Why do we ignore the State?

I’ve been trying in these last posts to make sense of the sudden turn of the US to …. what exactly? Fascism? (as per Snyder) Autocracy? (as per Applebaum). But we really need more attention paid to the STATE which accounts for so much of a country’s GNP but which has come under increasing attack from free-marker ideologues. I have been trying to draft a book on the subject – using some key texts to help me. This is what I’ve come up with – with an outline of the book chapters to follow.

Essential Reading

The State in Capitalist Society Ralph Miliband (1969) Still the clearest exposition – if Marxist

What does the Ruling Class Do when it Rules? Goren Therborn (1978) A good analysis from a Swede

The Great Arch – English State development as Cultural Revolution Philip Corrigan and 

Derek Sayer (1985) Very good on the slow development of the UK state

The Future of the Capitalist State Bob Jessop (2002) Jessop is not an easy read. I would suggest instead Pierson’s book

The Modern State Christopher Pierson (2^nd ed 2004) All you need to know about the State

On the State – lectures at the College de France 1989-92 Pierre Bourdieu (2014)
The Origins of Political Order F Fukuyama (2011) The definitive 2 volume book
Political Order and Political DecayF Fukuyama (2014) The definitive 2 volume book

The State – past, present and future Bob Jessop (2016) Rather turgid going

Reclaiming the State – a progressive vision of sovereignty for a new-liberal world William Mitchell and Thomas Fazi (2017) An interesting take by economists

On Tyranny – 20 lessons from the 20th century Timothy Snyder (2017) A short book from 

a US political scientist
How Fascism Works – the politics of us and them Jason Stanley (2018) from a US political 

philosopher
The Return of the State – restructuring britain for the common good ed Allen et al 

(PEF 2021) A social democratic interpretation
Mission Economy Mariana Mazacatto (2021) An Italian economist makes a strong case for 

the State
The Problem of the State Michael Mair (2021) A bit too philosophical for my tastes
The Return of the State and why it is essential for our health, wealth and happiness 

G Garrard (2022) A Canadian/British social democrat makes a strong argument
The Project State and its Rivals – a new history of the 20th and 21st Centuries 

Charles Maier (2023) An economic historian puts the discussions about the State in 

historical perspective

Autocracy – the dictators who want to run the world Anne Applebaum (2024) A Polish/American journalist dissects the beast

The Structure of the Book

is unusual for reasons I explain in this Warning

• People do not normally read a book about administrative reform with any expectation of pleasure.

• Such texts will normally figure as required reading in student courses, for example, in public administration reform.

• But this is not a textbook on administrative reform….

• It starts with my involvement, in the late 1960s, in community politics rising to a position of strategic influence in the West of Scotland local government - one held for some 20 years.

• On the basis of the innovative strategies I helped develop in a Regional authority covering half of Scotland, I then found myself working and living for the next 20 plus years in Central Europe and Central Asia - as a consultant in “institutional development”

• These are my musings about how and what I think I’ve learned (so far) about the process of change from my experience of attempting it in some dozen countries

• As I’ve dared to suggest that we need to ration books, I need to explain why I’m inflicting this one on you and why I’m fed up with books which have nothing but text. So I’ve tried to liven things up a bit by the use of tables and boxes and the odd diagram

Preface

in which I recall how a radio series first aroused my interest in organisations, reflect on the book’s origins and on why I think it may be of interest

1. The state of the State - in which I encounter the deficiencies of local bureaucracy (56 years ago), forcing some of us to start rethinking the role of the State - privatisation had, in the 1980s, left us wondering how far this development could redefine its role; and the unexpected fall of the Berlin Wall and of communist regimes then had us concocting pathways to capitalism and democracy.

2. Administrative Reform in the new millenium - which captures one man’s attempt in 1999 to convey to a foreign audience his understanding of the organisational changes which had taken place in the 30 years from 1970 to the new millennium

3. Impervious Power – the eastern approaches - which reflects on the experience of western con-sultan ts in central Europe and central Asia as they wrestled with the transition to what their tiny minds assumed to be democracy and free markets.

4. Question Time

A little British book about “the attack on the state” provoked me in 2018 into exploring some questions about the huge literature on public management reform (mainly academic) which has developed since the 1990s. include the following -

- How does each particular public service (eg health, education) work?

- Where can we find the measures of the efficiency and effectiveness of public services?

- How do countries compare internationally in the performance of their public services ?

- Has privatisation lived up to its hype?

- what alternatives are there to state and private provision

- why do governments still spend mega bucks on consultants?

5. The Management Virus - The private and public sectors alike seem to have been taken over in recent decades by hordes of managers. How has this happened? How do we stop it?

6. The echoes of Praxis - As someone who has straddled the worlds of politics, academia and consultancy, I am disappointed by the sparseness of the practitioner contribution to the literature. By default we are left with academics who interview those in government and sometimes train them and with consultants – although the former are the more voluble

7.Take Back Control? - which explores the implication of the quotation which adorns the book’s cover and asks how exactly might democracy improve the operation of our public services? Is this just a question of giving local government more power, as some would argue – ie giving a greater voice to the local public through their local representatives having a stronger legal and strategic role? Or does it require a more open and participative process – as many would argue? Or does it perhaps mean a greater say by the workforce in the everyday management of public services? Or a combination of all the above?

Hilary Wainwright is amongst the very few who have taken this question seriously – although the Dutch, with the Buurtzog model, are now exploring the question

8. Theories of Change - in which I question the compartmentalisation of the subject of change into studies of psychology, technology, organisation and society.

9. Inconclusion - Back to democracy

Notes; chapter by chapter