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The State-Society Relationship in Peripheral Countries: Critical Notes on the Dominant Paradigms
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Abstract
Conceptualizing the state-society relationship in order to explain its byproduct underdevelopment in all peripheral countries presupposes agreement on the definition of underdevelopment. Such agreement is possible only by making the concept less abstract. Dominant paradigms which have conceptualized the state-society relationship and attempted to explain underdevelopment have not generally been successful because of their failure to make operational the concept of underdevelopment and the corollary of their excessive reliance on “regional or local differences.”
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References
Notes
1 Quoted by N'krumah, Kwame, Challenge of the Congo (New York: International Publishers, 1970), p. 5.Google Scholar
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7 Calculated from UN Demographic Yearbook 1983 (New York, 1985), tables 156, 157, 158, 159.Google Scholar
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14 This definition of the state refers to the “modern state”; one understands why to Poulantzas's relational nature of the state — to which I subscribe — I have added the Weberian definitional element of the monopoly of “legitimate” force. The fact that these relationships are sustained by “political power” is recognized by most, if not all, studies on the state even by those who, like D. Easton or G. Almond, use “political system” rather than “state” in their analyses. See, Easton, David, The Political System (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1971)Google Scholar and A Framework for Political Analysis (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1979)Google Scholar; Almond, Gabriel and Powell, Bingham, Comparative Politics (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1966)Google Scholar; Poulatzas, Nicos, Political Power and Social Classes (London: Verso Editions, 1978)Google Scholar and State, Power, Socialism (London: Verso Editions, 1980).Google Scholar
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16 My definition of authoritarianism is consistent with that proposed by writers such as Juan Linz, Guillermo O'Donnell, James Malloy and other proponents of the authoritarian model — even though, as this essay reveals, I dissent from them at the explanatory level. By authoritarianism I mean a political mode of organization characterized by strong and autonomous governmental structures that seek to impose on the society a system of interest representation based on enforced limited (political) pluralism. In this mode of organization spontaneous interest articulations are eliminated and a limited number of authoritatively recognized groups that interact with the governmental apparatus is established. See Malloy, , Authoritarianism and Corporatism, p. 4.Google Scholar
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56 See Fanon, Frantz, The Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1968).Google Scholar
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