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Nicos Poulantzas (1936–1979) was a leading theorist on the capitalist state. Although widely regarded mainly as an exponent of the structuralist Marxism associated with Algerian philosopher Louis Althusser, Poulantzas’s thought evolved through various stages to its culmination in a reexamination of Marxist tenets and an engagement with Eurocommunism. Contrary to his image as a jargon-laden theorist of abstract structuralism, Poulantzas remained focused on questions of political strategy throughout his career. His suicide on October 3, 1979, prematurely robbed Western Marxism of one of its most influential figures and marked the end of the great “state debate” of the 1970s.

Born in Athens, Greece, on September 21, 1936, Poulantzas lived through both the Nazi occupation and subsequent civil war. After studying law, he moved to Paris in 1960. Although originally attracted to the existentialism of French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Poulantzas began reading the work of Italian political theorist and activist Antonio Gramsci, who would prove to be a lasting influence. An early article written by Poulantzas led Althusser to invite him to join his informal group of students. This, combined with the political ferment in Paris at the time—which later climaxed in the street protests of May 1968—led to the publication of Poulantzas’s first book.

Political Power and Social Classes (1968) firmly established the state as an object of theorizing and analysis, following decades of neglect by social scientists of all theoretical stripes. Poulantzas portrayed the capitalist state as a relatively autonomous condensation of class struggles that functions to manage class contradictions such that the dominant class or bloc of class fractions can create and maintain the political conditions necessary for the survival of the dominant mode of production. Together with Belgian political theorist Ralph Miliband’s The State in Capitalist Society (1969), which offered a more empirically based and instrumentalist portrayal of the state in contrast to Poulantzas’s conceptual and structuralist treatment, the book stimulated a wealth of new research and theorizing.

Despite the degeneration of the Miliband-Poulantzas debate into a dispute over what constitutes correct “Marxist” methodology, Poulantzas constantly developed his ideas. Miliband’s critique of structuralist abstraction met its response in Poulantzas’s subsequent works of a more empirical nature. These focused on the experience of interwar fascism and the more contemporaneous European military dictatorships, such as that of Greece.

In Classes in Contemporary Capitalism (1974), Poulantzas extended his structuralist analysis of the state, analyzing the “imperialist chain” linking formally separate states via the cross-border expansion of multinational corporations. The consequent reconfiguration of host countries’ legal and political systems along American lines led him to portray multinational corporations as vehicles of U.S. hegemony.

State, Power, Socialism (1978) marked Poulantzas’s shift away from both Althusserian structuralism and Leninist politics as he sought to respond to challenges posed especially by French historian and philosopher Michel Paul Foucault. Poulantzas saw Foucault’s treatment of power as diffuse and pervasive as both suggestive of more fruitful inquiry and theoretically inadequate. Poulantzas depicted an expansive and expanding state, which, in contrast to the belief common in Leninism, was itself a site of political struggle, rather than something to be smashed from outside. However, he continued to acknowledge the state’s relative autonomy.Among the various prescient contributions of this book, Poulantzas observed trends toward authoritarianism and the growth of new social movements that became much more pronounced in the following decade. He also anticipated much subsequent critique of Foucault.

Bibliography:

Aronowitz, Stanley, and Peter Bratsis, eds. Paradigm Lost: State Theory Reconsidered. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Jessop, Bob. Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory and Political Strategy. London: Macmillan, 1985.
Poulantzas, Nicos. Classes in Contemporary Capitalism. Translated by David Fernbach. London: New Left Books, 1975.
Political Power and Social Classes. Translated by Timothy O’Hagan. London: Sheed and Ward, 1973.
State, Power, Socialism. Translated by Patrick Camiller. London: New Left Books, 1978.

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