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‘The State’: A Comment on Abrams, Denis and Sayer
Author(s) -
MARSDEN RICHARD
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
journal of historical sociology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.186
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-6443
pISSN - 0952-1909
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6443.1992.tb00031.x
Subject(s) - state (computer science) , sociology , discipline , epistemology , michel foucault , janus , ideal (ethics) , social science , philosophy , law , political science , politics , materials science , algorithm , computer science , nanotechnology
This paper answers the question,‘what is the state?’as posed in Abrams (1988) and Denis (1989), by examining Sayer's (1987) realist reconception of ‘relations of production’ and their ‘ideal superstructures’. It suggests that Sayer's alternative to ‘traditional’ marxism warrants a reappraisal of the relationship between Marx and Foucault. It concludes that ‘civil society’ and ‘the state’ are Janus‐faces of production relations, generated by Foucault's ‘disciplinary practices’.