzas

series of exchanges which were published in the journal New Left Review.
Statification Michel Foucault delivered quite a different analysis of the state from
Marx and neo-Marxists—he saw these theories as overemphasising the role of the
state when it came to the workings of power. He argued that other institutions such
as the family, schools and medical facilities, were also significant conduits of disci-
plinary power. This approach to power allowed Foucault to develop a decentralised
theory of politics.
Contradictions of the Welfare State A return to Marxist questions of political

economy came in the shape of the German sociologist Claus Offe. His focus was on
a specific style of state—the welfare state—that established itself in European states
in the twentieth century, a style that, for Offe, was increasingly struggling as the
twentieth century progressed. This was because its capacity to manage the crisis
tendencies of capitalism, a core function of the welfare state, was being undermined
by its inability to alleviate the social conditions produced by these crises.
Dependent Development and the Postcolonial State Other theories of the state
emerged from the 1970s that provided a challenge to Western-dominated approaches.
These included the theory of dependent development, which held that states could
be separated into ‘core’ and ‘peripheral’ states depending on their position in the
global economy. According to the theory, resources and wealth tend to be unequally
distributed as a result of this dependency, which itself was a reflection of asym-
metrical power relations. Many of the states used as case studies in dependency
theory are postcolonial states that have since become ‘dependent’ in different ways
and at different times on their previous masters.
Globalisation and the State Economic globalisation has dramatically impacted the
role of the state as a protector of citizens. This is reflected in the dependant and
postcolonial theories, as well as being increasingly evident in the mounting pressure
placed on the welfare states of the West. In the twenty-first century, debates have
wavered between positons that proclaim the decline of state power in the face of
globalisation, and arguments that view the rise of nationalist populism as a retreat to
nation-state protectionism in the face of hostile global forces.
Impact of Neoliberalism Alongside globalisation, the state is under severe pres-

sure from the seemingly unstoppable forces of neoliberalism, an ideology of priva-
tisation and marketisation designed to shrink the size and power of the state. This
ideology has become embedded in the policies of numerous states across the world,
leaving populations ever more susceptible to the powerful but unstable forces of
economic globalisation.
30 2 The State
Questions
Is the Miliband-Poulantzas debate still relevant in the twenty-first century?

What do you think Hegel would have to say about the rise of nation-state forms of
populist politics?
Is globalisation, as Appadurai suggests, a threat to national identity?
Suggested Further Readings
Marinetto, M. (2007). Social Theory, the State and Modern Society: The State in
Contemporary Social Thought. Maidenhead, Berkshire: Open University Press.
A succinct account of how the state has been portrayed in modern social theory.
Includes an account of different approaches to state theory, including the gen-
dered state, the decentred state and the post-structural state.
Barrow. C. (2017). Toward a Critical Theory of States: The Poulantzas-Miliband
Debate after Globalization. New York: State University of New York Press.
A timely revisiting of the Poulantzas-Miliband debate in the context of what the
author calls the ‘new imperialism’ of twenty-first-century globalisation. As well
as exploring the relevance of the debate for current events, the book also deals
with some of the finer points of Marxist state theory.
Harvey, D. (2007). A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
A concise history of neoliberalism as well as a powerful assessment of its question-
able effects on equality and justice across the world.
Stenner, D. (2019). Morocco: Transnational Activism and the Post-Colonial State.
Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.
Delivers an important counterpoint to theories of postcolonialism that emphasise
dependency and Western hegemony. Provides a compelling assessment of anti-
colonial forces and their use of international networks to achieve independence
in Morocco.
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Cardoso, F. H., & Faletto, E. (1979). Dependency and Development in Latin America (M. Urquidi,
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Governance
3
Introduction
‘Good governance’ is a term that has gained considerable currency at a global level,
defined by the Council of Europe as ‘the responsible conduct of public affairs and
management of public resources’. Good governance is manifested in political traits
such as ethical conduct, responsiveness and accountability, openness and transpar-
ency, competence, efficiency, effectiveness and innovation. Based on these traits,
states and elected officials are to varying degrees judged by their citizens, alongside
their capacity to deliver adequate services, provide a satisfactory quality of life
while protecting them from corruption and repression.
At the street level, the level at which people live their lives, good governance is
not just an abstract ideal. There are many issues of direct relevance to citizens that
speak to the capacity to govern effectively, from the most basic services such as
refuse collections, road maintenance, transportation, housing, planning and envi-
ronmental protection, to the ‘red flag’ issues of hospital waiting times, law and
order, school places, pensions and social security benefits. These are real concerns
for people, and the ability of the political class to deliver on these issues is a litmus
test of its legitimacy to govern. This is especially the case when these services
involve the most vulnerable in society, such as the sick, the elderly, the unemployed
and those on the margins. At its most basic level, good governance involves strong
solidarity between the governors and the governed, a bond that guarantees an ade-
quate level of justice so that people can be free to live lives of their choosing.
This bond of solidarity, however, has all too often been found to be a weak one,
with states failing to deliver services that meet people’s requirements—this has
become even more apparent in the time of Covid, where government responses to
the pandemic have often been found to be severely lacking in effectiveness as well
as care. This has a number of causes, chief among them the complex bureaucracies
of state administration. Modern bureaucracies, while necessary, have become
impersonal and divorced from people’s lives, while also creating stifling regimes of
red tape that can impede the functioning of social life. Unsurprisingly, this

34 3 Governance
discontent has been a theme in social theory ever since the work of Max Weber who
famously characterised modernity as an ‘iron cage’ of endless bureaucratisation, a
cage that was far removed from any reasonable definition of good governance.
Weber’s iron cage has been a touchstone for much of the subsequent theory on
governance, and this current chapter explores this development via a number of
intellectual spin-offs. This includes how Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer
took Weber’s iron cage to what they considered its logical conclusion—the ‘totally
administered society’. This chapter examines how later incarnations of the Frankfurt
School, in particular Jürgen Habermas, took this idea and reshaped it into a theory
of lifeworld colonisation. The chapter also takes a close look at the rise of manage-
rialism and its consequences for street-level bureaucracy, juridification and risk
avoidance. Foucault’s work on governmentality is also covered, providing a differ-
ent view to the strong Weberian slant evident elsewhere in the chapter.
This chapter is structured to cover the following topics specifically:
• Weber on bureaucracy and its discontents

• Two responses to Weber: Adorno and Horkheimer (totally administered world),
and Habermas (colonisation of the lifeworld)
• The rise of new public management and its consequences for street-level
bureaucracy, juridification and risk avoidance
• An alternative theory of governance—governmentality (Foucault)
Key Term: Iron Cage

Weber first talked about the ‘iron cage’ in his book The Protestant ethic and
the spirit of capitalism (see Chap. 9). Iron cage is a translation of the phrase
stahlhartes Gehäuse, a literal translation of which is ‘housing hard as steel’. It
was Talcott Parson’s who devised the English phrase ‘iron cage’ in his transla-
tion of Weber’s book. The housing or cage was a by-product of the Protestant
ethic that created a belief system to underpin the spread of capitalist moderni-
sation. This belief system resulted in values such as efficiency and calculation
that themselves produced modern systems of bureaucracy, effectively outliv-
ing their roots in ascetic Calvinist theology. According to Weber, this by-
product of religion became an iron cage, imprisoning modern society into
bureaucratic systems of governance that diminish people’s capacity for
freedom.
Bureaucracy and Its Discontents
The tension between democracy and bureaucratic governance has long been a focus
of attention of academics in Sociology, Political Science and Economics, but is
especially prevalent in the field of Public Administration. This is an academic field
Bureaucracy and Its Discontents 35
heavily influenced by the work of Max Weber, whose analyses of organisational

rationality and forms of management and control remain important touchstones in
studies of bureaucracy. Weber believed that bureaucracy was a necessary compo-
nent of any modern democracy, as it underpinned a strong state (a condition he was
very much in favour of), as well as providing a viable structure for the development
of capitalist enterprise. The rationality of efficiency and organisation offered by
bureaucratic modes of government ensures that the potential for economic and
social progress is maximised. The characteristics of bureaucracy such as office hier-
archy, rigid rules and norms, precision, accuracy, clarity—these all made vital con-
tributions to the hyper efficiency required in twentieth-century political and
economic life.
But such progress comes at a high price in the form of domination, as bureaucracy
and centralised control often go hand in hand. According to Weber,
every domination expresses itself and functions though administration. Every administration,
on the other hand, needs domination, because it is always necessary that some powers of
command be in the hands of somebody. (Weber 1954, 109)
When it came to bureaucratic governance, Weber was caught in a bind; he valued

and saw the need for systems of substantive rationality, that is, in efficient sys-
tems that allow for prediction and calculation of outcomes, and for their institution-
alisation in state bureaucracies. These he saw as essential to managing the complexity
of modern societies. Weber considered formal rationality as ‘superior to any other
form in precision, in stability, in the stringency of its discipline and in its reliability’
(Weber 1968: 337). But he also saw this as the ‘curse of modernity’: the valorisation
of efficiency and calculability sucked much of the freedom and meaning out of
social life and left society in what he poetically referred to as the ‘polar night of icy
darkness’ (Weber 2001, 123).
This characterisation was starkly apparent in Weber’s analysis of the German
university system. While concerned about the bureaucratisation of German higher
education, Weber acknowledged that the university was swayed by the broader con-
text of societal rationalisation. Weber’s bleak outlook reflected his belief that insti-
tutions such as universities could not maintain their unique value orientation in the
face of increasing rationalisation. As Weber put it, the ‘ultimate, most sublime val-
ues have withdrawn from public life, either into the transcendental realm of mysti-
cal life or into the brotherhood of immediate personal relationships between
individuals’ (Weber 2004, 30).
This corrosion of university ethos was one example of a broader process of social
fragmentation, a process Weber argued resulted in both a loss of meaning and a loss
of freedom, the latter of which Weber attributes to the former. According to Weber,
the roots of the loss of meaning lay in disenchantment with religious explanations
of the world. Weber argued that the Protestant work ethic (see Chap. 9), distilled in
the Calvinist doctrine of a calling, provided a platform upon which capitalism could
flourish in the West. However, this very success ushered in a disenchantment with
religious worldviews, allowing the flourishing of a diverse set of value systems
36 3 Governance
autonomous from one another (such as law, culture, the market). This also meant
that the meaning giving unity of these religious worldviews lost its legitimacy,
thereby falling apart.
As a result, these distinct spheres of life drift ‘into the tensions with one another
which remain hidden in the originally naïve relation to the external world’ (Weber
1958, 328). According to Weber, the value rationality generated by the Protestant
ethic could not hold its ground faced with the expansion of state administration and
the capitalist market system. The laws governing markets and the widening of state
power through bureaucratisation helped to expand these spheres of activity, and as
a result, saw formal rationality become pre-dominant. Weber depicts a paradox in
this process of societal rationalisation. Hand in hand with the development of the
highest form of societal rationalisation—bureaucracy—comes the loss of freedom
that arises when this highly formalised system of administration detaches itself
from everyday life, experience and values.
In summary, the loss of freedom entails the subjugation of individuals under the
bureaucratisation of organisations central to the economy and the state: the iron
cage. These bureaucratic organisations comprise the systems through which
purposive-rational action embeds itself in society. This process of bureaucratisation
provides the key to understanding both societal rationalisation and the accompany-
ing loss of freedom.
The key issue for Weber, then, is the shift from a form of rationality grounded in
values to one without roots. The bureaucratisation of administrative activities means
that political decisions concerning the public and public services—about resources,
taxation, budgets, planning and distribution—have to be secured separately from
public values. The function of coordinating and deliberating is assumed by the
organisations themselves. This ‘liberating’ of subjectivity from a grounding in for-
mal rationality is at the heart of Weber’s juxtaposition of ‘specialists without spirit’
and ‘sensualists without heart’ (Weber 2010[1905]: 182). The loss of freedom,
therefore, derives from the inability of individuals to orient themselves to values due
to the domination of means-ends rationality. Once the ‘rug’ of value rationality has
been pulled, people are stuck on a never-ending carousel of instrumentalism, effec-
tively doomed to live in a bureaucratically regulated world.
Key Movement: Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)

Established by Theodor Adorno and Max Horkheimer in 1932, the Institute of
Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, included scholars such as Herbert
Marcuse, Eric Fromm, Leo Lowenthal and Franz Neumann. Heavily influ-
enced by the ideas of Karl Marx, the Institute sought to update Marxist ideas
in order to make sense of social, political and economic developments of the
early twentieth century. ‘Critical theory’, although now used to refer to a
much wider spread of social theories, was originally used as code to disguise
the Institute’s Marxist leanings after their exile in America in the 1930s, an
(continued)
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kaatuvatautia? Niin, mutta saattoihan olla niinkin, ettei hän
teeskennellytkään, kohtaus saattoi tulla aivan luonnollisella tavalla,
ja sairas saattoi sitten toipua. Otaksukaamme, ettei hän parantunut,
mutta saattoihan hän joka tapauksessa tulla tajuihinsa ja toipua,
niinkuin kaatuvataudissa tapahtuu. Syyttäjä kysyy: mikä on se hetki,
jolloin Smerdjakov teki murhan? Tuon hetken osoittaminen on
tavattoman helppo tehtävä. Hän saattoi toipua ja herätä syvästä
unesta (sillä hän oli vain unessa: kaatuvataudin kohtausten jälkeen
seuraa aina syvä uni), juuri sillä hetkellä, jolloin ukko Grigori tarttuen
aidan yli pakenevaa syytettyä jalkaan parkaisi niin, että se kuului
yltympäri: »Isänmurhaaja!» Se huuto, joka oli aivan tavallisuudesta
poikkeava, hiljaisuudessa ja pimeässä, juuri saattoikin herättää
Smerdjakovin, joka ei tällöin voinut nukkua enää kovin sikeästi: aivan
luonnollista oli, että hän oli saattanut jo tuntia aikaisemmin ruveta
heräilemään. Noustuaan vuoteesta hän lähtee miltei tiedottomasti ja
ilman mitään aikeita huutoa kohti nähdäkseen mitä siellä on tekeillä.
Hänen päässään on taudin humua, harkintakyky uinuu vielä, mutta
nyt hän on puutarhassa, hän menee valaistujen akkunain luo ja
kuulee kauhean uutisen herralta, joka tietysti ilostui hänen tulostaan.
Ajatus syntyy heti hänen päässään. Pelästyneeltä herraltaan hän
saa kuulla kaikki yksityiskohdat. Ja nytpä vähitellen hänen sekavissa
ja sairaissa aivoissaan kehittyy ajatus — kamala, mutta houkutteleva
ja kiistämättömän johdonmukainen: tappaa, ottaa rahaa
kolmetuhatta ja syyttää sitten nuorta herraa: ketä muuta nyt
epäiltäisiinkään kuin nuorta herraa, ketä muuta voidaan syyttää kuin
nuorta herraa, kaikki todistaa häntä vastaan, hän oli täällä? Kauhea
rahan, saaliin himo saattoi vallata hänen sielunsa samalla kuin hän
ajatteli, että pääsisi rangaistuksetta. Oi, tuommoiset äkilliset ja
hillittömät puuskat esiintyvät niin usein tilaisuuden ilmaantuessa ja,
mikä tärkeintä, tulevat yhtäkkiä sellaisille murhamiehille, jotka vielä
hetkistä aikaisemmin eivät tietäneet, että heidän tekee mieli
murhata! Nyt Smerdjakov saattoi mennä sisälle herransa luo ja
toteuttaa suunnitelmansa, — miten, millä aseella? Oi, ensimmäisellä
kivellä, minkä hän otti puutarhasta. Mutta miksi, missä
tarkoituksessa? Entä kolmetuhatta, niillähän hän tekee onnensa. Oi,
minä en puhu ristiriitaisesti: rahat saattoivat olla olemassa ja olla
siellä. Ja ehkäpä Smerdjakov yksin tiesikin, mistä ne löytää, missä
herra niitä säilyttää. »No, entä rahojen päällys, entä lattialla oleva
reväisty kirjekuori?» Äsken kun syyttäjä tästä kääröstä puhuessaan
esitti sangen hienon mietelmän siitä, että sen saattoi jättää lattialle
nimenomaan tottumaton varas, juuri sellainen kuin Karamazov, eikä
ollenkaan Smerdjakov, joka ei mitenkään olisi jättänyt jälkeensä niin
raskauttavaa todistuskappaletta, — äsken, herrat valamiehet, tuota
kuunnellessani minut yhtäkkiä valtasi sellainen tunne, että kuulen
jotakin hyvin tuttua. Ja ajatelkaahan, juuri tämän saman mietelmän,
tämän saman arvailun, miten Karamazov olisi tehnyt käärölle, minä
olin kuullut täsmälleen kaksi päivää aikaisemmin Smerdjakovilta
itseltään, eikä siinä kyllin, vaan hän suorastaan hämmästytti minut
tällä: minusta nimittäin tuntui, että hän vilpillisesti tekeytyi naiiviksi,
koetti ennakoida, saada isketyksi minuun tuon ajatuksen, jotta minä
itse tekisin tuon saman johtopäätöksen, ja hän ikäänkuin johti minua
siihen. Eiköhän hän liene johtanut tutkijoitaan näin ajattelemaan?
Eiköhän hän saanut tuota ajatusta tungetuksi myöskin suurikykyisen
syyttäjän mieleen? Sanotaan: entä Grigorin vanha vaimo? Kuulihan
hän, miten sairas hänen vieressään vaikerteli koko yön. Niin, kuuli
kyllä, mutta tuo havainto on tavattoman epäluotettava. Tunsin erään
rouvan, joka katkerasti valitti, että häntä oli kaiken yötä herätellyt
pihalla haukkuva rakki ja estänyt häntä nukkumasta. Ja kuitenkin oli
koira-rukka, kuten selvisi, haukahtanut pari kolme kertaa koko yönä.
Ja se on luonnollista; ihminen nukkuu ja kuulee yhtäkkiä vaikerrusta,
hän herää harmistuneena siitä, että hänet herätettiin, mutta vaipuu
silmänräpäyksessä uudestaan uneen. Parin tunnin kuluttua kuuluu
taas vaikertelua, hän herää ja nukahtaa taas, lopuksi kuuluu vielä
kerran vaikerrus, taaskin vain parin tunnin kuluttua, kaiken kaikkiaan
kolme kertaa koko yössä. Aamulla nukkuja nousee ja valittaa, että
joku on vaikerrellut kaiken yötä ja tavan takaa herättänyt hänet.
Mutta siltä hänestä välttämättömästi täytyykin tuntua; unen väliajat,
kaksi tuntia joka kerralla, hän on ollut nukuksissa eikä niitä muista,
vaan muistaa ainoastaan heräämisen hetket, ja siksi hänestä tuntuu,
että häntä on herätelty kaiken yötä. »Mutta miksi, miksi», huudahtaa
syyttäjä, »Smerdjakov ei ole tunnustanut lapussa, jonka hän kirjoitti
kuolemansa edellä? Toiseen asiaan», muka, »Riitti omaatuntoa,
mutta ei toiseen.» Mutta sallikaahan sanoa: omatunto — se on jo
katumusta, mutta itsemurhaajan ei välttämättömästi tarvinnut tuntea
katumusta, hän tunsi vain epätoivoa. Epätoivo ja katumus — ne ovat
kaksi aivan eri asiaa. Epätoivo voi olla ilkeämielinen ja sovintoon
taipumaton, ja kohottaessaan kätensä itseään vastaan itsemurhaaja
saattoi tuona hetkenä kaksin verroin vihata niitä, joita oli kadehtinut
koko elämänsä ajan. Herrat valamiehet, varokaa tekemästä
tuomiovirhettä! Missä, missä suhteessa on epätodennäköistä kaikki
se, mitä minä nyt juuri olen teille esittänyt ja kuvannut? Sanokaa,
missä kohdassa minun esityksessäni on virhe, sanokaa missä
kohdassa se on mahdoton, järjetön! Mutta jos minun otaksumisissani
on mahdollisuuden varjokin, todennäköisyyden varjokin, — niin
pidättykää lausumasta langettavaa tuomiota. Mutta onko tässä
ainoastaan varjo? Vannon kaiken pyhän kautta, että minä täydelleen
uskon oman, nyt juuri teille esittämäni selityksen murhan
tapahtumisesta. Mutta pääasia, pääasia on, että minua kiusaa ja
minut saa suunniltani yhä vain se ajatus, että koko suuressa
tosiasiain joukossa, joita syyttäjä on kasannut syytettyä vastaan, ei
ole ainoatakaan edes osapuilleen täsmällistä ja kumoamatonta ja
että onnettoman syöksevät turmioon ainoastaan nämä tosiasiat
yhdessä. Niin, yhdessä otettuina nuo tosiasiat ovat kauheat: tuo veri,
tuo sormista valuva veri, veriset liinavaatteet, tuo pimeä yö, jossa
kuuluu parkaisu »isänmurhaaja!», ja huutajan kaatuminen maahan
pää puhki lyötynä, ja sitten tuo suuri joukko lausumia, todistuksia,
eleitä, huutoja, — oi, se vaikuttaa niin voimakkaasti, voi niin lahjoa
vakaumuksen, mutta teidänkö vakaumuksenne, herrat valamiehet,
se voi lahjoa? Muistakaa, teille on annettu rajaton valta, valta sitoa ja
päästää. Mutta mitä suurempi valta on, sitä kauheampaa on sen
käyttö! Minä en hitustakaan peräydy siitä, mitä nyt olen sanonut,
mutta olkoon menneeksi, olkoon, että minäkin hetkiseksi asetun
samalle kannalle kuin syyttäjä, että onneton klienttini on tahrannut
kätensä isänsä verellä. Tämä on vain otaksuma, toistan sen, minä
en hetkeäkään usko hänen syyllisyyttänsä, mutta olkoon menneeksi,
minä otaksun syytettymme olevan syypään isänmurhaan, mutta
kuulkaa kuitenkin sanaani, vaikkapa minä otaksuisinkin tämmöistä.
Sydämeni vaatii minua sanomaan teille vielä erään asian, sillä minä
aavistan, että teidänkin sydämissänne ja mielissänne käy voimakas
taistelu… Antakaa minulle anteeksi, herrat valamiehet, se mitä
sanon sydämestänne ja mielestänne. Mutta minä tahdon pysyä
totuudessa ja olla vilpitön loppuun asti. Olkaamme kaikki
vilpittömiä!…
Tässä kohdassa puolustajan puheen keskeytti jokseenkin

voimakas kättentaputus. Hän oli tosiaankin lausunut viimeiset
sanansa äänensävyllä, jossa kaikui sellainen vilpittömyys, että kaikki
tunsivat hänellä kenties todella olevan jotakin sanottavaa ja että se,
mitä hän nyt sanoo, onkin kaikkein tärkeintä. Mutta kuultuaan
kättentaputuksen puheenjohtaja uhkasi kuuluvalla äänellä
»puhdistaa» oikeussalin, jos »tuommoinen tapaus» vielä uudistuu.
Syntyi hiljaisuus ja Fetjakovitš alkoi puhua uudenlaisella, vakuutusta
ilmaisevalla äänellä, aivan toisenlaisella kuin oli puhunut tähän asti.
13.
Avionrikkoja ajatuksissa
— Eivät ainoastaan kaikki tosiasiat yhdessä syökse

onnettomuuteen klienttiäni, — lausui hän, — ei, minun klienttini
syöksee onnettomuuteen oikeastaan vain yksi tosiasia: se on
isävanhuksen ruumis! Jos olisi kysymyksessä tavallinen murha, niin
te nähdessänne kuinka mitättömiä, todistamattomia ja
mielikuvituksellisia nuo tosiasiat ovat, jos jokaista niitä tarkastetaan
erikseen eikä kaikkia yhdessä, — kumoaisitte syytteen, ainakin teitä
epäilyttäisi tuhota ihminen vain ennakkoluulosta häntä kohtaan,
jonka ennakkoluulon hän valitettavasti kylläkin on ansainnut! Mutta
tässä ei ole tavallinen murha, vaan isänmurha! Se tekee voimakkaan
vaikutuksen, vieläpä siinä määrin, että syytettä tukevien tosiasiain
mitättömyys ja todistamattomuus ei tunnu enää niin vähän sanovalta
ja mitään todistamattomalta, vieläpä kaikkein
ennakkoluulottomimpienkin mielestä. Kuinka voi vapauttaa
semmoisen syytetyn? Entäpä jos hän on tappanut ja pääsee
rangaistuksetta, — tämmöistä tuntee sydämessään jokainen
melkeinpä tahtomattaan, vaistomaisesti. Niin, kamala asia on isänsä
veren vuodattaminen, — hänen, joka on minut siittänyt, hänen, joka
on minua rakastanut, hänen, joka ei ole säästänyt elämäänsä minun
takiani, vaan on lapsuusvuosistani lähtien tuntenut minun tuskani,
kärsinyt koko elämänsä minun onneni puolesta ja elänyt vain minun
iloistani, minun edistyksestäni! Oi, sellaisen isän surmaaminen —
sitähän ei kykene edes ajattelemaan! Herrat valamiehet, mitä on isä,
todellinen isä, mikä suuri sana tuo onkaan, miten kauhean suuri aate
sisältyykään tuohon nimitykseen! Me osoitimme äsken juuri osittain,
mitä todellinen isä on ja mitä hänen pitää olla. Mutta tässä asiassa,
joka nyt niin kiinnittää meidän kaikkien mieltä, jonka tuottaman
tuskan tunnemme sielussamme, — tässä asiassa isä, Fjodor
Pavlovitš Karamazov vainaja ei ollenkaan sopinut isä-käsitteeseen,
siihen, jonka sydämemme äsken muodosti. Se on onnettomuus.
Niin, todellakin joku isä toisiaan voi olla kuin onnettomuus.
Tarkastelkaamme tätä onnettomuutta lähemmin, — eihän pidä pelätä
mitään, herrat valamiehet, sillä tärkeä päätös on tehtävä. Varsinkaan
meidän ei pidä pelätä nyt eikä niin sanoakseni koettaa huitomalla
karkoittaa jotakin ajatusta, niinkuin lapset tai pelokkaat naiset,
käyttääkseni suurikykyisen syyttäjän sattuvaa sanontaa. Mutta
tulisessa puheessaan kunnioitettava vastustajani (ja hän oli
vastustajani jo ennenkuin olin lausunut sanaakaan), vastustajani
huudahti muutamia kertoja: »Ei, minä en jätä syytetyn puolustamista
kenenkään tehtäväksi, minä en luovuta hänen puolustamistaan
Pietarista tulleelle puolustusasianajajalle, — minä olen syyttäjä, minä
olen myös puolustaja!» Näin hän huudahti muutamia kertoja ja
unohti kuitenkin mainita, että jos tuo hirveä syytetty oli kokonaista
kaksikymmentäkolme vuotta niin kiitollinen ainoastaan yhdestä
naulasta pähkinöitä, jotka hän sai ainoalta hänelle hänen lapsena
ollessaan ja hänen lapsuudenkodissaan hellyyttä osoittaneelta
ihmiseltä, niin eihän sellainen ihminen päinvastoin myöskään voinut
olla muistamatta kaikkien noiden kahdenkymmenenkolmen vuoden
aikana, mitenkä hän oli juoksennellut avojaloin isänsä »takapihalla,
ilman saappaita, vain yksi nappi housuissa», kuten ihmisystävällinen
tohtori Herzenstube lausui. Oi, herrat valamiehet, miksi
tarkastelisimme lähemmin tätä »onnettomuutta», toistaisimme sen,
minkä kaikki jo tietävät! Mitä klienttini kohtasi tultuaan tänne isänsä
luo? Ja miksi, miksi pitää kuvata klienttini tunteettomaksi,
itsekkääksi, hirviöksi? Hän on hillitön, hän on raju ja hurjapäinen,
siitä me häntä nyt tuomitsemme, mutta kuka on syypää hänen
kohtaloonsa, kuka on syypää siihen, että hän, jolla oli hyviä
taipumuksia ja kiitollinen, tunteellinen sydän, sai niin nurinkurisen
kasvatuksen? Opettiko hänelle kukaan viisautta ja järkeä, onko
häntä valistettu tiedoilla, rakastiko häntä kukaan edes jonkin verran
hänen lapsuudessaan? Minun klienttini kasvoi Jumalan huomassa,
toisin sanoen, niinkuin villipeto. Kenties hän halusi nähdä isänsä
monia vuosia kestäneen eron jälkeen, kenties hän tuhansia kertoja
sitä ennen, muistellessaan lapsuuttaan kuin unta, karkoitti inhoittavat
aaveet, joita hänen lapsuutensa unessa oli ollut, ja halusi koko
sydämestään puolustaa isäänsä ja syleillä häntä! Mutta kuinka kävi?
Hän saa tänne tultuaan osakseen vain kyynillistä ivaa, epäluuloa ja
koukkuilua riidanalaisten rahojen johdosta; hän kuulee vain sellaisia
keskusteluja ja elämänohjeita, jotka kirvelevät sydäntä, joka päivä,
»konjakkikullan ääressä», ja viimein hän näkee isänsä koettavan
viedä häneltä, omalta pojalta, hänen omilla rahoillaan, lemmityn, —
oi, herrat valamiehet, se on inhoittavaa ja julmaa! Ja sama ukko
valittaa kaikille poikansa kunnioituksenpuutetta ja kovasydämisyyttä,
mustaa häntä ihmisten seuroissa, vahingoittaa häntä, panettelee
häntä, ostelee Hänen velkakirjojaan toimittaakseen hänet vankilaan!
Herrat valamiehet, nämä sielut, nämä päältäpäin katsoen hurjat ja
hillittömät ihmiset, niinkuin minun klienttini, ovat useimmiten
tavattoman herkkäsydämisiä, he eivät vain näytä sitä. Älkää
naurako, älkää naurako ajatukselleni! Lahjakas syyttäjä pilkkasi
äsken klienttiäni säälimättömästi sanoessaan hänen rakastavan
Schilleriä, rakastavan »ihanaa ja korkeata». Minä en olisi pilkannut
tätä hänen sijassaan, syyttäjän paikalla! Niin, nämä sydämet, — oi,
antakaa minun puolustaa näitä sydämiä, joita niin harvoin ja niin
väärin ymmärretään, — nämä sydämet sangen usein kaipaavat
jotakin hellää, kaunista ja oikeata aivan kuin vastakohdaksi itselleen,
hurjuudelleen, julmuudelleen, — kaipaavat tiedottomasti, mutta
kaipaavat. He näyttävät päältäpäin intohimoisilta ja julmilta, mutta he
kykenevät kärsimykseen asti rakastamaan esimerkiksi naista, ja
nimenomaan henkisellä ja korkeammalla rakkaudella. Älkää
taaskaan naurako minulle: näin on kaikkein useimmin laita näiden
luonteiden! He vain eivät voi salata intohimoaan, joka joskus on
sangen karkea, — tämäpä juuri hämmästyttää, tämä huomataan,
mutta ihmisen sisälle ei nähdä. Päinvastoin kaikki heidän
intohimonsa tulevat nopeasti tyydytetyiksi, mutta jalon, ihanan
olennon vieressä tämä näennäisesti karkea ja julma mies etsii
uudistusta, etsii mahdollisuutta parantua, tulla paremmaksi, tulla
yleväksi ja kunnialliseksi, — »korkeaksi ja ihanaksi», niin paljon kuin
tälle sanalle nauretaankin! Äsken sanoin, etten katso voivani kajota
klienttini ja neiti Verhovtsevin romaaniin. Mutta puoli sanaa voi
sentään sanoa: emme kuulleet todistusta, vaan ainoaltaan
raivostuneen ja kostavan naisen huutoa, eikä hänen, oi, ei hänen
pitäisi soimata uskottomuudesta, sillä hän itse on ollut uskoton! Jos
hänellä olisi ollut edes jonkin verran aikaa miettiä, niin hän ei olisi
antanut sellaista todistusta! Oi, älkää uskoko häntä, ei, klienttini ei
ole »peto», niinkuin hän häntä nimitti! Ristiinnaulittu ihmisten
rakastaja valmiina ristilleen lausui: »Minä olen hyvä paimen, hyvä
paimen panee henkensä lammasten edestä, ettei yksikään niistä
joudu hukkaan»… Älkäämme mekään antako ihmisen sielun joutua
tuhon omaksi! Minä kysyin äsken: mitä on isä, ja minä huudahdin,
että se on suuri sana, kallis nimi. Mutta sanaa, herrat valamiehet, on
käytettävä rehellisesti, enkä minä salli mainittavan esinettä sanalla ja
nimityksellä, jonka se itse itselleen omaksuu. Sellainen isä kuin
murhattu ukko Karamazov ei voi kantaa isän nimeä eikä ole sitä
ansainnut. Rakkaus isään, jota isä itse ei ole tehnyt oikeutetuksi, on
järjettömyys, on mahdottomuus. Ei voi luoda rakkautta tyhjästä,
tyhjästä luo ainoastaan Jumala. »Isät, älkää pahentako lastenne
mieltä», kirjoittaa apostoli rakkautta liekehtivin sydämin. En mainitse
tässä näitä pyhiä sanoja klienttini takia, vaan tahdon muistuttaa ne
kaikkien isien mieliin. Kuka on antanut minulle tämän vallan opettaa
isiä? Ei kukaan. Mutta ihmisenä ja kansalaisena minä huudan —
vivos voco! Me viivymme maan päällä vähän aikaa, me teemme
paljon huonoja tekoja ja puhumme huonoja sanoja. Mutta siksipä
käyttäkäämme sopivaa hetkeä yhdessä ollessamme sanoaksemme
toinen toisellemme hyvänkin sanan. Niin teen minäkin: niin kauan
kuin olen tällä paikalla, minä käytän hetkeäni. Ei suotta ole korkein
tahto lahjoittanut meille tätä puhujalavaa — tästä kuulee meidät koko
Venäjä. En puhu ainoastaan täkäläisille isille, vaan huudan kaikille
isille: »Isät, älkää pahentako lastenne mieltä!» Niin, täyttäkäämme
ensin itse Kristuksen käsky ja ottakaamme vasta sitten itsellemme
oikeus vaatia sitä lapsiltammekin. Muussa tapauksessa me emme
ole lastemme isiä, vaan heidän vihollisiaan, eivätkä he ole
lapsiamme, vaan vihollisiamme, ja me itse olemme tehneet heidät
vihollisiksemme! »Millä mitalla te mittaatte, sillä teillekin mitataan» —
nämä eivät ole minun sanojani, näin käskee evankeliumi:
mittaamaan sillä mitalla, jolla teillekin mitataan. Kuinka voimme
syyttää lapsiamme, jos he mittaavat meille meidän mitallamme?
Äskettäin Suomessa eräs neito, palvelijatar, joutui epäluulon
alaiseksi siitä, että hän oli salaa synnyttänyt lapsen. Alettiin pitää
häntä silmällä, ja talon ullakolla, tiilikivikasan takana, olikin hänen
arkkunsa, josta kukaan ei ollut mitään tietänyt, se avattiin ja siitä
löydettiin äskensyntyneen ja hänen surmaamansa lapsen ruumis.
Samasta arkusta löydettiin kahden hänen jo sitä ennen
synnyttämänsä ja niinikään heti synnytyksen tapahduttua
surmaamansa pienokaisen luurangot, minkä hän myönsikin
viakseen. Herrat valamiehet, onko tämä lastensa äiti? Niin, hän
synnytti heidät, mutta onko hän heidän äitinsä? Rohkeneeko kukaan
meistä käyttää hänestä äidin pyhää nimitystä? Olkaamme rohkeita,
herrat valamiehet, olkaamme suorastaan uhkarohkeita, meidän
velvollisuutemmekin on olla sellaisia tällä hetkellä, eikä meidän sovi
pelätä erinäisiä sanoja ja aatteita niinkuin moskovalaiset kauppiaitten
rouvat, jotka pelkäävät »metallia» ja »tulikiveä». Ei, osoittakaamme
päinvastoin, että viime vuosien edistys on hipaissut meidänkin
kehitystämme, ja sanokaamme suoraan: se, joka on siittänyt, ei vielä
ole isä, isä on se, joka on siittänyt ja ansainnut isän nimen. Oi,
tietysti on olemassa toinenkin merkitys, toinen tapa tulkita isä-sanaa,
joka vaatii, että isäni, vaikka hän olisikin peto ja pahantekijä
lapsiansa kohtaan, kuitenkin jäisi isäkseni ainoastaan sentähden,
että hän on minut siittänyt. Mutta tämä merkitys on jo niin
sanoakseni mystillinen, jota minä en käsitä järjelläni, vaan joka
minun on omaksuttava vain uskon kautta tai oikeammin sanoen
uskomalla, niinkuin monta muuta asiaa, joita minä en ymmärrä,
mutta joita uskonto kuitenkin käskee minun uskoa. Mutta siinä
tapauksessa se jääköönkin todellisen elämän piirin ulkopuolelle.
Mutta todellisen elämän piirissä, jolla ei vain ole oikeutensa, vaan
joka itsekin panee suuria velvollisuuksia, tässä piirissä meidänkin,
jos tahdomme olla humaanisia ja kristityitä, täytyy ja on velvollisuus
soveltaa ainoastaan järjen ja kokemuksen hyväksymiä vakaumuksia,
jotka ovat kulkeneet analyysin ahjon läpi, sanalla sanoen, toimia
järkevästi eikä järjettömästi niinkuin unessa ja houreessa, ettemme
vahingoittaisi ihmistä, ettemme kiduttaisi ja tuhoaisi ihmistä. Tämä,
tämä onkin oikeata kristillistä toimintaa, ei vain mystillistä, vaan
järkevää ja todellista ihmisrakkauden toimintaa. —
Tässä paikassa kuului voimakkaita kättentaputuksia eri puolilta

salia, mutta Fetjukovitš alkoi huitoa käsillään ikäänkuin pyytäen, ettei
häntä keskeytettäisi ja että annettaisiin hänen puhua loppuun. Syntyi
heti hiljaisuus. Puhuja jatkoi:
— Luuletteko te, herrat valamiehet, että tämmöiset kysymykset

voivat olla koskettamatta lapsiamme, sanokaamme niitä, jotka jo
ovat nuorukaisiässä ja alkavat jo ajatella: ei, eivät voi, älkäämme me
vaatiko heiltä mahdotonta pidättymistä! Arvottoman isän näkeminen,
varsinkin kun häntä voi verrata toisten lasten, ikätoverien, isiin, jotka
ansaitsevat tämän nimen, herättää pakostakin nuorukaisessa
kärsimystä tuottavia kysymyksiä. Hänelle vastataan virallisesti näihin
kysymyksiin: »Hän on sinut siittänyt, sinä olet hänen vertaan, ja siksi
sinun on rakastettava häntä.» Nuorukainen vaipuu pakostakin
mietteisiin. »Onko hän sitten rakastanut minua, kun minut siitti»,
kysyy hän yhä enemmän ihmetellen, »minun tähtenikö hän minut
siitti: hän ei tuntenut minua eikä edes sukupuoltani sinä hetkenä,
sinä intohimon hetkenä, jolloin hän kenties oli viinin tulistama, eikä
hän ole antanut minulle perinnöksi mitään muuta kuin taipumuksen
juoppouteen, — siinä ovat kaikki hänen hyvät työnsä… Miksi minun
siis on rakastettava häntä, senkö takia vain, että hän siitti minut eikä
sitten koko elämänsä aikana ole rakastanut minua?» Oi, teistä
kenties tuntuvat nämä kysymykset karkeilta, julmilta, mutta älkää
vaatiko nuorelta älyltä mahdotonta pidättyväisyyttä: »aja luonto
ovesta ulos, niin se lentää ikkunasta sisälle», — mutta pääasia,
pääasia on, ettei meidän pidä pelätä »metallia» eikä »tulikiveä»,
vaan meidän on ratkaistava kysymys niinkuin käskee järki ja
ihmisrakkaus, eikä niinkuin käskevät mystilliset käsitykset. Kuinka se
on siis ratkaistava? Näin: astukoon poika isänsä eteen ja kysyköön
häneltä itseltään järkevästi: »Isä, sano minulle, miksi minun pitää
rakastaa sinua? Isä, todista minulle, että minun pitää rakastaa
sinua!» — ja jos tuo isä voi ja kykenee vastaamaan ja todistamaan
hänelle, — niin siinä on todellinen, normaalinen perhe, joka ei
rakennu vain mystilliselle pohjalle, vaan järkeville, tietoisille
perusteille, ankarasti humaanisille ja semmoisille, joista voi aina itse
tehdä tilin. Päinvastaisessa tapauksessa, jos isä ei kykene
todistamaan, ei siinä ole mitään perhettä: hän ei ole pojan isä, ja
poika saa oikeuden tästä lähin pitää isäänsä vieraana henkilönä ja
vihamiehenäänkin. Meidän puhujalavamme, herrat valamiehet,
olkoon totuuden ja terveitten käsitysten koulu! —
Tässä puhujan keskeyttivät hillittömät, miltei raivoisat

kättentaputukset. Tietenkään ei koko sali taputtanut käsiään, mutta
puolet salista kuitenkin. Käsiään taputtivat isät ja äidit. Ylhäältä,
missä naiset istuivat, kuului vinkunaa ja huutoja. Liinoja huiskutettiin.
Puheenjohtaja alkoi kaikin voimin soittaa kelloa. Ilmeisesti häntä
suututti salin käytös, mutta hän ei ensinkään uskaltanut »puhdistaa»
salia, niinkuin vähän aikaisemmin oli uhannut: käsiään taputtivat ja
liinojaan heiluttivat puhujalle erityisillä tuoleilla istuvat ylhäiset
henkilöt, vanhat ukot, joilla oli tähtiä hännystakin rinnuksessa, niin
että kun melu hiljeni, puheenjohtaja tyytyi vain niinkuin ennenkin
ankarasti uhkaamaan salin »puhdistamisella», ja voitonriemuinen ja
kiihtynyt Fetjukovitš ryhtyi taas jatkamaan puhettaan.
— Herrat valamiehet, te muistatte tuon kauhean yön, josta vielä

tänäänkin on niin paljon puhuttu, kun poika aidan yli tunkeutui isänsä
taloon ja seisoi viimein kasvot kasvoja vastaan vihollisensa ja
loukkaajansa kanssa, joka oli hänet siittänyt. Pidän kaikin voimin
kiinni siitä, ettei hän tuolla hetkellä ollut juossut sinne rahoja
ottamaan: syytös ryöstöstä on järjettömyyttä, kuten jo aikaisemmin
olen osoittanut. Eikä hän tunkeutunut isänsä huoneeseen
tappaakseen hänet; jos hän olisi tullut tämmöisin ennakolta harkituin
aikein, niin hän edes olisi hankkinut aikaisemmin itselleen aseen,
sillä vaskisen survimen hän sieppasi vaistomaisesti, tietämättä
itsekään miksi. Olkoonpa, että hän petti isänsä merkeillä, olkoonpa
että tunkeutui hänen luokseen, — minä olen jo sanonut, etten
hetkeäkään usko tuota legendaa, mutta olkoon menneeksi,
otaksukaamme hetkisen aikaa sitä! Herrat valamiehet, vannon teille
kaiken nimessä, mikä on pyhää: jos tämä ei olisi ollut hänen isänsä,
vaan sivullinen henkilö, joka oli häntä loukannut, niin hän juostuaan
läpi huoneitten ja tultuaan vakuutetuksi, ettei tuo nainen ollut talossa,
olisi juossut suin päin tiehensä tekemättä kilpailijalleen mitään
pahaa, olisi kenties kolhaissut häntä, töytäissyt häntä, mutta ei
muuta, sillä hänellä oli nyt muuta mielessä, hänellä ei ollut aikaa,
hänen täytyi saada tietää lemmityn olinpaikka. Mutta isä, isä, — oi,
kaiken teki vain se, että hän näki isänsä, vihamiehensä lapsuudesta
saakka, vihollisensa ja loukkaajansa, joka nyt oli — luonnoton
kilpakosija! Vihan tunne valtasi hänet hänen tahtomattaan,
vastustamattomasti, mahdotonta oli käyttää järkeään: kaikki tapahtui
hetkessä! Se oli mielettömyyden ja mielenvikaisuuden affekti, mutta
luonnon affekti, luonnon, joka kostaa ikuisten lakiensa loukkaamisen
vastustamattomasti ja tiedottomasti, niinkuin kaikki luonnossa
tapahtuu. Mutta murhaaja ei silloinkaan tehnyt murhaa, — minä
vakuutan sen, minä huudan sen kuuluville, — ei, hän vain heilautti
survinta hirveän inhon valtaamana, tahtomatta tappaa, tietämättä
tappavansa. Jollei hänen kädessään olisi ollut tuo onneton survin,
niin hän kenties vain olisi piessyt isänsä, mutta ei olisi häntä
tappanut. Paetessaan hän ei tietänyt, oliko ukko kuollut hänen
iskustaan. Sellainen murha ei ole murha. Sellainen murha ei ole
myöskään isänmurha. Ei, sellaisen isän tappamista ei Voi nimittää
isänmurhaksi. Semmoista murhaa voidaan vain ennakkoluulojen
johdosta pitää isänmurhana! Mutta oliko tämä, oliko tämä todellakin
murha, huudan teille uudestaan ja yhä uudestaan sieluni syvyydestä!
Herrat valamiehet, me tuomitsemme nyt hänet, mutta hän sanoo
itselleen: »Nämä ihmiset eivät ole tehneet mitään kohtaloni hyväksi,
kasvatukseni ja kehitykseni hyväksi, tehdäkseen minut paremmaksi,
tehdäkseen minusta ihmisen. Nämä ihmiset eivät ole syöttäneet
eivätkä juottaneet minua eivätkä käyneet luonani, kun alastomana
olin vankilassa, ja nyt he ovat lähettäneet minut pakkotyöhön. Me
olemme kuitit, minä en ole heille nyt mitään velkaa enkä ole
kenellekään velkaa enää ikinä. He ovat pahoja, minä tulen myös
olemaan paha. He ovat julmia, minä tulen myös olemaan julma.»
Näin hän sanoo, herrat valamiehet! Ja minä vannon: syytteellänne te
vain kevennätte hänen olonsa, kevennätte hänen omantuntonsa,
hän kiroaa vuodattamaansa verta, mutta ei kadu sitä. Samalla te
teette lopun ihmisestä, joka hänessä vielä voisi kehittyä, sillä hän jää
ilkeäksi ja sokeaksi koko elämänsä ajaksi. Mutta tahdotteko
rangaista häntä kauheasti, ankarasti, kaikkein hirveimmällä
rangaistuksella, mitä vain voi ajatella, mutta samalla pelastaa ja
uudesti synnyttää hänen sielunsa ainaisiksi ajoiksi? Jos sitä
tahdotte, niin laskekaa raskaana painona hänen päälleen
armahtavaisuutenne! Te saatte nähdä, te kuulette, miten hänen
sielunsa vavahtaa ja kauhistuu: »Minäkö voisin kestää kaiken tämän
laupeuden, näin paljon rakkautta, minäkö olisin sen ansainnut!» näin
hän huudahtaa. Oi, minä tunnen, minä tunnen tämän sydämen,
tämän hurjan, mutta jalon sydämen, herrat valamiehet. Se kumartuu
maahan teidän rohkean tekonne edessä, se janoaa suurta
rakkauden tekoa, se rupeaa liekehtimään ja herää kuolleista ikuisiksi
ajoiksi. On sieluja, jotka rajoittuneisuudessaan syyttävät koko
maailmaa. Mutta masentakaa tuo sielu laupeudella, osoittakaa sille
rakkautta, niin se kiroaa omat tekonsa, sillä siinä on niin paljon ituja
hyvään. Sielu avartuu ja näkee, miten laupias Jumala on ja miten
ihania ja oikeamielisiä ovat ihmiset. Häntä kauhistuttaa, häntä
masentaa katumus ja ääretön velka, jonka hän tästä lähin tuntee
omakseen. Eikä hän silloin sano: »Me olemme kuitit», vaan sanoo:
»Minä olen syyllinen kaikkien ihmisten edessä ja arvottomin kaikista
ihmisistä.» Katumuksen ja polttavan, kärsimystä tuottavan
liikutuksen vallassa hän huudahtaa: »Ihmiset ovat parempia kuin
minä, sillä he eivät tahtoneet syöstä minua turmioon, vaan pelastaa
minut!» Oi, teidän on niin helppo tehdä se, tuo laupeuden työ, sillä
kun ei ole olemassa minkäänlaisia edes uskottavan näköisiäkään
todistuksia, niin on kovin raskasta lausua: »Niin, hän on syyllinen.»
Parempi on vapauttaa kymmenen syyllistä kuin rangaista yhtä
syytöntä, — kuuletteko, kuuletteko te tämän ylevän äänen
maineikkaan historiamme viime vuosisadalta? Minunko,
vähäpätöisen, sopii muistuttaa mieliinne, ettei venäläinen oikeus ole
ainoastaan rangaistusta, vaan myös hunningolle joutuneen ihmisen
pelastusta! Olkoon toisilla kansoilla lain kirjain ja rangaistus, mutta
meillä henki ja järkevä tarkoitus, turmioon joutuneitten pelastus ja
uudestisyntyminen. Ja jos niin on, jos todellakin Venäjä ja sen oikeus
on tämmöinen, niin — eteenpäin, Venäjä, älkääkä peloitelko, älkää
peloitelko meitä hurjistuneilla kolmivaljakoillanne, jota kaikki kansat
inhoten väistävät! Ei hullaantunut kolmivaljakko, vaan mahtavat
venäläiset vaunut saapuvat juhlallisesti ja tyynesti perille
määräpaikkaansa. Teidän käsissänne on klienttini kohtalo, teidän
käsissänne on myös meidän venäläisen totuutemme kohtalo. Te
pelastatte sen, te puollatte sitä, te todistatte, että sillä on vaalijansa,
että se on hyvissä käsissä!
14.
Talonpojat olivat miehiä puolestaan
Näin lopetti Fetjukovitš, ja tällä kertaa puhjennut kuulijain innostus

oli vastustamaton kuin myrsky. Ei voinut ajatellakaan sen
hillitsemistä: naiset itkivät, itkivätpä monet miehistäkin, kahden
ylhäisen virkamiehenkin silmistä tippuivat kyynelet. Puheenjohtaja
antautui eikä edes ollut kiireissään soittamaan kelloa. »Semmoisen
innostuksen häiritseminen olisi ollut pyhyyden loukkaamista»,
huusivat myöhemmin naiset kaupungissamme. Puhuja itsekin oli
vilpittömästi liikutettu. Ja tämmöisellä hetkellä nousi meidän Ippolit
Kirillovitš vielä kerran »esittämään vastaväitteitä.» Häntä katseltiin
vihamielisesti: »Kuinka? Mitä tämä on? Uskaltaako hän vielä väittää
vastaan?» mutisivat naiset. Mutta vaikka mutisemaan olisivat
ruvenneet koko maailman naiset ja niiden etunenässä itse
prokuraattorin rouva, Ippolit Kirillovitšin puoliso, niin ei silloinkaan
olisi voinut pidättää Ippolit Kirillovitšia tällä hetkellä. Hän oli kalpea,
hän vapisi mielenliikutuksesta; hänen lausumiaan ensimmäisiä
sanoja, ensimmäisiä lauseita oli mahdoton ymmärtää: hän läähätti,
äänsi epäselvästi, sekaantui. Kohta asia kuitenkin korjautui. Mutta
tästä hänen toisesta puheestaan esitän tässä vain muutamia
lauseita.
— … Meitä soimataan siitä, että olemme sepitelleet romaaneja.

Mutta mitä on puolustaja tehnyt, jollei sepittänyt romaania romaanin
päälle? Puuttui vain runoja. Odotellessaan lemmittyään Fjodor
Pavlovitš repäisee rikki kirjekuoren ja heittää sen lattialle.
Esitetäänpä sekin, mitä hän puhui tässä merkillisessä tapauksessa.
Eikö se ole runoelma? Ja millä todistetaan, että hän otti esille rahat,
kuka kuuli, mitä hän puhui? Matalajärkinen idiootti Smerdjakov, josta
on tehty jonkinlainen Byronin sankari, joka kostaa yhteiskunnalle
aviottoman syntymänsä, — eikö se ole runoelma byronilaiseen
tyyliin? Ja poika, joka tunkeutuu isän asuntoon, tappaa hänet eikä
kuitenkaan tapa, sehän ei enää ole edes romaani eikä runoelma, se
on sfinksi, joka panee eteemme arvoituksia, joita se tietysti ei
itsekään osaa ratkaista. Jos tappoi, niin tappoi, mutta mitä se on,
että tappoi eikä tappanutkaan, — kuka sen ymmärtää? Sitten meille
ilmoitetaan, että meidän puhujalavamme on totuuden ja terveitten
käsitysten puhujalava, ja tältä samalta »terveitten käsitysten»
puhujalavalta kajahtaa vannomisella vahvistettuna selviö, että
isänmurhan nimittäminen isänmurhaksi on vain pelkkä ennakkoluulo,
ja jos jokainen lapsi rupeaa kuulustelemaan isältään: »Isä, minkä
tähden minun pitää sinua rakastaa?» — niin miten meidän käykään,
miten käy yhteiskunnan perustusten, minne joutuu perhe?
Isänmurha on, nähkääs, ainoastaan moskovalaisen
kauppiaanrouvan »tulikivi». Kaikkein arvokkaimmat, kaikkein
pyhimmät Venäjän oikeuslaitoksen tehtävää ja tulevaisuutta
koskevat ohjeet esitetään vääristellen ja kevytmielisesti, jotta vain
saavutettaisiin tarkoitus, saataisiin syyttömäksi julistetuksi se, jota ei
voi syyttömäksi julistaa. Oi, masentakaa hänet armahtavaisuudella,
huudahtaa puolustaja, — mutta muutahan rikoksentekijä ei
tarvitsekaan, ja jo huomispäivänä kaikki saavat nähdä, miten
masentunut hän on! Ja eikö puolustaja ole liian vaatimaton, kun
tahtoo vain syytetyn syyttömäksi julistamista? Miksi ei voisi vaatia,
että perustettaisiin isänmurhaajan nimeä kantava stipendi hänen
urotyönsä ikuistuttamiseksi jälkipolvien ja nuoren polven
keskuudessa? Evankeliumia ja uskontoa parannellaan: se kaikki,
muka, on mystiikkaa, vain meillä on todellinen kristillisyys, joka jo on
tarkistettu järjen ja terveitten käsitysten analyysilla. Ja näin pannaan
eteemme Kristuksen valhekuva! »Millä mitalla te mittaatte, sillä
teillekin mitataan», huudahtaa puolustaja ja tekee samassa
silmänräpäyksessä sen johtopäätöksen, että Kristus on käskenyt
mittaamaan samalla mitalla, jolla teille mitataan, — ja tämmöistä
sanotaan totuuden ja terveitten käsitysten puhujalavalta! Me
vilkaisemme evakeliumiin vain puheitamme valmistaessamme,
loistaaksemme sillä, että tunnemme tuota sentään sangen
omalaatuista teosta, josta voi olla hyötyä ja jonka avulla voi tehdä
jonkinmoisen effektin, sikäli kuin semmoista tarvitsemme, aina sikäli
kuin tarvitsemme! Mutta Kristushan nimenomaan käskee tekemään
toisin, välttämään tekemästä näin, koska ilkeä maailma tekee sillä
tavoin, mutta meidän pitää antaa anteeksi ja kääntää lyöjälle
toinenkin poskemme eikä mitata sillä mitalla, jolla loukkaajamme
meille mittaavat. Tämmöistä on meille Jumalamme opettanut eikä
sitä, että on ennakkoluulo kieltää lapsia tappamasta isänsä.
Älkäämmekä ryhtykö totuuden ja terveitten käsitysten kateederista
korjailemaan Jumalamme evankeliumia, hänen, jota puolustaja
katsoo voivansa nimittää ainoastaan »ristiinnaulituksi ihmisten
rakastajaksi», päinvastoin kuin koko siveellinen Venäjä, joka lausuu
Hänelle: »Sinä olet Jumalamme!» —
Tässä puheenjohtaja sekaantui asiaan ja hillitsi liiaksi innostunutta

puhujaa pyytäen häntä olemaan liioittelematta, pysyttelemään
sopivissa rajoissa j.n.e., niinkuin puheenjohtajien tapa on puhua
tämmöisissä tilaisuuksissa. Salikin oli levoton. Yleisö liikahteli, jopa
päästeli paheksuvia huutojakin. Fetjukovitš ei edes vastannut, hän
astui esille vain käsi sydämellä sanoakseen loukkaantuneella
äänellä muutaman sanan, jotka olivat täynnä arvokkuutta. Hän kajosi
vain hiukan ja ivallisesti »romaaneihin» ja »psykologiaan» pistäen
sopivasti eräässä kohdassa väliin: »Jupiter, sinä olet vihainen, olet
siis väärässä» — mikä herätti paljon hyväksyviä naurahduksia
yleisössä, sillä Ippolit Kirillovitš ei ollenkaan ollut Jupiterin näköinen.
Sitten sen syytöksen johdosta, että hän muka antaa nuorelle polvelle
luvan surmata isänsä, Fetjukovitš huomautti erittäin arvokkaasti, ettei
hän vastaa siihen. Mitä taas tulee »Kristuksen valhekuvaan» ja
siihen, ettei hän katsonut voivansa nimittää Kristusta Jumalaksi,
vaan nimitti häntä ainoastaan »ristiinnaulituksi ihmisten
rakastajaksi», joka muka on »vastoin oikeauskoisuutta eikä sovi
sanottavaksi totuuden ja terveitten käsitysten puhujalavalta», — niin
Fetjukovitš vihjasi »salaviittaukseen» ja siihen, että saa täkäläisellä
puhujalavalla olla turvassa syytöksiltä, »jotka ovat vaarallisia
persoonalleni kansalaisena ja uskollisena alamaisena»… Mutta
näiden sanojen kohdalla puheenjohtaja keskeytti hänetkin, ja
Fetjukovitš lopetti kumartaen vastauksensa hyväksyvän puhelun
kuuluessa kaikkialta salista. Ippolit Kirillovitš oli naistemme mielestä
»muserrettu ainaiseksi».
Tämän jälkeen sai puheenvuoron syytetty itse. Mitja nousi

seisomaan, mutta ei puhunut paljon. Hän oli hirveän uupunut sekä
ruumiillisesti että henkisesti. Se riippumattomuuden ja voiman leima,
joka hänessä oli ollut aamulla hänen saliin tullessaan, oli melkein
kokonaan kadonnut. Hän oli ikäänkuin kokenut tänään jotakin, joka
tuntui koko elämän ajan ja joka oli opettanut ja selvittänyt hänelle
jotakin tärkeätä, mitä hän ei aikaisemmin ollut ymmärtänyt. Hänen
äänensä oli tullut heikommaksi, hän ei enää huutanut niinkuin
aikaisemmin. Hänen sanoissaan oli jotakin uutta, nöyrtynyttä,
voitettua ja syventynyttä.
— Mitäpä sanottavaa minulla on, herrat valamiehet! Tuomioni on

tullut, minä tunnen Jumalan käden itseäni koskettavan. Lopussa on
irstaan miehen elämä! Mutta aivan samoin kuin ripittäydyn Jumalalle
minä sanon teille: isäni vereen en, en ole syypää! Viimeisen kerran
vielä toistan: en minä ole tappanut! Irstas olen ollut, mutta hyvää
olen rakastanut. Joka hetki olen pyrkinyt parantumaan, mutta olen
elänyt kuin villipeto. Kiitos prokuraattorille, paljon hän sanoi minusta
semmoista, mitä en ole tietänytkään, mutta ei ole totta, että olisin
murhannut isäni, prokuraattori erehtyi! Kiitos puolustajallekin, minä
itkin häntä kuunnellessani, mutta ei ole totta, että olisin tappanut
isäni, ei olisi ollut tarpeellista edes otaksua sitä! Mutta lääkäreitä
älkää uskoko, minä olen täydessä järjessäni, vain sydämeni on
raskas. Jos armahdatte, jos päästätte vapaaksi, niin rukoilen
puolestanne. Minä tulen paremmaksi, lupaan sen, Jumalan kasvojen
edessä lupaan sen. Mutta jos tuomitsette, — niin itse taitan miekkani
pääni päällä ja taitettuani suutelen palasia! Mutta armahtakaa, älkää
riistäkö minulta Jumalaani, minä tunnen itseni: rupean napisemaan!
Mieleni on raskas, hyvät herrat… säälikää!
Hän miltei kaatui istuimelleen, hänen äänensä tyrehtyi, viimeisen

lauseen hän sai töin tuskin sanotuksi. Tämän jälkeen oikeus ryhtyi
muodostelemaan kysymyksiä ja alkoi kysellä vastapuolilta näiden
loppulausuntoja. Mutta minä en kuvaa yksityiskohtia. Viimein
valamiehet nousivat poistuakseen neuvottelemaan. Puheenjohtaja
oli hyvin väsynyt, ja siksi hän lausuikin heille sangen heikon
loppuevästyksen: »Olkaa puolueettomia, älkääkä antako puolustajan
kaunopuheisten sanojen lumota itseänne, mutta punnitkaa kuitenkin
tarkoin, muistakaa, että teillä on suuri velvollisuus täytettävänä»,
j.n.e. Valamiehet poistuivat ja istunto keskeytyi. Saattoi nousta
paikaltaan, käyskennellä, vaihtaa mieleen kertyneitä vaikutelmia,
haukata jotakin ravintolan puolella. Oli hyvin myöhä, jo noin kello
yksi yöllä, mutta kukaan ei lähtenyt pois. Kaikki olivat niin
jännityksissään ja sellaisen mielialan vallassa, etteivät voineet
ajatella lepoa. Kaikki odottivat sydän kurkussa, vaikka, muuten,
kaikkien sydän ei ollut kurkussa. Naiset olivat vain hysteerisen
kärsimättömyyden vallassa, mutta heidän sydämensä olivat tyynet:

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Social Theory A New Introduction 12th

Edition Mark Murphy

Philosophy of Social Science A Contemporary

Philosophy of Social Science A Contemporary

Urban Theory New Critical Perspectives 1st Edition Mark

Living with Art, 12th Edition Mark Getlein

Social Psychology 12th Edition David G. Myers

Social Work Speaks 12th Edition Nasw Press

Introduction to General, Organic, and Biochemistry 12th

A Theory of Subjective Wellbeing 1st Edition Mark

ISBN 978-3-030-78323-5 ISBN 978-3-030-78324-2 (eBook)

Cover illustration: Carol Yepes / Getty Images.

Glasgow, UK Mark Murphy

Section I Understanding the State 7

Section II Understanding the Social 103

The Symbolic Power of Language������������������������������������������������������������ 145

Section III Understanding the Self and Selfhood 181

What Is Social Theory?

So far, the twenty-first century has witnessed a number of significant developments,

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 1

Organisation and Content of the Book

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 9

social-theoretical turn around the concept of freedom. This is followed by an over-

Freedom and the State

‘irrational’, ‘barbarous’ mass movements and expected ‘nothing good to come of

Key Theorist: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831)

Elites and the State

While Hegel baulked at the over-zealous righteousness of French revolutionaries

The international dimension to elites is just as significant in the twenty-first century,

The Capitalist State

This was an important mission for Althusser—he wanted to ‘rescue’ what he

Althusser’s rebranding of ideology as a form of social reproduction allows compari-

The Miliband–Poulantzas Debate

In a response to Poulantzas’s criticisms published the following year, Miliband

Social Theory Applied: Statification

The Welfare State as Crisis Management

From the Dependent to the Postcolonial State

the direction of an alternative geopolitical understanding which helped to realise the

Globalisation and the State

hypermobility of international capital constitutes an existential threat to the nation

Key Concept: Imagined Communities

argument about the power of shared media in the construction of national

Key Term: Neoliberalism

The Rise of the Neoliberal State

was the main influence on this debate, as manifested in the Miliband/Poultantzas

Contradictions of the Welfare State A return to Marxist questions of political

Impact of Neoliberalism Alongside globalisation, the state is under severe pres-

Is the Miliband-Poulantzas debate still relevant in the twenty-first century?

Suggested Further Readings

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021 33

• Weber on bureaucracy and its discontents

Key Term: Iron Cage

Bureaucracy and Its Discontents

heavily influenced by the work of Max Weber, whose analyses of organisational

When it came to bureaucratic governance, Weber was caught in a bind; he valued

Key Movement: Critical Theory (Frankfurt School)

Tässä kohdassa puolustajan puheen keskeytti jokseenkin

— Eivät ainoastaan kaikki tosiasiat yhdessä syökse

Tässä paikassa kuului voimakkaita kättentaputuksia eri puolilta

— Luuletteko te, herrat valamiehet, että tämmöiset kysymykset

Tässä puhujan keskeyttivät hillittömät, miltei raivoisat

— Herrat valamiehet, te muistatte tuon kauhean yön, josta vielä

Talonpojat olivat miehiä puolestaan

Glasgow, UK Mark Murphy

Section I Understanding the State 7

Section II Understanding the Social 103

The Symbolic Power of Language�� 145

Section III Understanding the Self and Selfhood 181

What Is Social Theory?

Organisation and Content of the Book

Freedom and the State

Elites and the State

The Capitalist State

The Miliband–Poulantzas Debate

The Welfare State as Crisis Management

From the Dependent to the Postcolonial State

Globalisation and the State

The Rise of the Neoliberal State

Bureaucracy and Its Discontents