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21 Comp. Pol. Stud. 3 (1988-1989)

handle is hein.journals/compls21 and id is 1 raw text is: INTRODUCTION TO A SPECIAL ISSUE ON THE STATE IN COMPARATIVE AND INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVE JAMES A. CAPORASO Editor, Comparative Political Studies A fter decades of neglect, the concept of the state is once again a central object of theory and empirical research (see Evans et al., 1985; Daedalus, 1979; and Carnoy, 1984, for excellent reviews and edited collections). In the Anglo-Saxon world, the reasons for neglect are not hard to find. The philosophy and methodology associated with logical empiricism stressed a decomposable world of atomic facts, each analytically separate from the others. The methodology itself found it difficult to be supportive of more holistic notions, such as political institutions or the state. Pluralism, the reigning version of domestic politics, saw everything as capable of reduction to group process. States, or governments, existed to be sure, but pluralist theory interpreted them as instruments of convenience designed to advance individual and group interests. The pluralist state was primarily passive, reacting to pressures emanating from society. Its dependent role discouraged attention to it as an active agent in the political process. The resurgence of interest in the state is more difficult to explain. There seem to be no compelling breakthroughs that have stimulated fundamental research, making it unlikely that contemporary interest in the state is a purely internal intellectual matter. Indeed, one of the most important academic articles on the state was written in 1968 (Nettl, 1968) but attracted very little attention until over 10 years later. Something was not quite yet ripe, and that something probably lay in the political rather than the academic world. If one discounts the cycles of academic fads (from the state to govern- ment to political system back to the state?), it is likely that renewed in- terest in the state stems from changes that have occurred, and that COMPARATIVE POLITICAL STUDIES, Vol. 21 No. 1, April 1988 3-12 C 1988 Sage Publications, Inc. 3 from the SAGE Social Science Collections. All Rights Reserved.

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