Nicos Poulantzas As Historian Jane Caplan
Theories ofFascism: Nicos Poulantzas As Historian Jane Caplan Within a year of each other, in two politicaltical scientscientists, Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband, published deeply contrasting studies of the state under capitalism, 1 and thereby embarked on a project of mutual criticism that has had a wide airing among Marxists. 2 This interest was hardly surprising. For one thing, the coincidence of the books' publication broke a relative silence on the theory of the state in Marxism, and a debate of some kind was long overdue. Secondly, the debate they provoked went straight to the heart of an already familiar conßict of political cultures, as a resume will show. Poulantzas and Miliband started from theoretical positions that could hardly be more dissimilar, and they became progressively more critical of each other. Miliband's The State in Capitalist Society is a work of dissenting radicalism, forceful, incisive, and politically uncompromis- ing. Yet, as a detailed exposure of the composition, mechanics, and style of Western political systems, it stands firmly within the empirical tradition exemplified by the political sociologist to whom it is dedi- cated, C. Wright Mills. In this sense, its structure, if not its political judgment, conforms to a version of orthodox political theory rooted in Western bourgeois thought. Poulantzas' Political Power and Social Classes, on the other hand, is the heir, through critical modification, of the newer and rather less accessible methodological school associated with the name of Louis Althusser. Its entire problematic and vocabu- lary were far less familiar when it was first published, and correspond to a theoretical rigor quite absent from Miliband's work.
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