State in Society: Studying How States and Societies Transform and Constitute One Another (Cambridge Studies in Comparative Politics)

The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's 'state-in-society' approach. That approach illuminates how power is exercised around the world, and how and when patterns of power change. Despite the triumph of concept of state in social science literature, actual states have had great difficulty in turning public policies into planned social change. The state-in-society approach points observers to the ongoing struggles over which rules dictating how people will lead their daily lives. These struggles, which ally parts of the state and groups in society against other such coalitions, determine how societies and states create and maintain distinct ways of structuring day-to-day life - the nature of the rules that govern people's behavior, whom they benefit and whom they disadvantage, which sorts of elements unite people and which divide them, what shared meaning people hold about their relations with others and their place in the world. Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics breaks apart the narrow disciplinary and subfield boundaries that have fragmented the study of both traditional social movements as well as their non-routine politics. By exploring non-institutionalized political actions, including revolutions, democratization, cycles of protest, and ethnic conflicts, the connections between a wide array of political and social phenomena are examined in national, comparative, and global perspectives.The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach situating it within the classic literature in political science, sociology, and related disciplines while presenting a new model for understanding state-society relations. The book allies parts of the state and groups in society against other such coalitions, determines how societies and states create and maintain distinct ways of structuring day-to-day life, the nature of the rules that govern people's behavior, whom they benefit and whom they disadvantage, which sorts of elements unite people and which divide them, and what shared meaning people hold about their relations with others and their place in the world. The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's "state-in-society" approach. The essays situate the approach within the classic literature in political science, sociology, and related disciplines but present a new model for understanding state-society relations. It allies parts of the state and groups in society against other such coalitions, determines how societies and states create and maintain distinct ways of structuring day-to-day life, the nature of the rules that govern people's behavior, whom they benefit and whom they disadvantage, which sorts of elements unite people and which divide them, and what shared meaning people hold about their relations with others and their place in the world. The essays in this book trace the development of Joel Migdal's 'state-in-society' approach. This approach illuminates how power is exercised around the world, and how and when patterns of power change. The essays situate the approach within the classic literature in political science, sociology, and related disciplines. "The essays in this book trace the development of Joel S. Migdal's "state-in-society" approach. His process-oriented analysis illuminates how power is exercised around the world, and how and when patterns of power change."--Jacket This introductory chapter frames the ideas that have preoccupied me over the past two decades, when the remaining essays in this book were written.