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Overview
Originally published in 1978.
The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780691632070 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Princeton University Press |
| Publication date: | 04/19/2016 |
| Series: | Princeton Legacy Library , #1832 |
| Pages: | 370 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 1.00(d) |
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The State and Society
Peru in Comparative Perspective
By Alfred C. Stepan
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS
Copyright © 1978 Princeton University PressAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-691-07591-4
CHAPTER 1
Liberal-Pluralist, Classic Marxist, and "Organic-Statist" Approaches to the State
A major, nearly worldwide trend since the 1930s has been the steady growth of the role of the state in political life. In the industrialized world, the emergence of the managerial state to combat the crisis of capitalism during the depression, the widened scope of executive power in World War II, and growing state regulative and welfare functions since the war, have all contributed to the expansion of the state. In the Third World it is even clearer that most development plans call for the state to play a major role in structuring economic and social systems.
Despite this expansion of the declared and undeclared functions of the state, there had been a significant decline in theoretical analyses of the impact of state policies on society. Starting in the mid-195os, when the field of comparative politics underwent a major period of innovation, it was widely believed by members of the profession that this subfield of political science contained the most important new contributions. When we examine this period of innovation, however, there is a striking preoccupation with the search for the underlying economic, social, and even psychological causes of political behavior. The new approaches in comparative politics in most cases assigned little independent weight to the impact of state policies and political structures on the social system. Without denying the gains to comparative politics made by the move away from a sterile emphasis on descriptive studies of a formal-legal nature, it is clear that a price has been paid, namely a retreat from what should be one of the central concerns of the discipline. While almost everywhere the role of the state grew, one of the few places it withered away was in political science.
The first task of this chapter, therefore, is conceptual, namely to examine what role the state plays in some of the major models used in contemporary political analysis. Is the state analyzed as an independent variable that has an impact on society, or is it treated as a dependent variable? If the latter, what problems for empirical research are presented by such conceptual approaches and what reformulations are indicated?
My second task in this chapter is analytical and empirical. Are there models that emphasize the role of the state that have been neglected by contemporary political science? Can an awareness of these alternative models help overcome some of the major conceptual and empirical lacunae that characterize much work in contemporary political science? And, less generally, are there political systems that have been influenced by these alternative institutional, administrative, and normative models? If so, it might greatly aid the analysis of politics in such societies to incorporate explicitly elements of these models into our research strategies.
I argue that there exists a recognizable strand of political thought, which I call "organic-statist," that runs from Aristotle, through Roman law, natural law, absolutist and modern Catholic social thought. I suggest that organic statism represents powerful philosophical and structural tendencies found throughout Western Europe, and especially in the Iberian countries and their former colonies, where organic statism was never as fully challenged by alternative political models as in the rest of the European cultural area. In addition, I argue that a modern variant of the organic-statist model of society provides a useful analytic framework with which to begin investigating the interrelationship of state and society in one of the more important and original political experiments in modern Latin American history — Peru. But first it is necessary to review the basic assumptions about the role of the state in some of the major models of political life.
I begin with an examination of liberal pluralism and the classical Marxist model of the role of the state in capitalist societies, because in their various guises these two models are the most influential competing methodological paradigms used in contemporary political analysis. As such, I think it is useful to indicate to what extent some of the major lines of development of both of these theories treat the political sphere as a dependent variable, and to indicate some of the empirical and conceptual problems created by an excessive reliance on either approach. A brief discussion of these two approaches is an indispensable prelude to a more extensive analysis of the organic-statist approach for two reasons. First, as a body of literature, from the mid-nineteenth century on, much of the corpus of organic-statist writing has been developed and modified in explicit normative opposition to both liberal pluralism and Marxism. It is therefore important to clarify how these three approaches differ on most of the central questions of political philosophy — on the role of the individual, the nature of the political community, the common good, and most importantly, the state. Second, at the empirical level of twentieth-century Latin American politics, the major political leaders who have attempted to impose corporatist variants of the organic-statist vision of politics on their countries have invariably acted as though liberal and Marxist ideologies and structures were the major obstacles in their path. It is therefore imperative from the point of view of the present analysis to consider the interaction of liberalism, Marxism, and organic statism.
A final preliminary note. By no means do I intend to advocate the normative or analytic superiority of the organic-statist model over that of either liberal pluralism or Marxism. I do, however, want to make explicit the analytic implications of the different models. Most models usually fuse normative, descriptive, and methodological components. However, for analytic purposes these components can be separated. That is, in part, models are normative statements about what societies should be like. In part they are empiricald escriptions of how societies are. In part they are methodological approaches suggesting what aspects of political life are important to study.
Classical Marxism and liberalism pluralism, in very different ways, contain vivid descriptions of what societies are like empirically that tend to portray the state as a dependent variable. Analysts working with either a classical Marxist or liberal-pluralist vision of the real world tend to use methodological approaches to study political life that, as I will attempt to demonstrate, all too frequently systematically draw attention away from consideration of the state as a possible independent variable. Normatively, both models also contain (for different reasons) negative evaluations of the state. My point in reviewing the literature on Marxism and liberal pluralism is not to dismiss them but rather to underscore characteristic research problems presented by both models and to suggest subthemes within both models that, if recast, are useful for contemporary research into state-society relations.
Organic statism, in contrast to liberal pluralism and classical Marxism, is seen most importantly as a normative model of the relations between state and society and not primarily as a methodological approach. However, elites in many different societies, and in different historical periods, have used variants of the organic-statist model as a legitimizing formula — or at times even as a guide — for designing institutions, systems, and administrative structures. Where such state-structured interactions have played a role in shaping societies empirically, then the methodological implications are clear, namely, that at a bare minimum we must design research (even where Marxist or pluralist assumptions figure prominently) so that we are able to assess the comparative weight of the state and /or society in determining political outcomes. My own analytic position, which will emerge more clearly as the book unfolds, is that all three approaches are in some basic respects seriously deficient. Liberal pluralism and a major strand of classical Marxism are deficient largely because of their presuppositions of the near autonomy of society, and organic statism because of its presupposition of the near autonomy of the state. I hope that this book will indicate the necessity of greater theoretical integration of the two obviously non-autonomous spheres: state and society.
The Liberal-Pluralist Approach to the State
In the liberal-pluralist approach the main normative, empirical, and methodological concern is with individuals who, pursuing their individual economic and political interests, together make up society. In pluralist theory, individuals may form into groups, but because they all have a variety of interests they tend to associate themselves with numerous and different groups whose interests cross-cut. A methodological and normative assumption among both political and economic thinkers in the liberal-pluralist tradition is that it is undesirable to use the concept of the general good. Instead, individual utility for the constituent members of society is most nearly achieved when individuals are allowed to pursue freely their own economic and political interests.
The normative and empirical distinction between the "collective interest in the common good" and the "sum of individual interests," which in organic statism or in welfare economics going back to Pareto necessitates a major role for the state in the economy, is obliterated in classical liberal economics because of the supposition that the pursuit of individual interests will in itself produce the best good for society. The classic formulation of the "hidden hand" mechanism that produces this harmony of interests is, of course, that of Adam Smith: "Every individual is continually exerting himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society."
For the classical liberal theoretician, the hidden hand of the market mechanism itself would appear to perform — and perform better — almost all the functions that in other theories are seen as being performed by the state. The clear injunction was to let society regulate itself without interference. Society was a homeostatic system with only minimal need for a state. Thus Jeremy Bentham argued, "The general rule is, that nothing ought to be done or attempted by government. The motto, or watchword of government, on these occasions, ought to be — Be quiet. ... With few exceptions, and these not very considerable ones, the attainment of the maximum of enjoyment will be most effectually secured by leaving each individual to pursue his own maximum enjoyment."
Though the role of the state is apparently reduced to a minimum because of the self-regulating market mechanism, it is often lost sight of that Adam Smith, in a much less well-known passage, in fact assigned three distinct duties to the state:
First, the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of establishing an exact administration of justice; and, thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.
The point then, is, not that society is actually self-regulating but that the market mechanism is assumed to be self-regulating only if the state provides the indispensable neutral and impartial administrative, institutional, and physical infrastructurels for capitalism to function. This is, in fact, quite a large task for the state to perform in any society, and far from being automatic, its performance requires great political skill and power. When we turn to the task of the late developing countries, the fact that they are follower economies makes many of the indispensable infrastructure expenditures "unprofitable for any individual," and the role of the state more crucial. Since 1964 Brazil, for example, has been widely regarded as following a liberal, market mechanism model of development. Yet Roberto Campos, a chief economic architect of the regime, believed that, in order to make the market mechanism work, large-scale and systematic state investment and intervention was required in almost all facets of the country's economic, and especially social, structures. The last decade of market mechanism rule in Brazil thus not so paradoxically ushered in one of the most important epochs of expansion of the scope of state power in Brazil's history.
Twentieth-century pluralism, especially the group-theory variant whose most noted exponents are Arthur Bentley and David Truman, allows for a more positive role for the state. Nonetheless, it implicitly shares with classical liberalism the presupposition that society is basically self-regulating. The functional equivalent of the market's hidden hand in group theory is competition among groups combined with cross-cutting membership among groups. This is the essential self-regulating principle of group theory. In group theory, as in liberal theory more generally, the analysis begins with a concern with how individuals act: "No individual is wholly absorbed in any group to which he belongs. Only a fraction of his attitudes is expressed through any one such affiliation. ... An individual generally belongs to several groups — a family, a church, an economic institution, and frequently a very large number of associations, perhaps sixty or seventy for active 'joiners' in our society." After establishing the fact of multiple memberships, the next step in the analysis is to establish their cross-cutting character: "The demands and standards of these various groups may and frequently do come in conflict with one another. ... We must start from the fact that the equilibrium of an individual consists of his adjustment in the various institutionalized groups and associations to which he belongs."
In group theory the empirical and methodological consequences of multiple overlapping memberships are many and significant. It is the central argument used to dismiss the class basis of Marxist theory, on the ground that unified class consciousness (whether upper or lower class) is an untenable concept in the face of the fragmenting impact of multiple cross-pressures. Also the central normative role for the state as being functionally necessary for the regulation of conflict, a role found in numerous variants of organic statism, is rejected by group theorists because in group theory conflict regulation is basically an autonomous outcome of the interaction of different groups. Pluralistic group theory sees the multiple cross-pressures in society as performing the function of inducing a tendency toward bargaining and compromise both in the individual and in the individual's groups, which strive to maintain group unity in the midst of cross-pressures. "The heterogeneity of membership that causes internal difficulties in all such groups tempers the claims of an occupational interest through the process of internal compromise and adjustment."
This approach, while plausible in high consensus situations, is less appropriate in societies where cleavages are compounded or in crisis situations where, despite cross-pressures, some pressures assume greater salience in terms of the stakes involved than others. In both the above cases the hypothesized self-regulating process has little behavioral impact and the role of the state apparatus and strategic political elites often becomes crucial in determining the outcome.
Bentley does not really discuss the empirical possibility of the state elite's altering the effective power of potential groups either by using repression to dismantle the organizational capacity of some groups or by seeking to broaden the social base for the state elite's programs by organizing from above a group that otherwise would not be able to organize effectively. His assumption is that "when we have a group that participates in the political system we have always another group facing it in the same plane." Truman does not assert that opposing groups are actually organized, but he does place great weight on the fact that all interests are potential interest groups and that, as such, other actual powerful groups will take them into account. Thus the balancing (or repressive) function does not need to be performed by the government because it is the "multiple memberships in potential groups based on widely held and accepted interests that serve as the balance wheel in a going political system like that of the United States." In the writings of Bentley this methodological emphasis on group forces relegates the concept of the "state" to the "intellectual amusements of the past."
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The State and Society by Alfred C. Stepan. Copyright © 1978 Princeton University Press. Excerpted by permission of PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS.
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Table of Contents
- Frontmatter, pg. i
- Contents, pg. vii
- List of Tables and Figures, pg. viii
- Preface, pg. xi
- ONE. Liberal-Pluralist, Classic Marxist, and "Organic-Statist" Approaches to the State, pg. 3
- TWO. "Corporatism" and the State, pg. 46
- THREE. The Installation of Corporatist Regimes: Analytic Framework and Comparative Analysis, pg. 73
- FOUR. Evolution of the Peruvian Army as the Strategic State Elite: Context and Content, pg. 117
- FIVE. Organizing the Weakly Organized: The State and Urban Squatters, pg. 158
- SIX. Reorganizing the Organized: Statism versus "Participatory" Self-Management in the Sugar Cooperatives, pg. 190
- SEVEN. The State and Foreign Capital, pg. 230
- EIGHT. The Institutionalization of Organic-Statist Regimes, pg. 290
- Selected Bibliography, pg. 317
- Index, pg. 339
What People are Saying About This
"This is a highly significant and innovative attempt to apply arguments derived from theories of the state and theories of corporatism to the comparative analysis of authoritarian rule in Latin America. It is the first major book-length statement I know that presents a theoretically oriented, genuinely comparative analysis of the performance of authoritarian regimes in Latin America, and it is excellent."—David Collier, Indiana University