State and Social Forces. Migdal

8/2/2019 State and Social Forces. Migdal

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Introduction: developing a state-in-societyperspective

Comparat ive poli tical study of developing countr ies is a scholar ly subfield thatfornearly four decades has been in search of a theoretical core. Both moderniza-tion and dependency schools, as well as their debates, have come and gone.Over the li lSf1ei1to fifteen years, a more state-oriented approach has insteadattracted considerable attention. The present volume continues the dialogue withthese intellectual traditions by offering a state-in-society perspective. Proceedingbothat a general and at country-specific ievels, the contributors to this collectionhope to persuade others to move in several related but 9~~to go beyond "bringing the state back in" by resituating the study of states intheis..social setting and thus adopting a more balanced state-in-soc.iety perspec- Itive;'io disaggregate states as objects of study, both as an end in i!.elfe_ndas a ~means toward a better understanding of states and poli tic;rci la i' i:ge~ rethinkthe categories used to conceptualize the evolving and fluid nature of socialforces in developing countries;4md to be continually sensi tive to the mutually 1transforming quality of state-society relatio1l.;Following the usual pattern for intel lectual changes, our theoret ical perspec-

tives have developed as reactions to some prevailing scholarly tendencies.Although this volume does not attempt a critical evaluation of other schools ofthought, but rather to develop a state-in-society approach, it may help the readersee where we are headed if we briefly recall some of the scholar ly antecedents.The debate between modernization and dependency schools is well known topolitical development scholars, so well known that it does not need to bereviewed in this brief introduction (for further discussion, see Chapter 11). The (more Weberian state-society literature of the 1970s and the 1980s, in tum,developed as a reaction to both structural-funct ional and Marxist assumptionsthat undergirded these earlier approaches. More specifically, . .tate=Sficiely_~~g_an wit~_.~wo di~~..!!.ctive"::.fir~!'~~~~E.!!9E.s..."On methodologicalgrounds, they dropped the gQ.ill_ofCJeating.J!._g51JJ.~,raL.s:_Qci.aLoLp.oliJicaLtheof..-.aiIDiD_g_j.gg~&4_f2.LJ!!iQQI~J~..Y.~Lt!ltQIie~_j!.).fQ.rml


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2 Introductionstructural-functional and Marxist scholars to reduce poJjtic.s.J:o s.ociet)!.,Jo see.the nature of governments and states mainly as the outgrowth of certain sociaL

)patterns. Instead , they argued for an analytical separation of s ta te and society(authority and association) before proceeding with actual case studies. (An earlystatement of this theoretical posit ion is Reinhard Bendix's Nation Bui lding andCitizenship [Berkeley: Universi ty of Cal ifornia Press, 1977], ch. 1.)The presen t volume shares these "f irs t assumptions ." The more recent s tate-

or iented litera ture, however, which constitutes a subset of the larger body ofWeber ian scholarship of the 1970s and 1980s, has pushed some statist claimstoo far. (A prominent example of this genre of scholarship is Peter Evans,Dietrich Reuschmeyer, and Theda Skocpol, eds ., Bringing the State Back In[Cambridge: Cambridge Universi ty Press, 1985].) lState theorists have right lypointed out that states have always been crit ical anddirect agents of socioeco-nomic change, and this has been especially true in the twentieth century.Moreov~r~wer is organized influences the incentives of social and~conomlc ac tor~, agam contributing indirectly to patte rns of changU TheseImpor tant asser tions have helped sustain the case for "bringing the state backin." Nonethe less, we are of the view that some of the c laims are overreactionsand have mis leading implications for development s tud ies . It is time to offersome correctives.States are par ts of societies. S tates may help mold, but they are also continu-

a lly molded by, the soc ieties within which they are embedded. Once the s tate' simportance has been emphasized, therefore, the intellectual attention immedi-ate ly shifts to issues of why states do what they do, under what circumst~sstates are effective, and ~hy states differ in their respect ive roles a;d clfective-ness. These issues, in rum, cannot be di_scE~se~factorily withou- t l ooking a tsoc iety, at the socioeconomic determinants of politics. So, althoug"hthe im-portant point that "states matter" has now been made - and, to repeat, itneeded to be made - there is no getting around the mutuality of state-society- x : . f f interactions : Societies af fec t s tates as much as, or poss ib ly more than, s tatesaffect societies.t : t0re spe~ifically, this volume asserts ~everal interrelated


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4 Introductionfew others invest igate the development of civi l societies in a low-income set-ting. We suggest that classes, such as the proletariat or peasantry, do not havehistorically predesignated social roles and are not simply more or less powerfuldepending on their relative control over property. Although property clearly is apotent polit ical resource, and the propertied often do get their way in politics , arange of political power balances involving the propertied and the propertylessare possible, even workable. Similarly, levels ofnonclass associational activitydo not covary in any simple or direct fashion with levels of economic develop-( ment; the emergence of civi l society is not automatic but requires close empir i-cal study.4 .,1!f!!.~.~nd~5.j_q.Lf2!.c:.~.J!!_,!!!:!:.!ua~?1_~'}lpowering. Final ly, weurge scholars to eschew a state-versus-society perspect ive that rests on a viewof power as a zero-sum conflict between the state and society. Real-world power; f . struggles seldom pitch large collectivities called states against large collectivitiescalled societies. We accept that for some social groups, this is indeed anaccurate rendering of the nature of their interact ions with the state. But it is notalways - and not even normally - so. Some interactions between state segmentsand social segments can create more power for both. Some, of course, favorone side over the other. Some vitiate the powers of each side. And in still othercases, s ta te actors ally with select social groups against other groups. This real-,world complexity suggests that our initial analytical position best avoid a statist* " perspective that is misleading insofar as it renders the state in an adversarialposi tion vis-a-vis the s~ciety, and instead favor viewing the state as part of so-- . ciety.In sum, we propose a state- in-society perspect ive for the comparat ive study

of the state and politics in developing countries.

PART ITHEORETICAL AND METHODOLOGICAL

CONSIDERA TIONS


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1The state in society: an approach to struggles for

domination

JOEL S. MIGDAL


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8 Joel S. Migdalor resourceful clans, thwarted or co-opted the state and had their own way in 'devising effective symbolic systems, molding daily social behavior, and shapingthe pat terns of economic l ife?As in the classical debates, scholarship since World War IIhas seesawedJ ' between society-centered and state-centered theories to answer these questions.In the last decade or so, theorists have leaned toward state-centered approaches,explicitly acknowledging the central ins titutional role of the state in moldingpatterns of domination.? Although many state-centered researchers have written,nuanced accounts of association and authority in var ious par ts of the globe, themore theoretically oriented treatments have all too often tended to regard statesin fair ly undifferentiated terms. In presenting them as holistic , some scholarshave given the misleading impression that states, at key junctures in their; ; t . . . histor ies , pu ll in s ingle direc tions. Some researchers have gone so far so as toreify and anthropomorphize the state, treating i t as a uni tary actor that assessesits situa tion strategically and then acts accordingly to maximize its interests.

~ Unfor tunate ly, by treating the state as an organic entity and giving it an ontolog- ,3cal status, such scholars have obscured state formation and the dynamics of thestruggle for domination in societies.The participants in this book, coming from a variety of theore tical perspec- '

tives and drawing from the experiences of diverse regions, argue the need to~ove away from extreme state-centered theor ies . But we can go beyond simplyestablishing a baiance in schoI:rrshlp'""Befween'state and society . We need to'

~break ct~the 4n.dilferd1tiil.ts


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10 Joel S. Migdalby local strongmen to extend the area of their own dominance, and more. The

~ struggles in these multiple settings end up reshaping both the state and society.Often, s tate- or society-driven initiat ives have been provoked by the funda-

mental changes associated with the great transformation - the growth of cities ,the increased use of fossil fuels and other technological innovations, the declineof agriculture in terms of total domestic production, and so on. These changeshave swept beyond Europe to every nook and cranny of the globe. Capitalismand the model of the strong European state have sent reverberations throughevery continent, precipitating massive dislocation and mixtures of appropriationof new ideas and methods, reactions against them, and their adaptations tolocal circumstances. These processes have constituted an onslaught on existingdistr ibut ions of cri tical resources - land and other sources of wealth, personalconnections, representation of meaningful symbols , and more - sett ing off newand renewed battles and accommodations throughout societies. At times thesestruggles have resulted in integrated domination as the state has played a leadingrole, but in other instances such centralization has proved elusive, ending indispersed domination.Whether the impetus for renewed struggle l ies in the spread of world capital-

Jism or in other factors , our f irs t concern is the clashes and accommodations that* these new circumstances have precipitated. We seek to develop an approach thatcan shed light on the nature of patterns of domination in society, that is, inwhere one might fruitfully look to study persistence and change. We also- * - propose a number of educated guesses as to when and where we might expectto find certain patterns of.domination prevailing.Third World sett ings have thrown into stark rel ief the struggles for dominationin societies." In Africa, Asia, and Latin America, established social relat ionsand inst itutions came under severe pressure during the last century as most areasoutside Europe became what Eric Wolf called "dependent zones of support" ina single capitalist world." Particularly in the period since World War II, statestructures have been at the center of intense discord over how societies shoulddeal with their integration into the larger world economy. The struggles are notsimply over foreign economic policy but are, more fundamentally, about thevery essence of how these societies are and should be constituted - their normsand rules, regulations and laws, and symbols and values. The dominance ofstate organizations in such domestic struggles cannot simply be assumed. Peopledo not automatically consider the state to be the proper authority to settle the

)crucial questions or even the appropriate forum within which various socialgr~ups will struggle over the future course of the society. The role of the stateISItself an object of the struggle.We can think of the analogy of England and France as the last embers of

feUdalism were fading in Western Europe. The Wars of the Roses and theFronde, among other struggles, i lluminated the intense, ground-level disputes

The state in society 11states attempting to impose their will upon their societies and the social

betweenresisting that force. Max Beloff put it well: "In the sixteenth andgrouptS nth centuries the modem idea of political sovereignty, the notion thatseven ee' . .ery man and every foot of ground, there must exist some single supremeover ev .h rity was still something to be argued and fought over rather than theaut 0 . f II 1' 1 . ,,8 I h Th d Inderlying presumptIOn 0 a po mea action. . n t e c~ntemporary irWorld, s ignif icant sta te autonomy and state capaClt~ - so glibly, perhaps eventeJeo 'ogicaIIy, assumed and expected by some theonsts - have not been assuredoutcomes at all,Social science requires an approach t~at leads resear~hers to the.~truggles for I~domination that lie at the heart of twentieth-century SOCialand political change.It is the elaborat ion of such an approach to which the participants in this volumeaspire. In the sections that follow] I_discuss the state, soc~ty~ and state-societyinteractions in the arenas of domina!io!!._and_oll_Qo~tion.In these arenas, all s~rtsof social organizations, includingcomponents o~..!he_state, engage one another,attem_ptingto impose t~~E.2..wnstamp 2l!.ordin_arylife,. everyday _social relations,and the waY'_Il .eQpJ~~_andJhe_\Y.Qrld_around them, In brief, my aim is tod~w the attention of those concerned with state-society issues to the appro-priate focuses of anal~si.s. The discussion highlig.hts both a method of disag~relgat ing states and SOCIetIesas well as the recursive and mutual ly transforming \nature of state-society interactions. Because such struggles may indeed be more-+-obvious in the Third World than in the highly industrialized countries - just asinEngland and France in the seventeenth century - we hope that this volume'sessays wil l a lso aid in understanding state and society where similar strugglesare frequently vei led - in Europe, including the former Communist s tates , andinNorth America as well.

THE STATEAny number of scholars have offered formal definitions of the state, most ofwhich draw heavily on the notions of Max Weber,9 These definitions have notdiffered markedly from one another. They have tended to emphasize the state'sinstitutional character (as an organization or set of organizations), its functions(especially regarding the making of rules), and its recourse to coercion ("monop-oly of the Ie itim se of hysical force"). 10 At the core of these definitions \l ies the quest ion of domination or authori ty in the state 's claimed terr itory and 'fthe degree to which the state's institutions can expect voluntary compliance withtheir rules (legitimacy) or need to resort to coercion.One work, for example, considers "the state to be a set of organizations

invested with the authority to make binding decisions for people and organiza-tions juridically located in a particular territory and to implement these decisionsusing, if necessary, force."!' Another looks at the state as a power organizat ionthat engages in "centralized, institutionalized, territorialized regulation of many


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12 Joel S. Migdalaspects of social relations. "12 By the "power" of the modem state, authousually mean what Michael Mann has called infra structural power, "the capacitof the state actually to penetrate civil society, and to implement logistical!political decisions throughout the realm.,,13Scholars understand the state to be the culmination of a process transcendin

the old localized organizations in societies, which had previously made thrules. It is "a more impersonal and public ~stem of rule over territorial!circumscribed societ ies, exercised through a complex set of inst itut ional a rrangements and off ices, which is dist inguished from the largely local ised anparticulat!stic f~rm~ of power which preceded it."14 Since the sixteenth centurythe theones mamtam, the emergence of this new sort of public power with ilarge standing armies, formidable bureaucracies , and codified law has made thold forms of rule antiquated. The state has forged close-knit nations out ofpeoples who had ~een but loose as~ociations of local groups. It is simplyassumed that there IS no longer any diS ~~e....!ha!J..h.e@!ei!, the framew.ork.forI the:-~uthori~at~ve maki.ng....f....r.uleJ).. "~!!.Jhe modern world only Slne fO!TIl.Qf.p.olItlcall!:!.~.!..~.~.:~.?~EI~~~... l~g.pefl1litted. ~TltijliJhe form we call the ..'.nation.t: ;Yst'!!.~:'" J

~ I ; . . f ~ AI~hough there is much to recommend these de~nitio~s, they also poser , J ( ! certain pr~blems. For one, ~hey tend to feature one dimension of the state, itsl ~ ~ '" b~re~ucrat~c l.~ ~cmg) ch~racte~, The accent on this side of the state~ ..)0.., ~ghlights ~~llItles: . s proficiency ~n a~a fixed set of~ and in, V i / ~rma poliCies, Another dimension of the state exists that manyof these definitions do not capture well : the formulat ion...and transfoimati of, N ~~als, As the state organization comes into contact with various socialvr i grou~s, it clashe~ with ' a n d ,~cco~odat.e~ to (liffer~;;-t'-'~~~;J~i;d~;~:-~J '-;> e_!!ga~ements, whIch occ t ll.1I.m~ml!~j!illct.Yres_chan e the ~cial bases and~ the aIms of the state, e state IS not a fixed ideolo ical entit , Rather, it

em~odies an ong~ing ynamic, a changing set 0 goals, as it engages otherSOCialgroups, This sort of engagement can come through direct contact withfo~al representa~ives, often legislators, or, more commonly, through politicalparties closely allied with the state,Resistance offered by other social forces to the designs of the state as well as1 the i~corpor.at ion of gr~up~ into the organizat~on of the state , chang~ its socialand ideological underpinnings. The formulatIOn of ,stat~llsY is as much aproduct of this ~J)l@l....~.J!.1fa_~imple_outcome of !h~ .goa ls . s > . U . .? 1 2 - ; t a e

l~s or a straIgh~.f.9..!FJ!!ilegis_ll!!jy~R~. .~.~.I> The_~"yl.t~ oj the engagementf w~~.an~_ dise,n.g~g_~~l]_~f!.?!?)~t~:r social forces~ay modify til_~s!i!:~.~enda1/ subst~ntIally; mdeed, they may alter thevuJIature' of the state:16 Even as self-c~n~ciously an ideological s ta te as that in postrevolut ionary China - a state, asVlvlel1l_leShue puts it, that set out to do nothing less than reinvent society _found Itself transformed by its en agement with other social forces. Mao'sChina, to be sure, framed state policies in the language of class struggle,

13he state in society--- '1' m and raising revolutionary consciousness, But the state'sdi g SOCiaIS ,defen in 's were colored by the social networks that, in Shue s terms,al and acnon , d I" 1 Igo shelves into all aspects of economic, SOCial, an po inca re a-, ~t~ hinsJD U 'the character of the state at both local and national levels, In t e. s affectIng h Chi ClIon" of Shanghai Elizabeth Perry notes how t e mese ommu-tic iOstance, , 'speC! (and later state) changed in character as the result of incorporatmgnist party kila,nld co~ponents of that city's working class. Similarly, as Resatth most s e " he d strates the nineteenth-century Ottoman state s engagement WItK s ba eroon ,~ 'all n-Muslim merchants fundamentally changed its goals and charac-nnclP Y noP d ing it into many new roles and procedures.ter, rawI ith existing conceptions of the state go beyond lack of interest inProb ems WI ", foundation upon which state goals are built; problems exist eventhe changmg , fi ... of capabilities which IS the heart and soul of such de muons.on the Issue,..__ , ". troubling tendency of authors to take too senously actual statesThere IS a " . 'b'I' ties to make binding their decisions for people, This penchant to exaggerateall . , , h tidbiliti s has stemmed from states ' near ubiquity In t e s r ugg es an accom-capa 11 Ie , . . , fmodations occurring in arenas of domination and OPPOSitIon, as w~ll as romthe presumptions of state officials themselves, .In the twentieth century, there have been very few places on,e~, whether, the most remote comers of a country or in the heart of a capital City, whereill , ,the state organization has not been a key actor in struggle,S for dom~natlOn.

Sometimes the state's initiatives have triggered intensified SOCIalbattles; motherinstances, it has simply reacted to the forays of other social forces. At t imes,. i thas championed economic development and redistribut io.n, In ~the~ cases, I~Sagenda has been to preserve existing. patterns of ec~norru~ d~~llnat~on, But Inonly rare instances (a number of WhIChhave been m Afnca) dunng the lastseveral generat ions has the state been largely absent d~ng conflict~ over who - - X:~~r~!~~~;~~~~~~~:;.~.~~~;~;:definUigcharacteristic of the modem world. I!lde~~Lwhat has distIngUIshed the;Ode;; state fro~'most-oth~;T;;g~~~c-;i;;- 20litical organizations in_p-istQ._rys_such - ,ras empires, has bee.njt~iD.sm\.l_atiQnntO''tiie_CQrf;!dentities.of.its.subjects (thusthe emphasis on the nation-state). IE. th~ir..~~0.ary_~~es~2P~..J!.l!Y.~Q_IQ.Y.Jnthink of themselve~.' amq_1!g_,2!h~!.5.~~.9,~.t rok.~~_suc~ as father ~!. . . !~~,as French or Pakistani or Brazilian. Indeed......!@JlsfQ!IDAllY_e_lli!teuwbe q_ndtrying to establish peor!e's"p'~!onal i4..ntii 'ies;they aim tos~a e eople's e~e~oral orders ._ th-e~~ntent of the symbols and cde.~.~~.t:.~ni.~~._w~atmattersmost-to them.:"Tliis peIietr~tio~intz;'p~~pie's-daiiY lives means that a transforma- *tive state simply carmot let any struggle over domination within its officialboundaries go uncontested;" state leaders want the state to matter most, enoughtodie for.With only isolated exceptions, political leaders have sought to head a trans-formative state. They have seen it as an organization that can (or, at least,


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14 Joel S. Migdalshoul~) dominate in every comer of society. It should dictate the rules of dai lybehavior or, minimally, authorize and defend other social organizations toundertake some of those tasks. Even in recent cases of privatization and liberal-ization of markets, for example, a frequent underlying assumption is that thestate should not entirely abdicate economic questions to markets. Itshould seekto carve out the limits to the autonomy of those markets and, at the same time,to authorize, regulate, and defend their operation.l'i

- f / In sho.rt, ~hroughout the territory they claim to govern, most political leadershave maintained that the state should have primacy. In some instances, that hasmeant privileging powerful social groups with which state leaders are al lied aswell as the organizat ions those groups dominate, such as markets or churches.But commonly the quest is for the state to exercise control directly - to im-. I ] pose its own systems of meaning and boundaries for acceptable behavior cen-l' t ra lly on its subjects, in everything from sexual unions to labor-management re-lations.State leaders attempt to create an aura of invincibility about the state. The

more the state seems all-powerful, the more likely are subjects to accept it int~eir ordinary lives and, in the process, reduce the burden of enforcing all itsdictates, In fact, those social scientists who, wittingly or unwittingly, exaggeratethe capabil it ies of the state become part of the state's project to present i tself asinvincible. State sovereignty, the actual imposit ion of supreme state authori tyover its claimed terri tory, has simply too often been taken for granted. 20Despite their best efforts and to their never-ending frustrat ion, state .leaders

have not had a clear w~y in imposing their domination - their systems ofme~ning, ~heir rules for social behavior, and their economic plans - uponSOCIety.LIke any other organizat ions, states have real l imits to their power:what they C a n do and what theY-fannot do, when they can collect taxes andwhen not, which rules they can m~e binding and which not. Ambitious goalsf~r states - aims of actually ~etrating throughout the society, regulating themtty- rit of social relatio_ s e~tracting revenues, appropriating res~es thatdetermine the n~ of economic life, and controlling the-most dearly heldsymbols - have seldom been achieved, certainly not in most of the new orrenewed state organizations in the Third World-. - - -- --The ~an?er in which recent li terature presents states results in consistent ly

overestImatIng state power and autonomy. All too frequently the focus has beenon the very top leadership, as if it alone constitutes the state as if its collectivewil l is re-created fai thfully throughout the labyrinth of state branches and bu-reaus. "My principal interest ," wri tes Mann, "lies in those centralized insti tu-tions generally called 'states,' and in the powers of the personnel who staffthem, at the higher levels general ly termed the 'state el ite. ' , ,21But st.ates sur~ly ~onsist of far more than this. As in i~y and policy

formulatI?n, P~ICy Implementation also reflects the state's engagement-;trhother SOCIalforces. To study this, one must look at the multiple levels of the---

The state in society 15brough a new "anthropology of the state." A number of writers havestate t ted what a truly cross-disciplinary political anthropology might look

~Iab~~aAlthough the state as an institution has rarely been the central concern ofl ike. works their insights could profitably lead to works shedding new light onthese 't te An anthropology of the state would lead to at least three advantages. "-the sa. . First, emphasis would change. from what anthropolog~st Laur~ N~de~ called" -"dYing Up,,23(focusing at tention at the tops of agencies and inst itut ions) to.s tu tj.gation at different levels of the state, including the lowest rungs on theJllve s. . ..- anizational hierarch where dlfect en a ement WIthsoclet often occurs, and~e interaction amon the levels. In short, such an approach helps us disaggre- \ate the state and study its engagement with society.Second. an anthropology of the state would open the study of i ts inst itut ions

to new methods, particular ly part ic ipant observation. Techniques now com-monly used to study state officials and others "are highly useful in dealing witharticulate introspective respondents when those individuals are not otherwise X ~engaged in socio-political behavior.'?" Participant observation would focus on \ ~ ~ aothe process of engagement of state off icials in the contests of power ~ith others ~~a)inside and outside the state organization. 0Finally, such an approach could go beyond the common concern with the

theoretical study of the relationships of power to the interplay of power andsymbols in state-society relat ions. No state can monitor al l i ts rules; each needswhat Peter Berger and Thomas Luckman called "legitimating universes.v" aconstellation of symbols justifying state domination. It is this need that liesbehind the attempts by states to shape the moral or symbolic order of theirpopulations. Political anthropology, notes Abner Cohen, "special izes in un-folding the political implications of symbolic formations and activities - the'mumbo-jumbo' of modem society - which are manifestly non-poli tical.v'v l t iSIthe transformation of people as they adopt the symbols of the state and thetransformation of the state as it incorporates symbols from society - both ~seemingly "non-political" processes - that an anthropology of the state can illu-minate.As Atul Kohli shows in the case of India , various levels of the state organiza-tion operate in markedly different structural environments. An anthropology ofthe state directs us to these distinctive environments and to the interactionmrtong the levels . An understanding of the Indian national government's para-doxical growing inability to govern, even as i t central izes functions, demandsthat students of India look beyond the difficulties in New Delhi, to politics atthe district and state levels of the country. This sort of approach, then, wouldnot anticipate a single strategic and rat ional response of the state to i ts cr isis ofgrowing impotence. Indeed,~ut~ay not at all be in line withWhatseem to be the overall state's "interests, but may stem instead from thecomplex interaction of the different levels of the state and the peculiar pressuresfaced at each level.


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16 Joel S. MigdalAn anthropology of the state, then, al lows us to dismantle i t analytically and

to discern the dist inct structural environments of its different components andthe interaction among them. One possible way to disaggregate the state is tobreak it down into four levels, which differ markedly in the kinds of pressuresthey face from other state components and from nonstate actors. From bottom) r Y ( ' to top, they are:) . f V \ (1) The trenches. Here stand the officials who :must execute state directives

~!j ~-,directly in the face of possibly strong societal resistance. They are the tax'.J collectors. police officers tl(achers, foot soldiers, and other bureaucrats with themandate to apply state rules and regulat ions direct ly . Their contacts are with theI intended clients, targets, and beneficiaries of official state policies. Supervisorstend to be somewhat distant in district or regional capitals.

(2) The dispersed field ojJices A notch higher are the regional and localbodies that rework and organize state policies and directives for local consump-tion, or even formulate and implement wholly local policies . They include thebureaus, Ie islative bodies, courts, and military and police units that workeiChiS1~~IY~irc.u~~:~{i~?fY-~fthin the large-;ierr itory claimed by' theestate as a whok, making key decisions ii60uflocanipProprlatl'onorresOUrCesfunneled through national ministries or garnered locally. Where will stateschools be built? How will local postal distribution be organized? Which vil-lages wil l benefi t from the digging of new tube-wells or irrigat ion canals? Whowill be hired in the trenches? They are more likely to face large, well-organizedregional social forces, as well as direct intervention from the capita l city , thanthose in the trenches. Po--(> fold...'-'O'.~

(3) The agencY,'s central offices. In the capital city are the nerve centerswhere national policies are formulated and enacted and where resources forimplementation are marshaled, These agencies are technically responsible to thetop political leadership, but they are also often in intense negotiations with eachother and are targets for influence by large, well-organized interest groups at thenational level.

(4) The commanding heights, At the pinnacle of the state is the top executiveleadership. While top leaders depend on those in lower levels for everythingfrom tax collect ion to keeping order, they may not ful ly identify with any other

; I - . co~ponent of the state. Those other components become yet other pressurepoints among an array of large-scale domestic and international forces seekingto influence the top leadership.Leaving aside momentarily the issue of nonstate forces, both domestic and

international, that impinge on the various parts of the state, three sets of_pressurefrom within the state organization itself bear directly on each level of the state .Those pressures are, first, from supervisors (at least for those neither el~cted norat the very top of the hierarchy); second, from underlings, those that'One


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18 Joel S. Migdalparts and the less likely it is to convey successfully a coherent system 0"legit imating universes." Despite i ts international stature and its sheer bulk ir

rsociety, th~ state_ma..~ cri~pled gi~nt in the quest for domination. ~guara~tees I~~a~n?t be Ignored m conflIcts over domination in society- but.monmeanmgful ImtIatIves and more coherent actions may come, if they come at allfrom other social forces, --

"THE SOCIETY

We can st~ our disc~ssion :-vitha depiction of society offered by Liah Green-feld and MIchel Martm: Society's "only defini tive character ist ic is that i t is th.I eo~termost S~CIa ,structure for a certain group of individuals who, whatevermI~h~be t~elf attIt~de toward. it, view themselves as its members and experiencethe~ IdentI,ty as bem~ determined by it,,,27 This is a fairly loose characterization,v.:hIch avoids assurrn~g that there necessarily exists a central force guiding thed~s~arate pa~s of S?Ctety, Indeed, many of the difficul ties in analyzing state-socIet~ relations arise from the tendency by theorists to impose some generala~alytIcal framewor~ that,can, help discern patterns for all (or most) of society'sdIsparate parts, SOCIalscient ists drawing on Marxism have thus portrayed therulmg class or th~ h~gemony generated by a combination of the ruling class andthe ,sta t~ as dorrnnatm~ ac~oss .society and giving it a dist inctive shape, WhereSOCIetyIS seen as pull ing m different directions, the struggles are then under-stoo~ to be between this class and other broadly constructed social classes,

1 LIke the,Marxists, lib~~al social scientists have often accepted axiomaticallythat the eXIst~nce o~ SOCIety,pr~supposes the exercising of some sort of hege-mony, or society-wide domination. For them, the integrated framework is theconsensus of norms, partially expressed within the authorita tive structure of asomewhat constrain~d state , about how individual and group competit ion pro-ceeds over ,the quest ion of who gets what. 28 Social struggle comes through a setof plural mterests competing for influence on public policies, all under theumbrel la of well-established rules of the game, Recent state-centr ic theoriesha~e, implicit ly or explicit ly, tended to accept the notion of society-wide domi-nation or he~emony, w,ith the important qualification that they have been moreprone ~haneither Marxists or l iberals to focus explici tly on the frameworks andauthonty created by the society's state organization.F'The approach to society offered here accepts some of what the state theoris ts

ha~e presumed; namely, in the modem world, societies as we know them -theIr contours and boun~aries, their sense of shared experien-;;e - h;v; beenprod~cts, of state fo~atIon. At the same time, we must raise questions abouttheonsts presumptIOn of a unifying framework (whether a ruling class, aconsen~us ~f norms ~bo,utc,om~etitio~, or the state) to explain overall pattern~of dommatIOn and dIstnbutIOn m Third World societies We must k '. _. as a pnorquestion: Have the outcomes of struggles in multiple arenas aggregated to

The state in society 19

d Classes with cohesive projects that can shape a society or a'nfuct~a " bl fcreate, l' orrnative framework or a state orgamzanon capa e 0gr eed upon nwidely a 't'? And if we indeed find such classes or frameworks or, ' g competl lon, ,contamlll me that they will hold together beyond the short- ormust we assustates,d'm~? " ' 'Ime IU f th Marxists unified SOCIalclasses and wlde-rangmg SOCia1 the case 0 e ' , fi d 'n d' nee _ class struggles - have often been easier to n mgles for oroma , . hstrUg , h 'l'ng than in real SOCIetIes. Class, notes E, P. Thompson, as, in ...1ve t eonz ' ' ' fImagl d heuristic device when, in fact, It IS the partIcular result 0become a broa ' "CI ' t t d, diti ns in only certain places and times. ass, as It even ua ehistoncal con 1 IO " .' 'I f ',,' th century industrial capitalist SOCIeties, and as It then e t itswlthtn nIneteen " 'I" the heuristic category of class, has m fact no claim to umversa -Impnnt upon , ' Ie azri 1 ali ', ,,30 R c in g to the mix of capitalists and large-sea e agncu tur IStS 10ity elemn aI hi ', ' th century England Thompson states, "It arose, like every re ston-nIneteen - '" ' ' f hcal situation, from a particular equilibrium of forces; ~t was only one 0 t e, I infinite number of social mutations (in which each, nevertheless,seemmg y 1 , , ' ', tains a generic affinity to others ansmg from a comparable conjunction)mam " ' ,,31 ' fEwhich actual history provides in such profusion. In other countnes 0 ,urope

and in other parts of the world, cohesive classes, which can lead society oraround which the primary struggles in society revolve, mayor may not exist atallor, when they do, mayor may not succeed in achieving some sort of broadclass project , Whatever the general ut ili ty of a "theory of class," then, our casesseem to indicate caution against an overgeneralizing tendency,For example, the Egyptian business elites of the 1930s, as Robert Vitalisdemonstrates , could in l imited instances engage in broad forms of collect iveact ion, But in some of the cri tical issues revolving around state-fostered mar-kets, the business leaders , despite al l their privileges, did not develop unifiedclass domination, Instead, rival coalitions of businessmen aligned with differentelements of the state, each coalition seeking to secure access to the state'sinvestment resources, The results were not only deep conflicts among thebusiness elites themselves but the undermining of the state and its policies aswell, Ismail Sidqi, the strong-armed leader who took over the government in1930, needed the businessmen as much as they needed him, In the end, how-ever, neither could achieve their goals: Sidqi was forced to resign by 1933 andbusinessmen continued to pursue their conflicting interests in multiple arenas,with no semblance of pulling society in a single direction, The idea of a unif ied 1social class working toward some large class-project that can reshape societymay be an elegant metaphorical device, Vitalis points out, but these metaphors"can obscure as much as they reveal about the nature of the institutions,strategies and power of capitalists, "Similarly for liberal theorists.., battles over the distribution of authority have?ot always produced dominance for specific rules of competition, The struggles!.!l societies have often been over who establishes the procedures, rather than


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20 Joel S. Migdal The state in society 21


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22 Joel S. Migdaltransformed as they recruited different segments of the Shanghai workinclass as pivotal constituencies. Perry's chapter notes how deeply affected t~Kuomintang was as it used organized crime to help it incorporate semiskilleworkers from North China and how the Communist state absorbed the goals ethe labor eli te as it attracted the more skilled artisans from the south.power or social control can expand along thf~~p"'~nsi?~~,l~~e~.!.?_,~!!~~d~Qci2:1f,orce's domination, Ei!~~ithi!l.e.!l arena, a social fo~ce can dominate.~an increasing ~umber of i ,s~~.areas, from di~~.g wh~~~~_~? gr~~:.~~rouglproviding credit, to defimng the nature of salvatlon;~~~, arenas tfiemselve!can grow to incorporate a larger share of the population and a larger temtOrY.The alignment of forces over which language people should use, for example,may begin in a particular city and spread to incorporate large portions of 3country and its population, Third, a social force can use the resources it garnersin anyone arena to dominateTrlOtfierarenas, wItTi"OiTferent sets of SOCIal.forces: ChTefs iiiSomltcOunti-Tes-of posteolomal Af.'nCa~l'o"i-nStance-,-u"secttheiJcommand in tribal terri tories to catapult themselves into national questions suchas issues of family planning.Social forces attempt to appropriate the resources and symbols at hand to

further their goals, and they often have wildly different abilities to do that. TheImix of key elements in an arena - its physical geography, material resources,f human resources, forms of social organization, and trove of beliefs - are theraw materials with which the patterns of relationships among social ,groupingsare determined. Patterns of domination come as social forces, with their alreadyunequal abilities and access to resources, seek to utilize and manipulate thesekey elements of the arena's environment. The introduction of new factors intoan arena, such as additional capital, compelling ideas, or innovative forms ofsocial organization, or the depletion of old elements, also benefits and harmssocial forces in very different ways, These new factors set off new and renewedstruggles in arenas, ranging from struggles that proceed slowly and quietly toones fraught with violence and recurring upheaval,The struggles and accommodations of social forces in any local or regionalarena of domination and opposition have not been hermetically sealed affairs.Resources have been reallocated from one arena to another in order to influencethe outcome of struggles. Social forces have enhanced their position by sportingresources garnered from outside, by reassigning trusted personnel, or by ridingon the backs of pervasive and powerful symbols, Factors such as the overallst~cture of production in society, existing institutional arrangements, and thesaliency of certain symbols all influence who is in a position to reallocateresources and symbols from arena to arena,r Creating the conditi,ons for domina?on in s,ociety and maintaining dorni-nanc~ - the reproduction of power WIthin SOCIety - are the products of themultiple ongoing arena struggles and accommodations, Our approach to society

23The state in society- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ---- art'cular social forces can create an integrated domination,whether P 1analyzes vail within given arenas to produce resources and support - t~~~ d'That IS, d a normative framework - that can be used to ommatet rial base an , id d 'a rna e b carried into other domains to create SOCIety-wI e omma-lly and then e f di d d . ,toea truggles in the arenas result in a pattern 0 isperse ommanon, ?Or do the s , , f h domi tuon " h eation of authoritative, legitimate orces t at can omma eby Iimltmg t e cr, ?broadly across SOCiety.

THE JUNCTURES OF STATES AND SOCIETIESd world it is impossible to understand the term "society" without \ " *In the rno em , " If 'The formation of the state has created and actlvated SOCIety, SOCIetythe state, , if h it Is th th t, t rmost limits with which people ident y, t en It IS testate aIS the ou e ", " I I d termines those limits or SOCIalboundanes. But that does not meaniruna Y e w~ , d ' .that the state simolv molds the g!.9J!.P.shat mak~!!Q...'Q.g~ty.InQ~~_,",_mteract!Q!J.SO f state and soci~are mutually transfo~il!:g.: The results ?f the engagement

and disengagement of states and other SOCIalforce,S are tangible, ,eve~ momen-but outcomes rarely reflect the aims and wills Imbedded III either. The 1ous, '1 dclash of social forces, including the state, is mediated through ~he so:ugg, es an

ccomrnodations in society'S numerous arenas. Fgr the SOCIalSCIentist , the~hallenge is to understand how th~e diffused stru_ggles alter socie~ disposi-tion -;;r resources the nature of its stratificaliQll. the chaxacter. ._oLit genderrelations.V and the content of its collective identit ies: .l!l ..the end, those ~linteractions cumulatively reshape the state or the other social organizations, or,most commonly, both' these interactions are the foundation of the recursiverelationship between ~te ang Q heu,.QtiillQf.!;.es..The cumulative result of engagements and disengagements in arenas has beenthat societies have assumed "all manner of shapes," as Anthony Smith puts it.38Smith's observation seems, at first glance, rather unremarkable; of course socie-ties have ended up with all manner of shapes, But Smith's comment, as henotes, flies in the face of much prevailing social theory. In contemporary social1science writing, where states and societies have been portrayed with broadbrushstrokes, different states and societies have had an uncannily uniform look.So much contemporary scholarship blurs the rich diversity produced in varioussocieties' multiple arenas. The meeting grounds between states and other socialforces have been ones in which conflict and complicity, opposition and coali-t ion, corruption and co-optation have resolved the shape of countrywide socialand polit ical changes. They have determined whether domination is integratedor dispersed, as well as the varying contours of integrated or dispersed domi-nation.Arenas of domination and opposition have achieved periods of stable relations

among their social forces in different times and places, but these may have beenmore the exception than the rule, A Nicaraguan earthquake, a Bengali tidal


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24 Joel S. Migdalwave, the absorption of fundamenta list Is lam in southern Lebanon, chang'birth rates in Mexico, the penetration of the world economy throughoutThird World, all have created winners and losers and thus changed the balanof forces in arenas. Through its distinctive ideology and organization,modem state has been at the core of destabilization of existing arenas in thnineteen th and twentieth centur ies . The common core of ideology among thleaders of transformative states has been to create a hegemonic presence _single author itative ru le - in multiple arenas, even in the far comers of societylThe goal has been to penetrate soc iety deeply enough to shape how individUalthroughout the society identi fy themselves, and the organizat ion of the state hbeen to effect such far-reaching domination. Ithas included vertically connectagencies, designed to reach to all pockets within the ter ritory, and specializcomponents to promote the state's system of meaning and legitimacy (e.g.,schools), to make universal rules (legislative bodies) , to execute those rules(bureaucracies), to adjudicate (courts), and to coerce (armies and pol ice). Majorpolicy initiatives by the state have led to a massive inundation of new elements(from fresh ideas to personnel and hard cash) as well as to the depletion ofothers through taxat ion, conscription, relocat ion, mass murder, or other means.

(Even the most benign states have made extraordinary demands on those theyh~ve claimed as their sub~ects: to sequ~ster t?eir children in state institutions for!thir ty hours a week, to dispose of their bodily wastes in only prescr ibed ways,to t reat their sick exclusively with state-licensed healers, to prove a proprietaryrelat ionship to land solely through state-issued deeds, and so on. Whatever theirspecific programs, states have shaken up existing social relationships, renewingactive struggles for domination.In the mult iple meeting grounds between states and other social components,

some social forces have tied their own fortunes to that of the state or accepted itas the appropriate organization to establish the proper practices for all of society.In such cases , we can speak of the relationship between state and social forcesas mutually empowering. But, in other instances, the engagement between thestate and social forces is a struggle for agency, for the ultimate autonomy totake initiatives and to make decisions in g iven realms. Here, the struggle is onemarked not by mutual empowerment but by mutually exclusive goals. Someforces, for example, have sought to appropriate resources, positions, personnel,even whole bureaus of the state for their own purposes. Still others in society,such as peasants or s lum dwellers, who were already dominated by other socialforces , have also, a t times , active ly or quietly resisted the attempts of officialsto impose new state domination.;These struggles and accommodat ions in the junctures between components of

the state and other social forces have produc~d a range of outcomes. We cancapture these in four ideal types of resuI ts( First' \s total transformation . Here,the s ate:s p'enetrat ion leads to the destruct' ib-n, co-optation, or sl!!>jugation of"ocal SOCIalforces and to the state's domination. In such cases, the components- _

The state in society 25state successfully transform how the peo Ie of an. .w~na ident ify_jh~m-

of the Forced migration, replacement of th~ loca ls by a settle .r popula tion,~ d use of violence, and other dracoruan means may nullify or destroy iwidesprea.nating social forces and transform personal ident ity. Where there islocal dO;I social dislocation, i t is unlikely that total transformation wil l occurn~ s~ve s ing le generation. China, discussed in the two chapters by Perry andwlthm:omes c losest to th is ideal type. The dislocation of the prolonged civilShue, erlaid by the war aga ins t the Japanese, in addition to the later turmoil ofwarO ' VatLeap Forward and the Cul tural Revolut ion, gave the Chinese Commu-the re .. s tate unprecedented oppor tun ity to harness local forces. But even this casenIst . h . . I ki ... b thinstructs us to proceed WIt cautJ?n ill 00 ng at translorma~IVe states; as 0p and Shue demonstrate, China has fallen short of the Ideal type. As the Ist: :7incorporated new groups and engaged with old ones, it found itself t rans- *form~ well as transforming.SeconciJisstate incorporation of existing social forces. In this type, the state'sinj~on of new social orga~i~at ion, ~esources, symbols, an~ force into an ar~naenables it to appropriate existing SOCIalforces and symbols Inorder to establisha new pat tern of domination. But it also forces changes and accommodations onthe part of the state's components as they adapt to the specific patterns andforces in the arena. These changes in local components of the state may thenaffect the state 's overall coherence - its abi li ty to reallocate resources, establishlegit imacy, and achieve integrated domination. Hagopian's chapter on Brazi lillus trates this second type. The military coup there in 1964 brought a regimebent on transformation of society. But, for all the resources at its disposal, thes tate found itse lf reincorporating the old oligarchy at the provincial level and

~linquishing allocative discretion in key areas.

Jh ird ./) s exis ting social forces ' incorporation of the sta te. In this type, thepence of the state 's components spurs adaptation by dominating social forces,bu tdoes not produce rad ical changes in the patte rn of domina tion. Or , in somecases, the new state presence does generate new patterns of domination, butones in which new nonstate social forces rise to the top. In either case, thepersonal identity and mora l order that result among the population are not theones envis ioned by sta te leaders . The organization and symbols of the state 'scomponents are appropriated by the local dominating social forces. In thisscenario, the t ransformation of the local components of the state is so extensiveas to harm signif icantly the sta te' s overall chances of achieving integrateddomination in society. Michael Bra tton's chapter , for example, poin ts to how \theestabl ishment of market ing boards and cooperatives for peasants in African . f

Documents

State and Social Forces. Migdal