The Coming of Strong States in the Third World

Within Marxist theory, the phenomenon of a relatively independent authoritarian state actively engaged in capitalist development has been something unexpected. The classic Marxist analysis of the state held that the state was only the manager who looked after the interests of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie or the private capitalist was always the key factor examined in these attempts to explain social processes in a capitalist social formation. How the bourgeoisie appropriates the surplus value and by what means were regarded as crucial variables. The state is only, more or less, the dependent variable of this social process. This view has given birth to a debate among Marxist social scientists. Skocpol, in her critical comments, has pointed out “the enduring sociological proclivity to absorb the state into the society” in Marxist theory of the state (1979, p. 28).

However, there has been an evolution of this classic Marxist theory. Marx himself started this evolution. In his concept of the Bonapartist state, he talked about a relatively autonomous state which acted against the immediate interests of the existing bourgeoisie. The state then emerged above the existing social classes. This is explained in terms of the strong demands of labour against the still weak bourgeoisie. Confronting labour's demands might have meant destroying the whole capitalist system. To save the system, the state was “forced” to act autonomously against the bourgeoisie. The Bonapartist state was, therefore, a relatively autonomous state vis-à-vis the capitalist class, which came forward to assure the long-term survival of the system. It was not a passive tool of the bourgeoisie.

The autonomous state has received little attention in neo-Marxist de-pendency theories, especially the early ones. The most important factor, according to these theories, is the bourgeoisie, in both the core and peripheral countries. Direct foreign investment, foreign aid and unequal exchange in international trade have been focused on by the dependency theorists in their attempts to understand the development of underdevelopment in the periphery. The state was seen always to act on the bourgeoisie's behalf. (See Baran 1968; and Frank 1967).