UGC NET Political Science (002)

Welcome to UGC NET Political Science (002). We will study Theories of the State: Liberal, Marxist, Elite, Feminist, Post-Colonial, work through an example, and practise using the course's learning material. Paper I + Paper II Political Science specialisation. Sign in and use the study header to open your authorised course. Select this published lesson. Start Course Tutor with Auto audio on: it teaches continuously, answers a typed question, then resumes. Marxist theory denies neutrality outright, but it divides over how domination operates. The instrumentalist account, associated with Ralph Miliband, holds that the state serves the dominant class because its senior personnel are drawn from that class, share its education, connections and outlook, and act accordingly. A government with a large parliamentary majority abandons a proposed tax on financial transactions after sustained opposition from the financial sector. Explain the episode from three theoretical standpoints. Give the pluralist reading first. An organised interest mobilised, presented evidence and arguments, and persuaded the government that the measure would be damaging; other groups were free to do likewise and did not, or did so less effectively. The state acted as a referee and the outcome reflects the balance of organised opinion. Give the neo-pluralist correction. This group did not merely argue; it held a position no other group occupies, because the government depends on the sector for revenue, credit and employment, and the credible prospect of capital relocating alters the calculation before any argument is made. Privileged position rather than persuasion explains the result. Give the Marxist readings and distinguish them. An instrumentalist points to the recruitment of ministers and officials from the same milieu as the financiers and to the movement of personnel between them. A structuralist replies that this is unnecessary: any government, whatever its composition or intentions, must maintain conditions for accumulation because its revenue and legitimacy depend on economic performance, so a government of quite different personnel would have retreated too. State the discriminating test. The accounts diverge on what would happen with different personnel, so the question is whether comparable governments of different social composition behaved differently. If they did not, the structural account is better supported; and this is also where elite theory enters, since it would locate the outcome in the interlocking of leadership groups rather than in class relations. Which mistake would change the reasoning in this example? The first mistake is describing pluralism as the claim that power is equally distributed, when it claims only that it is dispersed and that no group prevails on every issue. The second is presenting the Marxist theory of the state as a single position. Ask Course Tutor: please explain this step from the example. Privileged position rather than persuasion explains the result. Give the Marxist readings and distinguish them. Why does it follow? Add what you tried, so the explanation addresses your difficulty. Now try the source practice. What does relative autonomy mean and why does the structuralist account require it? Pause before the answer. The source answer is: It means the state's freedom to act independently of, and sometimes against, the immediate demands of particular capitalists. The account requires it because sustaining the system needs measures such as welfare provision, regulation and concessions to labour that individual capitalists oppose, so a state entirely captured by them could not perform the function attributed to it. Explain the key idea in your own words, revisit any mistaken step, then continue to the next lesson. Use Stop to end Course Tutor when you finish.