Johnston - Geography and The State

Geography and the State
Geography and the State

An Essay in Political Geography
R. J. JOHNSTON
Macmillan Education
ISBN 978-0-333-28970-9 ISBN 978-1-349-16967-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-16967-2
R.J.Johnston 1982
Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1982 978-0-333-28969-3
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StMartin's Press, Inc., 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010
First published in the United States of America in 1982
ISBN 978-0-312-32172-7
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Johnston, R. J. (Ronald John)

Geography and the state
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
I. Geography, Political. I. Title.
JC319.J638 1982 320.1'2 82-10438
ISBN 978-0-312-32172-7
For Rita
Contents
Preface ix
1. Geography and the State: an Introduction 1

Sovereignty 1
The geography of state activity 4
Conclusions 9
2. The State: its Nature and Functions 11

The functions of the state 11
The role of the state 15
State actions 22
In summary 26
3. The Development of the State 28
Predecessors of the modern state 29
The early state 40
From feudalism to capitalism and the early to the
modern state 50
Late capitalism 59
Beyond late capitalism 64
Conclusion 65
4. The State and the Contemporary World-Economy 66
The contemporary world-economy 67
Core, periphery and semi-periphery 73
The state and the core-periphery structure 79
The state versus neocolonialism 81
The state as ally of neocolonialism 100
The changing morphology of the state system 108
Conclusions 118
5. The State, its Territory and its People 120

Core, periphery and semi-periphery 123
Nations against the state: secessionist movements 140
viii Contents
The state and the economic core-periphery structure 154

The geography of pluralism 161
The state and the environment 168
Conclusions 186
6. The Local State 187

Federations 188
The nature of local government 190
Pluralism and the local state 200
Local instrumentalism 213
Local managerialism 222
Combatting managers and local instrumentalism 234
The local fiscal crisis 248
The local state and local autonomy 254
Conclusions 260
Postscript 261
References 263
Index 281
Preface
There can be no distinctive political geographical theory

but only a political-geographical perspective within the
wider context of political economy: there is no
subdiscipline of political geography.
P. J. Taylor
That is the manner in which politics unfold - not by
conspiracies and the exercise of personal power but by
error, muddle, doubt, instinct, and the free play of human
weakness.
P. Jenkins
The origins of this book lie in a concern with the substance of

political geography and its contribution to human geography
in recent decades. As I became more involved with the
literature and research in the field, so I became more certain
that political geography was in an arrested state of
development, not, as some have claimed, because the
quantitative revolution had passed it by, but rather because it
had evolved no sensible treatment of the central element in
its work - the state. As I have argued elsewhere, both in
academic polemic (Johnston, 1980b, 1980d, 198lb) and in
major reviews (Johnston, 198la, 1981g), political
geographers have neither developed nor adopted any viable
theory of the state, without which their analyses are
incomplete. (All of the attempted analyses, and the many
descriptions, are based on an implicit theory; almost
invariably this is naive and unrealistic.) This book follows on
from those pieces, by presenting the outline of a theoretical
approach, both to the study of the state and to the study of
state actions. It is a contribution to the political geography
perspective, not a political geography.
x Preface
The basis to this contribution is aptly summarised by the

two quotations at the beginning of this Preface. I agree with
Taylor that there can be no autonomous political geography,
only a geographical perspective on political topics. That
perspective focuses on the interrelationships between the
state and various geographical distributions and between the
state and aspects of the environment. In the search for
explanations of those interrelationships, the geographer
cannot stay at the level of appearances. His theoretical
perspectives must be derived from the field of political
economy, which forms the theoretical heart of the social
sciences. But these perspectives are insufficient. As argued in
this book, they provide theories of the state, its nature and
functions, but not of state activity, of how its functions are
fulfilled. For the latter, a separate - though not independent
- set of theories is required. These are theories - or
perspectives at least - of individual (including corporate)
decision-making. The quote by Jenkins is perhaps overly
sanguine in its view of how the state acts, but it highlights the
need to study politicians and bureaucrats in action, muddling
through.
The approach of this book, therefore, is set with my own
naive realist philosophy of human geography (Johnston,
1980f, 1982f). The prime task of the human geographer is to
account for the world as he perceives it, with particular
reference to spatial variability within that world. The
perceived distributions do not explain themselves, however.
Searches for explanation must be based on the processes that
generate the distributions, and on the decision-making
within those processes that produces the particular observed
realisations; hence the twin interest here in theories of the
state and theories of state action. Within the social sciences,
the geographical perspective is very largely an empirical one,
but its explanations must be theoretically derived.
This book is in a series entitled 'Critical Human
Geography', which is intended to provide 'a critical
examination and extension of the concepts and consequences
of work in human geography'. The aim of critical sciences as
a whole, as described by Held (1980: 319) and derived from
the writings of Habermas,
Preface xi
is to facilitate the process of methodical self-reflection and

to dissolve barriers to the self-conscious development of
life. An adequate understanding of all social practices,
including scientific inquiry, depends ultimately on these
sciences: for by disclosing deformations of com-
munication they attempt to restore to men and women a
true awareness of their position in history.
The analyses of geography and the state presented here have

been undertaken in that spirit. The goal is to encourage
geographers to consider the state more deeply than
heretofore, through a combination of theoretical speculation
and empirical illustration. This is not applied geography in
the traditional sense of having some proximate goal of
influencing public policy. Rather, it is applied in the sense of
suggesting how a fuller understanding can increase
awareness- through geographical teaching and writing- of
the nature of the state, and thereby inform individual
practice with regard to the state in the future. Whether that
practice focuses on the achievement of major changes in the
state and the mode of production that it supports, whether it
is oriented towards short-term reform, or whether both ends
can be pursued simultaneously, is a decision for the
individual (Johnston, 198lh). The aim of this book is to
inform and to stimulate, not to preach and to prescribe.
Academic books can be grouped into five main types. The

first are the instructional texts, those which impart a set body
of knowledge; in human geography, statistics texts are
probably the best examples of these. Closely associated are
the second type, the review texts, which synthesise a body of
knowledge, and the third, the collections of readings or
original essays, which present major statements on particular
themes. The fourth type comprises the more eclectic research
monographs. Finally, there is the essay, what might be
termed the 'academic polemic', which is selective in its
treatment of a subject and aims to stimulate further thought
and work on a particular topic. Such books are aimed at
other academics and at senior students, those who have
received the conventional wisdom from the textbooks and
xii Preface
are developing their critiques of what has been handed down.

This book is presented as such an essay. It is written to
stimulate interest in the reality of the state among political
geographers and to contribute to the development of their
perspective within the social sciences. It is recognisably
partial, focusing most of its attention on the state in
capitalist societies.
In preparing this essay, I am grateful to Mark Billinge,
Derek Gregory and Ron Martin for encouraging me to write
it, and to John Winckler and Steven Kennedy for helping in
the production process. Pete Taylor has been research
companion and constant source of stimulation during the
years in which the essay was developing and being written;
Derek Gregory and Ron Martin commented on the entire
manuscript and made many very useful suggestions for its
improvement. To my wife Rita, who decided to read the full
draft while convalescent, I am grateful not only for her
continuing support but also for her many useful suggestions.
And once again Joan Dunn has endured yet another biro-
written scrawl and achieved a major transformation.
University of Sheffield R. J. JOHNSTON

1 Geography and the
State: an Introduction
Why study geography and the state? As pointed out in the

preface, until very recently geographers- including political
geographers - have paid little attention to the state and have
not subjected it to rigorous analysis. Even now, the state is
not among the major research interests of geographers and
several recent books in political geography pay it but scant
attention. The case for the present book is that such an
omission considerably devalues much geographical analysis
- in all branches of human geography, including political
geography. The foundations for this case are two: the extent
of sovereignty; and the size and range of functions of the
state apparatus.
Sovereignty
Virtually every resident of the earth is a subject of a

sovereign state, and he or she has little or no influence over
which state that is. He or she is born a citizen of the state of
residence (unless one or both parents are citizens of another);
the occurrence of the birth must be recorded; and the
individual is henceforth subject to the laws of the state.
Moving from one state to another is possible, as is changing
one's citizenship, but there are barriers to both: declining to
be a citizen of any state is not a choice available to most.
(There are some stateless persons, most of them refugees
from one state who have not been granted citizenship by
another.)
States are sovereign bodies; their existence is recognised by
other states and their autonomy within defined territorial
limits is (generally) respected. Occasionally sovereignty is
2 Geography and the State
disputed, as in border conflicts between neighbouring states

and the unwillingness of nearly every other state in the world
to recognise the 'independent states' being created by the
Republic of South Africa out of the black homelands or
Bantustans into which native blacks are being herded.
Occasionally, too, sovereignty may be violated. Some trivial
violations, such as entry into a state's territorial waters or
airspace, occur relatively frequently; more serious ones, such
as the South African raids into Mozambique and Angola on
terrorist 'search and destroy' missions, are much less
frequent, and are treated much more seriously; major
violations, usually invasions that lead to wars which
challenge sovereignty, are rare but of much greater long-term
importance.
Within each state, sovereignty itself is wielded by a
recognised competent body. In most contemporary states
this is some form of executive-cum-legislature, whose nature
and functions are defined by constitution: in others, it is a
body of individuals who have taken upon themselves the
right to exercise the sovereign power and whose existence is
accepted, albeit somewhat unwillingly in many cases, by the
state's population. The existence of this body is recognised
by the similar body in each of the other states as the rightful
holder of the sovereign power. (In some cases, states -
through their sovereign bodies - recognise the existence of
other states but not the right of those currently in power
there to exercise sovereignty.) States treat with each other,
bilaterally and multilaterally, through these sovereign
bodies.
The nature of sovereignty - indeed of the state itself - is
not unchanging, and modern sovereign states and the
exercise of power within them are very different from their
predecessors. For many centuries, sovereignty in most states
was vested in certain individuals or groups who collectively
were the owners of the state territory; the remainder of the
population were their personal subjects. Today, the absolute
rights of such landowners have very largely been removed
and sovereignty has been vested in all of the state's
inhabitants. These, in turn, require an administrative
apparatus to operate the state for them and to exercise its
Geography and the State: an Introduction 3
sovereignty. In order for that to be done, for the general

welfare of the state as a whole (however, and by whom, that
general welfare might be defined), individuals accept certain
duties and relinquish certain freedoms. The duties that they
must undertake, and the freedoms they must relinquish, vary
from place to place and time to time, according to the state
apparatus that has been established and the context in which
it operates. (The duty to perform military service is an
example of the first and the right to travel at night is an
example of the second; neither is universally demanded, but
both have been on many occasions.) Part of the individual's
(unwritten) contract with the state allows him certain
influence over it (at elections for those who will exercise the
sovereign power, for example). The amount of influence
varies considerably, however, and in some states - despite
constitutional and/ or other safeguards - it is virtually
negligible: the state apparatus is very much a self-
perpetuating body over which the individual citizen has
relatively little control.
From birth onwards, therefore, the individual is a citizen
of a sovereign state and is subject to the exercise of that
sovereignty by the legally constituted body, which may be an
individual, a group, or society itself. This places certain
constraints on the individual's freedom. Movement within
most states is free, so long as the private ownership of land
and property is respected; the exceptions include states
requiring pass laws, as has been the case in the Soviet Union
and the Republic of South Africa.
Movement between states is restricted, however, and for
many people is prohibited. To leave a state's territory a
citizen requires a permit; in the majority, this is readily
granted to most people, sometimes with financial
implications, but in others, again the Soviet Union is an
example, few people are allowed to leave, even temporarily.
Movement into other states is generally more difficult,
especially if the intention is to remain there. Some sta~es are
loathe to allow any permanent immigrants. Most have
restrictions, limiting their annual intake (in some places,
with quotas for different origins). In certain situations, as in
the United States until the 1920s, large numbers of new
residents have been welcomed, although the host generally

retains the right to be selective among the applicants. In
others, as is the case now in most states, restrictions are
severe: New Zealand, for example, will only issue work and
residence permits to young, healthy adults who have skills
that the country requires, and who have only small families.
Modern man, therefore, is a citizen of a sovereign state, is
subject to the laws enacted by its sovereign legislative body
and is unable individually to effect much change on the
existing order. He is therefore born constrained, not free; he
is spatially tethered and subject to rules which he may or may
not accept.
This vital element in the condition of modern man is in
itself sufficient to make analysis of the state an important
element of any attempt to understand human societies.
Contemporary states, according to Finer (1975a), share five
salient features: (i) a territorial definition; (ii) a government
(the sovereign body) that performs both civil and military
functions; (iii) mutual recognition and respect of sovereignty
between states; (iv) a community of feeling with the
population; and (v) 'members mutually distribute and share
duties and benefits' (Finer, 1975a: 86). Together, these
indicate important geographical components. The most
significant is the territorial demarcation; the existence of a
state is indicated by its spatial delineation. In addition, the
development of state communities, and their expression in
the allocation of duties and benefits plus the operations of
government, creates variety on the earth's surface, whose
depiction and analysis is a primary task of the geographer.
The geography of state activity
Modern urban man is born in a publicly financed hospital,

receives his education in a publicly supported school and
university, spends a good part of his life travelling on
publicly built transportation facilities, communicates
through the post office or the quasi-public telephone
system, drinks his public water, disposes of his garbage
through the public removal system, reads his public library
books, picnics in his public parks, is protected by his

public police, fire and health systems: eventually he dies,
again in a hospital, and may even be buried in a public
cemetery. Ideological conservatives notwithstanding, his
everyday life is inextricably bound up with governmental
decisions on these and numerous other local public
services.
(Teitz, 1968: 36)
The set of sovereign states which forms an almost exhaustive

coverage of the earth's land surface is not just a body of
containers which provide a useful framework for analysing
the human condition. As the above (frequently reproduced)
quotation suggests, states are active elements within society,
providing services which are consumed by the public.
And yet Teitz provides an incomplete picture of the extent
of state penetration into everyday life. He does not note, for
example, that modern urban man may be a state employee.
In Britain in 1976, over 30 per cent of all members of the
labour force were state employees: among adults alone, 48
per cent derived their primary source of income from the
state (Parry, 1980; Rose, 1980). A similar percentage holds
in many other countries (Sweden, 49.5; Ireland, 43; Italy,
42), although the figure in the United States is substantially
lower, at 35 per cent.
Even if he or she is not directly employed by the state, an
individual may be either wholly or in large part dependent on
state expenditures for his income. Of those entirely
dependent, the largest group are those who work in private
industry for the government's suppliers, such as defence
contractors. Others are in employment because of the
multiplier processes generated by government spending: in
manufacturing, these include subcontractors to the
government's suppliers; in service industries, they include
those who service both government employees and the
recipients of state-provided incomes.
Outside such direct and indirect influences on their sources
of income, almost all residents of every state - and certainly
so in the more developed states - are affected by a wide range
of government actions, many of which are intended to
maintain economic and social stability. Thus, for example,

the prices that farmers are paid for their products are
influenced, if not determined, by government policy;
fishermen may have the size of their catches and the sorts of
fish they can catch - and when - similarly determined by
government; and owners of factories and developers of
homes are subject to state regulations on where they can
operate, and how.
The state intrudes into many aspects of economic and
social life, therefore, with the details of each intrusion
reflecting the aims and beliefs of the relevant government in
a particular place at a particular time. The extent of this
intrusion is generally measured by the size of the state
budget, usually expressed relative to an indicator of total
national income, such as gross national and gross domestic
product. In most states, this ratio has increased substantially
in recent decades (Johnston, 1979a, 1980a; Bennett, 1980).
Rose (1977) has suggested a threefold typology of the
expenditure involved:
1. State purchases from private capitalists, including
military hardware, general supplies, and infrastructure
(e.g. roads),
2. Transfer payments between groups in society, as from
rich to poor, employed to unemployed, retired and
children, and taxpayer to subsidised farmer,
3. State provision of services, including administration,
regulation, social services, education, and investment in
capitalism's future (via research and development).
Many of these functions are devolved - to ad hoc agencies
(such as the British National Health Service), to quasi-
autonomous nationalised industries, to quasi-autonomous
non-governmental organisations (QUANGOs), and to the
local state. None of these is independent; each is subject to
constraints imposed by the central arm of the state - the
government. Local governments in England and Wales, for
example, are responsible for the following services: social;
education; housing; town and country planning; highways;
environmental; police; fire; consumer protection; recreation
and tourism; licensing and registration. These are allocated
between the two main levels- county and district. (For a full
list of the services, see Richards, 1973.)
The geographer's interests in state activity are manifold,
because many of the spending and regulatory functions just
described vary over space. The economic geography of a
country, for example, may be influenced by state activity in a
variety of ways. First, the geography of state purchases is
spatially differentiated, reflecting the location of its prime
suppliers. In the United States in the early 1960s, for
example, over 25 per cent of the exogenously derived income
of the States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Hawaii, Maryland and Virginia came from prime military
contracts, and in eight of the forty-eight conterminous States
(Arizona, California, Colorado, Kansas, Mississippi, New
Hampshire, New Mexico, and Utah) over 20 per cent of
economic growth during the decade 1952-62 reflected
defence expenditures (Bolton, 1966; Hewings, 1977).
Second, many governments (central and local) seek to
influence the location of economic activity, notably through
regional and area development policies, which include
investment in infrastructure and research. And finally, the
recipients of certain government payments are spatially
concentrated - such as the retired in certain resort and rural
areas, and the farmers in certain regions - so that the state
makes a greater contribution to incomes and to employment
generation there than elsewhere.
A second reason for the spatially variable effect of state
activity is the nature of the goods and services provided, by
the central state itself and by its subsidiary bodies. With
some, spatial variation in provision is intended; with others,
spatial variations are the consequences of aspatial policies
(Glickman, 1980). A classification of services provided by
governments (often termed 'public goods'), for example,
suggests three main types, two of which have substantial
geographical components (Johnston, 198lc):
(1) Pure public goods. These are equally available to all
residents of the relevant territory, wherever they live.
Nobody is excluded and nobody can reject the good
(Bennett, 1980); the clearest example is national defence.
(2) Impure public goods. These are goods and services
provided at a particular location and which, because of

variations in accessibility and the influence of travel cost and
time on behaviour, are more available to, and used by, those
who live near to them than those who live some distance
away. Public parks are excellent examples of such facilities;
people tend to use them less the further away that they live
from them. Many components of the health service are
similar impure goods, with clear negative relationships
between, for example, distance from a doctor's surgery and
frequency of consultation (Knox, 1982). Similarly services
delivered from a central point - such as fire and ambulance -
are superior for residents near to that point, because the
relevant vehicle can reach them more quickly.
(3) Public goods impurely distributed. These are goods
which the relevant government or government agency
distributes unequally, either intentionally or unintentionally.
Police activity within a territory, for example, may be
concentrated on certain areas, either because the police
believe that such areas are more likely to generate crime or
because they are directed to pay more attention to potential
targets in those areas than in others. Health services, too,
may be spatially concentrated, either because of similar
spatial concentrations of disease or because administrators
and/ or their political masters believe that the populations of
certain areas 'deserve' better treatment.
Finally, spatial variations arise because of territorial
fragmentation. International differences in various
government activities are the clearest examples of this on a
massive range of indicators, such as income tax relief for
mortgage interest repayments, expenditure on the armed
forces, the provision of public schools and hospitals, and
support for the arts and sport. Within each country, the
devolution of many functions to local states makes for
substantial inter-jurisdictional variations, as local
governments exercise their authority within the constraints
allowed. Thus, for example, among the thirty-two
metropolitan boroughs within Greater London, those with
Labour-dominated councils have spent much more, relative
to need, on public housing construction and renovation than
have those with Conservative-dominated councils (Pinch,
1978): similarly in provision of services for the elderly, the

strength of the Labour Party in the borough councils is
positively correlated with expenditure on domestic help,
home visiting and the meals-on-wheels service (Pinch, 1980).
There may be unease among local governments regarding
the directives and constraints issued by the central
government which, as illustrated in Chapter 6, may lead to
conflict between local and central state over what the former
can and cannot do. Although sovereignty, except in
federations, generally lies with the central state, the central
government may feel that it must yield to local demands on
certain issues in order to retain its legitimacy, whilst holding
firm on others which represent its interpretation of the role
of the state (central plus local) within the political economy.
Thus the functions of local governments are to some extent
negotiable.
Conclusions
The human geography of the world is often interpreted as the

human geography of an assemblage of sovereign states. The
existence of these, with their differing cultures, tradition,
laws, regulations, environments and histories, is stamped on
the landscape, and international boundaries and frontiers are
clearly demarcated, in a large number of ways. Thus it is not
surprising that geographers have used states as major units in
their presentation of regional accounts.
The existence of sovereign states is only a small part of
their relevance to the study of contemporary human
geography. Political geography is inextricably intertwined
with economic and social geography because of the large -
and increasing- influence of the sovereign body within each
state on patterns of economic and social activity there. This
fact has been insufficiently recognised among human
geographers until very recently (Johnston, 1979b, 1980b,
1981 b). Now that it is, it is necessary not simply to treat the
state as a residual to the traditional locational studies
undertaken but to integrate the state into investigations of
economic and social processes (Cox and Johnston, 1982).
It is necessary, however, to realise that at present in many

parts of the world the state is subservient to dominant
economic interests; as Anthony Sampson (1975: 114),
quoting Harold Green, puts it, 'Increasingly, the larger
corporations have become the primary custodians of making
our entire system work'. Thus while the importance of the
state must be recognised and treated accordingly, this must
not be exaggerated and understanding the state must be set in
its proper context. What are required, therefore, are theories
of the state and of state activity which recognise the limits to
state power set by economic and other forces; exploring the
development of such theories is the task of the rest of this
book.
2 The State: its Nature
and Functions
The preceding chapter has outlined the rationale for this

book, arguing that the state is a major element in modern
society and involved in very significant interrelationships
with the geography of that society. Indeed since, as
increasingly is being argued, 'space is what the political
economy makes it' (Blaikie, 1978: 289), since the study of
space is central to the study of geography, and since the state
is a crucial component of political economy, to study the
geography of a society without studying its state is to
truncate the analysis significantly. Such a 'complete' study
could be of two forms. It could focus on a certain aspect of
the society(ies) in question - such as economic geography -
in which the state must be considered as one actor; or it could
focus on the political geography, identifying its
interrelationships with other elements and making the state
the central element of the analysis. In either case, the state
could not be taken as a 'given', as something that exists and
does certain things. The reasons for both its existence and its
particular activities must be understood; only then can its
geographical nature and functions be comprehended.
The functions of the state
There is a great deal of writing on the state, its nature and its
functions. Some of this is by academics; some is by those
active within the state - notably politicians; some is by
political commentators. Much of it is positive, describing
what the state is and what it does; some is normative,
outlining what the author believes the state should and
should not do. Chapter 1 of this book falls into the former
category; it provides a brief positive outline of the nature of

the state (a sovereign body governing a defined territory) and
of the functions that it performs which are important to the
study of the geography of that territory. It is out of such
descriptive work that many theories of the state (particularly
personal theories) are developed. They focus on what the
state does and present the study of the state as the body that
does those things.
Such theories present the state as performing one or more
of the following tasks:
(1) The state as protector. This theory presents the state
performing a police function, which involves a variety of
tasks. It protects the members of the state (the residents of its
territory) from those of other states: such protection is not
only physical, but also economic (via customs duties, etc.)
and social (restrictions on immigration, for example). Much
of this protection takes place with regard to the state's
territorial boundaries; some occurs beyond those, with the
physical, economic and social protection that a state
provides for its members in the territories of other states. It
also protects the members from each other, through its
definition of crimes (again physical, economic, and social),
the punishments it imposes on offenders, and the regulatory
mechanisms that it introduces (such as police forces, health
inspectors, and pollution control officers) to prevent the
commission of these crimes. Finally, it acts as protector for
those who, generally though not exclusively through no fault
of their own, are economically and/ or socially hurt by
society's operations (that damage may include physical
harm); such protection generally goes under the umbrella
title of the 'welfare state', including government
programmes of payments to the unemployed, sickness
benefits and the provision of hospitals.
(2) The state as arbitrator. Disagreement is endemic in
human societies and institutions, however small. Much of it
takes place at a personal level, and impinges so slightly on
the rest of society as to have no noticeable impact. Some of it
achieves greater significance, however, usually either
because it involves a considerable number of people or
because it is concerned with an issue of interest to many
The State: its Nature and Functions 13
apart from those directly implicated (i.e. it raises a point of
principle). In such cases, the protagonists may not be able to
come to a conclusion of the dispute among themselves, and
require the arbitration of an independent, respected third
party. The state is such a third party, being involved in
reconciling disputes over such a variety of topics as marital
property (including children), wage levels, and the use of a
piece of land. Some of these disputes must be reacted to in an
ad hoc manner. For the majority, the state has created
a range of institutions, each of which has set procedures
and principles with which to handle a particular type of
dispute.
(3) The state as cohesive force. In part as a reflection of
the disagrements mentioned in the previous paragraphs, all
states contain within themselves latent tendencies to
segment. Many of these are unlikely to create fission, since
they have no territorial base which could lead to a subsivision
of the state. They challenge the structure of the society or
some aspect of it. If such challenge is not to create social and
economic chaos it must be countered by an institution that
will integrate the conflicting elements into a united body.
The state is that institution. It could try to create unity by
force. More likely, however, is an attempt to foster unity by
appeals to common ties, to the concept of the nation. Thus
the state has an ideological role as the focus of national life,
with individuals accepting that loyalty to the nation (through
the state) as sometimes more important than self-interest.
The state is the adhesive that keeps the members of society
united, countering fissiparious tendencies. (If such
tendencies have territorial bases, the concept of the nation is
designed to hold together the constituent spatial parts.)
(4) The state as facilitator. In a modern society, the
complex division of labour requires an extensive
infrastructure to facilitate social and economic interaction.
Parts of this infrastructure take the form of physical plant,
such as roads, railways, and power transmission lines. Other
parts are institutions which channel and switch movements,
such as finance houses and insurance underwriters. Some of
the infrastructure is provided by private sector firms. Some-
an increasing proportion in many countries - is provided by
the state, which therefore underwrites the economic

operations of society.
(5) The state as investor. Modern societies are constantly
changing, and the failure of any country to keep pace will
almost certainly ensure economic decline, which brings with
it social problems. To survive, firms in the private sector
must be continually seeking to increase productivity and
sales. To do this, they must invest- in people, in plant, and
in ideas. The society as a whole requires them to succeed, and
so - through the state - takes a part in this investment: in
people, through the education system that it provides; in
ideas, through finance for research and development; and in
plant through subsidies to firms.
(6) The state as bureaucracy. Probably the most visible
indication of the existence of a state within its territorial
boundaries is its labour force, the size of which was indicated
in the previous chapter. This segment of society, having been
created, has a rationale of its own. It is a vested interest
group which, as a consequence of the functions it performs,
has considerable power within society. It does not wish to see
its power reduced, because that threatens the social wellbeing
of the operators of the state, the bureaucrats, both
individually and collectively. Thus the state is a force for its
own preservation, ensuring that its existing functions are not
removed and seeking to extend its powers.
All of these 'functional theories' of the state are widely held,

at least in the public consciousness, and they have been
represented in various academic theories of the state.
(Greenberg, 1979, ch. 1, for example, categorises them into
three groups: free-market conservatism; reform liberalism;
and pluralism. See also Dear and Clark, 1978.) But, as
Greenberg (1979: 25) expresses it, these perspectives
all of which in a rather confused and often contradictory

manner get jumbled together in popular explanations of
government, are seriously deficient as guides to
understanding. Each ... has its legions of supporters and
proponents, a phenomenon probably derived from the
partial truths they each embody. Nevertheless, partial
truths remain partial truths . . . Their most serious

shortcomings . . . relate to their curious ahistorical
character.
These 'theories' or perspectives define certain aspects of
the state's activity. They do not explain why the state
undertakes such activities, however, rather than some other
institution within society, nor indeed do they explain why the
state exists at all. As Dear and Clark (1978: 170) succinctly
express it, 'what exactly is the state?' Without an answer to
this question, any discussion of geography of the state will be
set at the level of superficial appearances only. Dear (1981)
recognises three elements of those appearances: the primary,
which are the two main branches of any state - the
administrative (the bureaucracy) and the regressive (civil and
military enforcement agencies); the secondary, comprising
the legal, political, and welfare apparatuses which address
specific problems and individuals; and the tertiary, the
regulatory mechanisms. The task of a theory of the state is to
account for the existence of these levels. Without such a
theory, discussion of geography and the state will describe
how the state acts without knowing why.
The role of the state
What brings about the state? Why is it necessary? For the

moment the focus will be on capitalist societies, which are
the topic of most of this book; so why does capitalist society
have and need the (or a) state? One could argue that it has
one because it inherited one, and that it has allowed it to
survive. But it has not only survived it has grown, much
faster than any other major component of society. Why was
it allowed to grow? Because what it does is believed to be
beneficial to society as a whole. But did society as a whole
create the state and give it its powers, as a result of some
general agreement, or was the state imposed on the majority
(who were then convinced that its existence is a 'good thing')
by a minority, who from then on have backed the expansion
of the state?
To answer these questions one needs a theory of state
existence, and this is provided here by adoption of Marxist

work on the state. This work (best exemplified for
geographers by Clark and Dear, 1981) argues that the state is
a necessary part of the capitalist mode of production, so that
to answer the questions posed in the previous paragraph it is
necessary first to examine briefly the nature of capitalism.
This is an economic mode of production with certain key
characteristics, the most important of which is the separation
of the producers from the means of production. The latter
are all of the elements that are combined in the productive
process (such as land, raw materials, energy, and machines)
except one- labour. This is held by the producers. In order
to work and to gain access to the means of reproduction
(food, shelter, etc.) they must sell their labour power to
capitalists, the owners of all of the other means of
production. There is no physical coercion; they are free not
to work, but if they make that choice their reproduction is
impossible. Thus labourers (the proletariat or working class)
must sell their labour to survive. The capitalists buy that
labour power, to put it to work on the means of production
in order to create saleable commodities. Their purpose is to
sell those commodities, for more than the cost of labour and
the other means of production. The difference is the surplus
value (generally associated with profit). Part of this is used in
consumption by the capitalist class, for its own
reproduction; the remainder is used as capital, to be invested
in more production, to create even more surplus value.
The dynamic of the capitalist mode of production is the
search for surplus value. It is never stagnant. Capitalists are
always seeking to increase the productivity of their labour,
thereby to get greater volume of production for less
expenditure and so to increase their profits. They may do this
partly through avarice. They also do it because others do,
and they know that if their commodities become more
expensive than those of their competitors they will fail to sell
them, and so fail to reap surplus value. They must produce
more cheaply and sell more. This means investing in plant, in
people, and in ideas - as described above - with the trained
people including better producers, better sellers, better
investors, and better financiers.
There are two main features of this mode of production

which are of significance for the present discussion. The first
is that progress is not smooth. Capitalism proceeds from
crisis to crisis as a whole and in its constituent parts. Between
the crises, capitalists may be successful and the process of
accumulation (the amassing of wealth through the realisation
of surplus value and its investment as capital) sufficient for
them. But accumulation may not occur, for a single
capitalist, for a sector of the mode of production (an
individual industry), for all capitalists in a particular place
(perhaps a state), or for the whole capitalist system (the
world-economy; see Chapters 3 and 4). Such crises invariably
reflect a fall in the rate of profit - sales prices are
insufficiently high relative to the costs of labour; this may be
because labour costs increase as it is in short supply, because
sales prices fall as a consequence of overproduction relative
to demand/buying power, or because of the general tendency
within the capitalist mode of production for the rate of profit
to decline. (Many texts on Marxist economics deal with this
last point: see Campbell, 1981.) Such crises affect the
labourers as well as the capitalists, since if profits fall so will
investment; jobs will not be created, and reproduction will be
hindered. To revive the system, new investment is needed, in
the expectation of profits and accumulation.
The second significant feature relates to the social
structure of the mode of production. As outlined so far, this
comprises two classes: the capitalists, who own the means of
production, and the labourers, who own only their own
labour power. Thus the society is built on inequality. A
minority, through private ownership, have a monopoly on
the means of production, without whose use reproduction is
impossible; the majority are dependent on this minority to
employ them, so that they can reproduce themselves and
survive. This is a situation of exploitation, exacerbated by
the desire of the minority to contribute as little as possible to
the reproduction of the working class in order to maximise
their own gains. Such exploitation is likely to generate
tension between the two classes. The exaggeration of such
tension could lead to conflict, which would destroy the entire
system.
In advanced stages of capitalism, polarisation into two

main classes is somewhat reduced by the complexity of the
society. The capitalist class is not a single, homogeneous
unit; it comprises various separate, vested interest groups
(different manufacturing industries, for example), which are
in competition with each other, for labour, for investment,
and for markets. And the working class is certainly not
homogeneous. It is divided between the many sectors of the
economy and the firms within them. It is also divided, within
each unit, according to the functions performed. Each of
these groups is seeking to advance its own interests. Some
have achieved better wages and working conditions than
others, so that they can enjoy a better standard of living.
Many have been able to obtain a small, increased stake in the
stability of the society and the success of the mode of
production through investment of any 'surplus' income
additional to that needed for reproduction; the commonest
item of investment is the home. Thus the working class is
divided among itself, into what are often termed socio-
economic classes. These classes are in competition with each
other, against their employers, to improve their relative
positions. Thus the basic conflict within capitalist society is
in part diffused, because it is split up into many sub-
conflicts; it is only at periods of major crisis that these sub-
conflicts tend to be fused.
It is very largely these two features of the capitalist mode
of production that account for the existence and functions of
the state. The capitalist class, individually and as a whole,
not only want an apparatus that will allow the smooth
working of the economy to their personal benefit, they also
want protection from the occasional vicissitudes of crisis.
Where they cannot provide these for themselves - through
the 'free operation' of 'market forces' - they want an
external body to control such operations to capitalist ends.
In addition, they want the conflict with the working class to
be at worst muted, and at best non-existent. Again, to the
extent that they cannot achieve this by their own actions, in
dealing with the labour force, they want an external body to
intervene and regulate the workforce.
The external body created to undertake these tasks is the
state. (The state existed before the introduction of the

capitalist mode of production. It was not invented to serve
capitalism, therefore; instead, the existing body was
transformed. See Chapter 3.) Thus the state
serves the interests of the controlling class in society,

rather than the interests of society as a whole, because it
preserves and supports the basic capitalist institutions. It
thus protects the interests of capital. Behind the facade of
democracy lies its class nature and the class nature of
capitalism in general.
(Campbell, 1981: 26)
This involves it, according to Campbell, in three major tasks.

First, it acts as a regulator of the economy, largely through
income and demand manipulation. Second, it guarantees the
institution of private property, regulating the inter-
relationships between segments of capital and between
capital and labour. Finally, it moulds public (working-class)
opinion to the ideology of 'what is good for capital is good
for all, and any other mode of production is inferior'. It
legitimises capitalism, occasionally making concessions to
labour in order to maintain that support but always ensuring
that capitalist accumulation continues.
The state, according to this view, is a body outside the
capitalist mode of production but at the same time a
fundamental element in a class society; without it, the
capitalist system could not survive. Because it exists to serve
capitalism, and hence the interests of capitalists, does not
mean that it is necessarily a part of the capitalist class. It has
close links with that class, and without its support would
undoubtedly not survive (unless the state achieved a
transformation to another mode of production), but it is not
a part of it. The theoretical perspective associated with such
a view is termed instrumentalism, and is frequently
associated with readings of classical Marxist texts - 'The
executive of the modern state is but a committee for
managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie' -
and with the writings of Miliband (1969). This presents .the
state as an instrument of capitalist domination of the
proletariat, as the possession of the former class. (See

Saunders, 1980, for a fuller discussion of Miliband's work.)
Although the function of the state is indeed to ensure that
economy and society operate to the benefit of the capitalist
class, this is not done by the state being merely a part of that
class. This would hamper its legitimating role, since the
ideology it would be seeking to inculcate would be that of
itself; as a separate (though far from independent) body, it
can present the ideology as benefiting society as a whole and
not one group of it. Furthermore, the capitalist class,
although by far the smaller of the two, is by no means
homogeneous. Different sectors of capital may be in
conflict, and resolution of such conflicts (including conflicts
with capital in other countries) requires a separate body.
Thus, the state exists as
an institution that is not immediately subject to market

forces ... required to provide those general preconditions
of capital accumulation as a whole that are inappropriate
or impossible for any particular competing capital to
secure.
(Jessop, 1977: 362)
This representation of the state is often presented as a

structuralist theory; the state is a necessary part of the
relationships between classes that characterise capitalism.
Critiques of this theory, however, claim that structuralists
accept the concept of 'the surface fragmentation of
bourgeois society into relatively autonomous structures,
which ... can be examined in relative isolation' (Holloway
and Piciotto, 1978: 6); the state is presented as one of those
autonomous elements, which means that the political and
economic spheres of capitalist society can be treated as
independent units. This treatment of the state as an
autonomous, political element in the superstructure of
society, serving the interests of the dominant class but
separated from that class, it is claimed, ignores 'the
exigencies imposed by capital accumulation' (Holloway and
Piciotto, 1978: 11). The political and the economic should
not be separated analytically, as they are not separated in
reality. According to the state derivation perspective, the

nature and the functions of the state are not autonomously
defined but are continually changing as a result of a dialectic
between it and the process of accumulation. Thus, criticising
the structuralist approach, Holloway and Piciotto (1978: 6-
7) argue:
by severing . . . study of the political from the analysis of
the contradictions of accumulation ... [it is cut] off from
the principal sources of change in capitalist society - the
development of those contradictions . . . There is no
analysis of the development of capitalist society, of the
changing forms of state-society relations and of the state
itself . . . there is no analysis of the constraints and
limitations which the nature of capitalist accumulation
imposes upon state action.
The nature of the state, and the functions that it performs,
change with the changing nature of capitalism, therefore, so
that
the state's activities are bounded and structured by this
pre-condition of its own existence, by the need to ensure
(or attempt to ensure) the continued accumulation of
capital. Because of its form as an instance separated from
the immediate process of production, the state is
essentially restricted to reacting to the results of the
process of production and reproduction.
(Holloway and Piciotto, 1978: 24)
As the relations between capital and labour change, so does
that part of those relations which is the state (see also Offe,
1975).
This development of a theory of the role of the state has
been phrased in terms of the capitalist mode of production
only. Its general conclusion, that the state's nature and
functions are designed to maintain the nature of the mode of
production and thus the interests of the dominant class and
that changes in the dynamic of capitalism determine changes
in the state, are relevant for all other modes of production.
Four such modes are generally recognised - primitive
communist, feudal, capitalist, and communist - and it is

frequently argued that there is a logical sequence from the
first to the fourth. (No advanced capitalist country has
undergone the transformation to communist, however, and
the current communist countries emerged out of feudal/early
capitalist societies. This may reflect the integrated nature of
the capitalist world-economy, which does not allow a part to
secede from the whole, so that only world revolution will
achieve an effective transformation to communism.) Under
each, the nature of the state reflects not only the general
nature of the mode of production but also the particular
circumstances of time and place. Thus, for example, certain
theories for the communist mode of production perceived no
need for the state (see Luard, 1978; Breitbart, 1981), but the
operation of communist states reacting to the
contemporary situation - has seen a massive extension of
state power as the current theorists identify the mechanisms
necessary to promote advancement of the mode of
production.
The last paragraph highlights a final point to be stressed
regarding the relations between the state and the mode of
production, especially the capitalist. Whereas, as argued in
Chapters 3 and 4, the mode of production is a general
concept which, increasingly, recognises no territorial
boundaries the state, as described in Chapter 1, has control
over a bounded spatial unit only. Thus the constraints on the
state are not necessarily those of, say, the process of
capitalist accumulation per se but those of a certain segment
of capital only, which include the effects of inter-state inter-
capital relationships. The state as a concept relates to capital
as a whole; each state as a reality relates to various parts of
capital from a separate perspective.
State actions
The preceding section has outlined, in the barest essentials, a

theory of the existence of the state. This relates to the first of
the two foundations of political geography identified in
Chapter 1 - state sovereignty. The state derivation theory
accounts for the existence of the state and the allocation of

powers to it; it is a theory of sovereignty. But it is only a
theory of constraints, as made clear in the earlier discussion.
It is a theory of what the state must do, but not of how it
must do it. For the latter task it is necessary to develop
theories of state action relevant to the second foundation
identified in Chapter 1, the geography of state activity.
The state exists to perform a variety of functions necessary
at a particular time and place (a conjuncture) for the
continued health of the mode of production. These
functions, and the expenditure on which they operate, have
been classified for a capitalist mode of production by
O'Connor (1973) into three types (a very similar
classification could be developed for a communist mode of
production). First, there is investment in the provision of
constant capital - such as a transport and communications
infrastructure- necessary for the production and marketing
processes within capitalist accumulation. Second, there is
investment in social capital, in public goods that are
consumed collectively (the public goods discussed in Chapter
1) and in payments to members of the proletariat to ensure
their reproduction and to maintain their loyalty. Finally,
there is expenditure on social control, on the regulation of
economy and society and on its protection against other
states. These three types of expenditure are intended,
respectively, to advance productivity, to lower the costs (to
capital) of the reproduction of labour, and to maintain social
harmony. The first two involve the state in assisting
capitalist accumulation; the other involves it in promoting
the legitimacy of the capitalist mode of production
(including itself).
Although the nature of capitalist accumulation makes
such expenditures necessary (the balance between the three is
variable, of course), considerable freedom is left to each
state to determine just how these functions wil be performed.
Decisions must be taken within the state on, for example,
which items of infrastructure should be provided, what sort
of defence facilities are needed, and where, and on the level
of welfare state payments. It is the results of these decisions
that create the geography of state activity.
Two theoretical approaches to the study of such decision-

making have been presented, outlining different perspectives
on the position of the state within society. The first is
pluralism, which is basically a theory of democracy, and
similar to the state-as-arbitrator position outlined earlier.
According to Saunders (1980: 150), from this perspective
the state is neutral in its functions and independent of any

particular class interests. The state itself is seen as a set of
political institutions standing outside civil society, and it is
this position of externality and superiority which enables it
to regulate and mediate the conflicts within civil society.
The conflicts come to the state's attention because it is seen

as the only body which can provide what a group or
individual within society wants. To achieve their ends they
must either convince the state of the necessity of a particular
action or they must capture the state and run it for
themselves. Thus 'the state is a pawn up for grabs between
competing contenders for political power' (Saunders, 1980:
151). No contender is able to monopolise that power, which
would be the equivalent of the instrumentalist perspective.
The democratic state involves continuous competition
between groups (who may have to compromise with each
other at times) to gain control of the state and to enact
policies - consistent with the constraints on state action set
by the process of capital accumulation (and the
interpretation of those constraints within the state
apparatus)- in their own interests.
The second approach, the managerialist, focuses on the
decision-making processes within the permanent state
apparatus, i.e. the decisions made by state employees rather
than by those elected to power. Managers, like politicians,
are constrained by the situation of the state within the
contemporary circumstances of the mode of production.
They are also constrained by political decisions made by the
elected members of the state. Within such oversight,
however, they have some freedom of action. As Pahl (1975:
39-43) expresses it:
All states are constrained by external economic and

political forces; all states develop bureaucratic structures
to allocate resources and facilities necessary for social
reproduction . . . Thus I would have a personal bias
towards those theories which start from a basic
assumption that there will always be scarce urban
resources and facilities and that how these are controlled
and distributed will always be a contentious issue ... the
essential understanding [is] that specific agents ultimately
control and allocate resources.
This managerial control involves the agents reacting not only

to the constraints of the mode of production and to the
demands made upon them but also to their own self-interests
and ideologies. Thus theories of state action, let alone
empirical studies of state actions, must recognise the
important role of these individual decision-making agents -
without, of course, according them autonomous status.
In this context it is important to note that an emphasis on
the actions of managers (and also of elected politicians in the
pluralist approach) does not conflict with the more general
Marxist theory of the state outlined above. Marx made it
clear that he believed no individuals' actions would change
the general course of history. But they could change the
detail, including the geography of capitalist evolution. To
some extent, as work on structuration (Gregory, 1978) and
on the state derivation perspective on the state indicates,
individual actions may change, probably very slightly, the
nature of the dialectical processes operating within the mode
of production. But Marx's theory of political economy -
historical materialism - has economic forces at its centre;
political activity may be allowed to influence those forces
slightly, but not to divert them from their basic trajectory. In
studying state actions, therefore, one is studying
manipulations of the capitalist system, manipulations which
may have a great influence on the relative prosperity of, for
example, certain people and places but not on the evolution
of the capitalist mode of production.
The bureaucratic apparatus erected within and by the state
is large and complex. In the United States, for example, the
Federal government is divided into three separate realms:

executive, legislature, and judiciary. Each is subdivided into
separate sectors and agencies. Many of the agencies are
further subdivided on a territorial basis, providing a
hierarchy of state functions. In addition, many functions -
as illustrated in Chapter 1 - are devolved to the local state.
Each local state comprises a separate body with its own
territory, functions and powers. Like the state in relationship
to the mode of production, however, it should not be
accorded an autonomous status. The main characteristic
distinguishing the state from the local state is that the latter is
not a sovereign body; it has no independent right of existence
(though see Chapter 6 on federations), and owes its powers
to the embracing sovereign body, which can remove them
whenever it wishes. In operating the local state, therefore,
the politicians who seek to control it and the managers who
make many of its decisions are constrained by the nature of
central-local relationships, as well as by the other
constraints which restrict the freedom of action of the state
as a whole. Within this framework, however, there is room
for independence of action, whose study is the main focus of
work on the local state.
In summary
These two opening chapters have established the framework

for the remainder of the book. The study of geography and
the state is concerned with the territorial division of the
earth's surface into sovereign units and with the actions of
the groups and individuals who make decisions within the
state apparatus of those units, decisions which are intimately
related to the geography of the state. To appreciate the
nature of those decisions, it is necessary to have an
understanding of the origins and the evolution of the state -
its apparatus and its territory. This is the subject of Chapter
3.
The remainder of the book investigates various aspects of
state action. In Chapter 4 the focus is on the state's
relationships with the process of accumulation in capitalist
countries, and this is followed in Chapter 5 by an analysis of

the relationships between a state and its population (i.e. the
working class). Finally, Chapter 6 deals with the local state.
Throughout the emphasis is on the actions of the state rather
than with the theory of the state, which is a necessary
background to the work but insufficient of itself to account
for state actions. Thus the state derivation version of the
structuralist perspective is interwoven with use of the
pluralist, managerialist and instrumentalist perspectives.
A note on terminology
Throughout the remainder of this book, state is used as a

general concept describing a body performing the functions
described here; State refers to a particular sovereign unit (as
in the United States). The term government applies to the
elected officers of a state; country refers to the territory of a
state; and a nation is a population with certain unifying
characteristics, whose distribution may be consistent with the
boundaries of a state territory.
In discussions of the class nature of capitalist society,
some variability in terminology is employed, to avoid
repetition. Thus the capitalist class is also termed the
'bourgeoisie' and the 'ruling class': alternative terms for the
working class are the 'labouring class' and the 'proletariat'.
The term 'middle class' refers to the better-paid members of
the working class.
3 The Development of the
State
The previous chapter was concerned almost exclusively with

theoretical issues relating to the nature of the modern state.
There was little explicit treatment of either the historical or
the geographical realities of the concept. Implicit
throughout, following the discussion of sovereignty in
Chapter 1, was the essential territorial component of the
state's existence, and of the local states into which most
states are divided. Thus the existence of states implies a
geography. But the concern here is not only with theoretical
abstractions but also with real instances whose
understanding is advanced by the theoretical work. Thus the
remainder of this book is interested not in a geography but in
the geography, that which either has existed or still does
exist. How has that particular geography emerged? Why has
that pattern come about rather than any other?
These last two questions suggest that space and time
cannot be divorced; the present can only be analysed in the
context of the past which sets major constraints on change.
The contemporary geography of the state is the realisation of
a set of processes that have acted differentially over space
and time. The result is the present political geography of the
world.
The previous chapter defined the state as an integral
element in the capitalist mode of production, except in those
parts of the world where it is the outcome of an attempt to
replace that by a socialist mode. Capitalism is a relatively
recent development, however. What preceded it? How did
capitalism emerge? And what was the role of the state in that
emergence? The capitalist mode of production cannot be
taken as given; without setting it in the context of its history
it can be described but not understood. (The problems of
The Development of the State 29
description in the absence of theory make even this dubious.)

Thus to study the state in the capitalist mode of production
and its aftermath it is necessary to study the evolution of the
contemporary spatial organisation of society as it relates to
the political component.
Predecessors of the modern state
According to Claessen and Skalnik (1978a) there are three

main types of sovereign organisation: (i) pre-state; (ii) early
state; and (iii) capitalist state. The second of these is divided
into three subtypes: inchoate, typical and transitional (into
capitalist). Thus, according to this typology, the state existed
prior to the onset of capitalism. In the early state, it was an
organisational nexus linking rulers to ruled, and is defined as
a centralized socio-political organization for the regulation

of social relations in a complex, stratified society divided
into at least two basic strata, or emergent social classes -
viz. the rulers and the ruled - whose relations are
characterized by political dominance of the former and
tributary obligations of the latter, legitimized by a
common ideology of which reciprocity is the basic
principle.
(Claessen and Skalnik, 1978a: 640)
Thus, as indicated in the previous chapter, it is a class

relation.
The pre-state
The early state was not preceded by an anarchic situation.

The pre-state era in any one part of the world comprised a
series of small societies with very limited territorial extent;
each lacked clear internal social differentiation and an
intermediate body of functionaries articulating the
interrelationships between social strata. Instead, these pre-
states - often termed 'chiefdoms' - were characterised by

simple social organisations based on norms of balanced
reciprocity between members and cemented by ties of
kinship. Thus whereas the early state had clearly identifiable
strata and 'coercive apparatuses ... for the maintenance of
exploitative relations of production between a class of
laborers and a class of non-laborers' (Hindess and Hirst,
1975: 34), the pre-state lacked the coercive apparatus (and
any need for it). There was some internal differentiation, of
'members of the same sex and equivalent age-status [who] do
not have equal access to the basic resources that sustain life'
(Fried, 1967: 186), but no continuing structure that set one
group apart from the remainder, with that 'superior' group
needing some permanent means of maintaining its
hegemony.
A characteristic feature of chiefdoms was that they were
ephemeral. Few survived for long: indeed
The key diagnostic feature is fission. All political systems

up to the time of the early state, have as part of their
normal political and demographic processes, inherent
tendencies to break up and form similar units.
(Cohen, 1978: 35)
Growth was the usual cause of the fission; lack of a central

organisation to hold it together meant that the pre-state type
of society had an inbuilt tendency to fragment once it
reached a certain size. Arguments about succession to land,
especially if it was in short supply (a likely condition in
spatially restricted territories), led to conflict. As a result,
one or more groups would leave the society, perhaps
establishing territories on the fringe of the original occupied
area. Some may have moved further, especially if they were
banished from the existing society, with perhaps a buffer of
unoccupied land separating the two.
Chiefdoms were not anarchic communities in that they
lacked identifiable leaders. What they lacked was a central
bureaucracy which protected the chief and his kin and
countered incipient conflict and questioning of the chief's
authority. Thus pre-states, according to numerous studies,
The Development ofthe State 31
had only 'vaguely defined governmental functions which are

impermanent, called into being to meet some situation as a
crime or invasion, and disappearing when the crisis is past'
(Krader, 1968: 16). The members of such a society lived
together according to a (usually subconscious) social
contract; an organisation to impose the terms of that
contract was only needed when a conflict arose, and a
permanent body to regulate the society was not needed.
Among the Crow Indians of the American west, for
example, each separate 'community' had a chief and a tribal
council; the latter neither met regularly nor had an agreed
constitution and the chief took no initiatives (although he
received the credit for a good buffalo hunt or a victory in
battle with another community, such tribute being required
by his mythological status). Associations were 'elected' when
necessary, to organise defence in time of war, to organise
buffalo hunts, to supervise ceremonies and to initiate new
(adult) members, but these were impermanent. So were the
communities themselves: antagonism between and within
communities was common, and kinship ties were often
insufficient to hold the loyalty of a chief's subjects. (For
examples of chiefdoms, see Service, 1975.)
Each pre-state community had its own set of mutually
agreed rules, most of which focused on the person of the
chief, who was entitled (because of his mythical superior
status) to tribute from other members. There was a division
into strata, therefore, but the chief lacked the power to
impose his superiority in the face of serious opposition.
Break-away groups were often led by individuals who
(usually on the basis of kinship) had been allocated some
power by the chief; frequently such breaks occurred during
disputes about succession. Thus pre-state societies were
almost all small, restricted in area, and ephemeral:
'Chieftancy as a system constantly proliferates but has few
means to maintain control' (Cohen, 1978: 55). The territorial
boundaries of chiefdoms were usually indistinct, and rarely
lasted long: their geographies, like their existence, have been
ephemeral. (For an example of the reaction of pre-states to
contact from capitalist states, and the impact of the latter on
the tribal boundaries, see Urlich's (1972) analysis of Maori
migrations in New Zealand as a consequence of the

introduction of firearms.)
From pre-state to early state
The transition from the pre-state to the early state form of

social organisation (i.e. to its initial, or inchoate, subtype)
involved a change in the nature of the political structure. In
the inchoate early state,
kinship, family, and community ties still dominate

relations in the political field; ... full-time specialists are
rare; taxation systems are only primitive and ad hoc taxes
are frequent; and . . . social differences are offset by
reciprocity and close contacts between the rulers and the
ruled
(Claessen and Skalnik, 1978b: 23)
but the initial step has been taken to distance the ruler from
the ruled, to set up a bureaucracy to protect the former and
to ensure the continued extraction of tribute.
What brings about this change? According to Engels there
is 'a definite stage of economic development, which
necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes,
[and] the state became a necessity because of this cleavage'
(Engels, 1972: 232); the state, he argued (1972: 231), 'arose
from the need to keep class antagonisms in check ... it is
normally the state of the most powerful, economically
dominant class, which by its means becomes the politically
dominant class and so acquires new means of holding down
and exploiting the oppressed class'. The state is the mediator
between oppressor and exploited, 'a power, apparently
standing above society, . . . necessary to moderate the
conflict and keep it within the bounds of "order" ' (1972:
229).
In the chiefdoms, therefore, the emergence of the early
state involved the establishment of permanent political
hegemony on behalf of the ruling group. In this way, it was
hoped to combat the potential of the fissiparious elements
within the pre-state forms, and therefore to provide greater

stability. The nature of the threshold crossed in this
transition has been the subject of much speculation, by
anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, sociologists and
others. Many of their initial hypotheses suggested a single
causal factor, such as warfare and the development of
irrigation technology. Increasingly, however, it has been
realised that several interacting causal factors created the
necessary and sufficient conditions for a society to cross the
threshold, with their relative importance varying over space
and time. The factors are not mechanistic forces external to
the society which determine its fate, however; they must be
reacted to in a certain way:
once the chief starts down the road to more central control
one of two structural consequences occurs. Either chiefs
fail to enhance centralization and the chiefship breaks up,
or they succeed . . . This moves the system towards a
centrally-appointed bureaucracy whose only means to
success and position is the loyalty and obedience of its
member-officials to the central ruler. Kinsmen are never
fully subordinate, since they are, potentially, rivals for
chiefly power. When chiefs with the requisite political
skills . . . succeed in changing the rules of recruitment,
then the system begins to evolve towards statehood.
(Cohen, 1978: 55-6)
Nor is each chiefdom operating in a vacuum. Many are

surrounded by others, themselves evolving towards
statehood. These may put pressure on their neighbours to
take a similar course.
Faced with such pressure a polity must evolve a more

organized hierarchical system, if it is to survive as an
autonomous unit. Otherwise it will be incorporated into a
neighbouring polity, be forced to flee in more or less
segmented pieces, or be wiped out.
(Cohen, 1978: 56)
Whatever the pressures leading to the creation of an early

state, the result is the development of a separate bureaucracy

subservient to the chief. The role of this bureaucracy is to aid
the chief in expropriating surplus from the labouring class or
from some other group, such as traders, operating within the
territory over which sovereignty is claimed. Clearly, there
must be a desire on the chief's behalf to increase the level of
expropriation (and by the creation of an administrative class
itself he increases that level still more, since the
administrators must be supported out of the surplus and
themselves may aspire for more): this can reflect a number of
factors, including personal avarice (which some would
ascribe to a deeper process- original sin). Alongside this, the
labouring class must be able to yield the increased tribute
demanded, and if needed, they must be given the tools to
achieve this.
The inchoate early state marks the movement away from
what Hindess and Hirst (1975) call primitive communism. In
its place is a more organised society, but the weight of
evidence is that this is not brought about by a single factor
involving 'the efforts of powerful groups in society using
coercive force, or its threat, to protect their proprietary and
unequal rights over resources' (Cohen, 1978: 51). A stratified
society, with an intermediate administrative class (including
military) separating the rulers from the ruled, is a
consequence of the creation of a state, not its precursor.
Thus, most scholars do not accept a 'conspiracy theory of
history in which an upper-class-to-be has planned or worked
at the creation of the early state' (Cohen, 1978: 51). Rather,
they suggest, a series of conditions suggests the need for the
development of the state as an organisational nexus for a
society based on unequal relationships.
This set of conditions, none of which is sufficient in itself
to stimulate state development, comprises some which are
internal to the society itself and some which are external.
Claessen and Skalnik have organised them into six
conditions - what they (1978a: 625) term 'mutually
corresponding factors'.
(1) Population pressure. An increase in demographic
pressure can force a society to seek an expansion of its food
supply. This may involve it raiding its neighbours, seeking to
conquer neighbours, colonising new lands, or stimulating

local production. All of these could be achieved with a pre-
state organisation but certain conditions, such as the
organisation of colonisation and the supervision of a
conquered society, may require a permanent ad-
ministrative/military class. If created, the latter allows the
chief and his family to distance themselves from their subject
population.
Population pressure is neither a necessary nor a sufficient
condition for the emergence of a state. When it occurs, the
upper stratum must react in a particular way, otherwise the
society will remain at the pre-state stage, and perhaps later
disappear. Thus the environment presents possibilities, but
they must be recognised and realised by human agency,
which may not succeed.
In some cases, population pressure may result from a
decline in numbers rather than an expansion (relative to food
supply). Wright and Johnson (1975) suggest that the
development of the early state in Iran was preceded by
population decline not growth, suggesting that the new form
of social organisation was a reaction to the problems of
obtaining a surplus from a diminishing human resource.
(2) The production of a surplus. This was undoubtedly a
necessary condition, for a society lacking the ability to
produce sufficient food to support both the ruling and the
administrative class would not succeed. To some extent, the
creation of the state required a substantial potential
production surplus, since to extract an increased level of
tribute from the labouring class would in most cases require
a military and/or religious presence (see below) as well as an
administrative one. The military and the priesthood
themselves had to be supported from an increased surplus,
and so on in a multiplier process.
Under the early state, compared to the pre-state, the
situation of the labouring class was more precisely defined.
Their position in society was more rigidly enforced; their
production targets were more rigorously indicated and
imposed- if necessary by military force; and so
In the formation of the early state, the production of a

surplus constitutes the pre-eminent factor enabling the

development of a governmental apparatus as well as the
institutionalization of social inequality.
(Claessen and Skalnik, 1978c: 628)
Without the ability to produce a surplus, an early state could

not develop; without the development of the state, the
potential to produce the surplus would not be realised.
(3) An ideology. In order to impose its rule on a reluctant
population, the ruling class - in most cases a single extended
family - required an ideology or societal myth which
bolstered its legitimation. This ideology supported the pre-
eminent position of the ruling class and was accepted by the
remainder of society as justification for the inequality
imposed upon them: 'the role of the state ideology is one of
legitimizing, explaining or justifying' (Claessen and Skalnik,
1978c: 629). In many early states, the ideology had a
religious base (see Service, 1975: 307) and was supported by
the appointment to the administrative class (often from the
ruling family) of religious functionaries who preached the
sovereignty of the ruler(s). It was virtually a necessary
condition but never a sufficient one: Claessen and Skalnik
(1978c: 628-9) 'are inclined to believe ... that ideological
activities have no more than a secondary influence upon the
formation of the early state- though its further development
could not have been effected without it'.
(4) Wars and raids. During the pre-state phase,
population pressure may have stimulated a society into raids
on neighbouring societies. A consequence of such activities
may have been the emergence of strong leaders able to
impose a state organisation on the society after hostilities
had ceased. Conduct of a war needs an army (which must be
maintained by non-combatants), plus spies, messengers,
communications media, etc. When the war has been won,
maintenance of this apparatus, or some part of it, may be
needed to guarantee continued spoils of success and to
ensure preparedness for future activity (including defence
against retaliation). Control of this 'war machine' allows the
leaders to exercise control at home as well as over
neighbours.
A defensive war can produce the same result in terms of
social organisation as an aggressive war, providing that the
defence is successful. Both see the emergence of a military-
backed elite. In both, too, but especially in the case of the
defensive war, this emergence may be the result of voluntary
agreement among the population rather than of the elite
imposing itself by its superior strength/tactical ability. Most
writers believe that the state is more likely to have emerged
through enforced social inequality than through a social
contract (Laver, 1981, describes such a contract), but it is
possible that in some societies creation of both state and elite
was generated at the grassroots. Only after the elite and
military had fulfilled the original purpose were the former
able to manipulate the new state machine to their own ends.
(5) Conquest. This is a logical outcome of war. In some
societies, a state organisation was necessary to ensure a
conquest and the maintenance of its victories. In others, it
resulted from the conquest: among the victors, it may have
been necessary to ensure the integration of the conquered
area into the society or to maintain the power of the newly
created elite; among the vanquished, it may have been
imposed by the victors as part of the exploitation strategy,
with a native elite being created and its loyalty 'bought'.
(6) The influence of others. As an increasing number of
societies adopted the early state form, so an increasing
number of pre-states would have come into contact with this
mode of organisation. Many pre-states maintained trading
contacts, some of them involving long-distance movement.
The chiefs, in a desire for greater opulence or similar
displays of status, traded certain items of their own surplus
for those of other societies and the merchants involved in the
trade (some of whom may have been state functionaries)
carried with them information about the political
organisation of early states. Thus the 'state idea' was
diffused and reasons for its adoption found. (For a
discussion of the relative importance of external factors, see
Cherry, 1978.)
Regarding these six conditions, Claessen and Skalnik
(1978c: 629) conclude that
the existence of an ideology, as well as a surplus, appears

to have been a necessary condition for state formation.
The elaboration of social inequality was found to be a
consequence rather than a cause of such a formation.
But with respect to population pressure, wars, raids,

conquest, and the spread of ideas:
How these factors operated, influenced one another, and

were interlinked with those of the existence of an ideology,
a surplus, trade and social inequality in each individual
case it is impossible to express in mere generalization.
Thus there is no simple model of early state creation (though

see Webb, 1975). Others agree, although suggesting the
dominance of certain factors at particular times and places.
Thus Tilly (1975a: 40), for example, suggests that 'the most
general conditions which appear, in the European
experience, to predict survival and state-making' are: (i) the
availability of extractable resources; (ii) a relatively
protected position; (iii) a continuous supply of political
entrepreneurs; (iv) success in war; (v) homogeneity and
homogenisation of subject population; and (vi) strong
coalitions linking the central power to the local landed elites.
Service (1975: 267) argues that the state was much more a
necessity with regard to external relationships than with
internal. A chiefly regime could be legitimised within the
society without the coercive force of a state, but without a
state the chief could not 'take care of ... the waging of war
and peace with other societies'. Within society coercion may
be needed, and legitimacy obtained, via a bureaucratic state
that created and maintained an ideology of redistribution of
a surplus. Service (1975: 286) maintains, however, that this
coercion was not necessarily forcible, claiming that there is
little evidence of intra-society violent repression. Instead, he
argues, students of early state formation have paid too little
attention to the ability of bureaucracies, established to
support the power of chiefs, to generate growth themselves:
This does not mean that there was something inexorable

about the evolution of the institutionalized power of

authority ... Quite the contrary; it required just the right
balance of several conditions and circumstances like the
growth of a rare and delicate new plant. But also like a
plant, important determinants of the direction of its
growth lay within itself.
(Service, 1975: 308)
Clearly opinions differ, and the available evidence is rarely

unequivocal.
The emergence of each early state was a unique event,
when the potential for state-making was realised in a
particular way. Certain conditions and realisations tended to
reappear, however, although the emergence of the first early
states influenced the nature of the later arrivals. As Tilly
(1975a: 81) puts it:
The European state-building experiences will not repeat

themselves in new states ... the European state-makers
and a few non-European collaborators, through war,
conquest, and alliance, eventually fashioned a worldwide
system of states ... the newcomers to the system have had
less choice of the positions they would occupy in it, even
down to the exact territories they would control.
The history of the development of the early states shows

how these various factors and conditions interacted with
human agency. Throughout much of the last twenty
centuries or so of European history, for example, pre-states
have been created and split apart and the stronger among
them have been seeking to establish hegemony over subject
territories and populations. There have been disputes over
the succession to land; rival ideologies and armies have
clashed; and the victors have sought to integrate the captured
peoples and lands into their possessions via homogenisation
policies:
Almost all European governments eventually took steps

which homogenized their populations: the adoption of
state religions, expulsion of minorities like the Moors and
the Jews, institution of a national language, eventually the

organization of mass public instruction
(Tilly, 1975a: 43-4)
Some of these policies were more successful than others;

the relative failures are reflected in the geographies of
regional protest discussed in Chapter 5. To enact them, an
administrative cadre was needed. This required that
'Uncontested loyalty to the supreme authority of the state
... had to be assured before an efficient and permanent civil
service could develop' (Fischer and Lundgren, 1975: 457).
For most people, admission to the civil service in early states
was via patronage of local landowners: success in promoting
one's own servants meant that a separate class which
reproduced itself was formed.
The early state
The main feature differentiating the early state from the pre-
state, therefore, is the greater stratification of society, with
which is associated the development of an administrative
class linking the demands of the ruling class to the
production of the labouring class. Other common
characteristics of the early state included (Claessen, 1978):
trade and markets; an hereditary upper class but a system of
appointment of paid functionaries to the administrative
class, from the hereditary families; limited private ownership
of land outside the upper class; a system of laws and a
judiciary to operate it; and the payment of tribute to the
ruler, in either kind or, increasingly, money. As the early
state passed through its three stages - inchoate, typical, and
transitional - so these characteristics were altered somewhat.
Trade and markets became increasingly important to the
economy; salaried functionaries became more common, with
the hereditary process of succeeding to office diminishing in
importance and its replacement by the development of a
separate governmental apparatus; laws were codified and
judges permanently appointed; and taxation was developed
as the major source of income for the ruling class, replacing
tribute and labour (Claessen and Skalnik, 1978a). The ruling

class were the hereditary owners of land.
A prime characteristic of almost every early state, and the
one of greatest significance here, was its claim to exclusive
sovereign rights over a defined territory; thus the emergence
of the early state witnessed the development of a more
permanent political geography. (This political geography has
been represented as an analogue of Christaller's central place
theory in the work of an archaeologist on what he calls the
'early state module' (Renfrew, 1975, 1977). He argued that
within a relatively homogeneous civilisation each state
module occupied c. 1500 square kilometres, with the central
places of each state being approximately 40 kilometres apart.
Central places were associated with central persons and with
the articulation of trade.) The residents of the defined
territory were citizens of the state and subject to the
sovereignty of the ruler - in whom the right to rule was
vested (in some cases by himself).
Organisation of the territory was not usually strong,
however, especially in larger states, because of the
difficulties of maintaining contact and control. Each early
state tended to have a single major core, which was the focus
of state power and the home of the sovereign. Beyond the
core, the territory was organised in a series of sub-states,
comprising the land owned by individuals who owed fealty
and tribute to the sovereign but were, in certain respects,
independent. The stability of the state depended on the core
maintaining its hold on this periphery. One of the clearest
examples of such a core is provided by Paris, the focus of the
expanding French polity. Pounds and Ball (1964) have
mapped similar core areas - of varying strength -
throughout Europe.
An example of the establishment of an early state with a
strong administrative apparatus is provided by Cohen's
(1967) work on Bornu. The clan which established this state
was the ruling group in the Kanem empire to the north of
Lake Chad, in West Africa. That empire collapsed as a
consequence of civil wars in the fourteenth century and the
rulers (the Seguwa) with their clan (the Magumi) migrated
south, establishing the Kingdom of Bornu to the south-west
of Lake Chad. There a highly centralised state was created,

centred on the capital (a walled fortress) of Birni
Ngazargamo. Internal dissension was slight, because the
kingdom over which the Seguwa claimed sovereignty was
entirely settled by members of the one clan. The state
prospered until the eighteenth century, when it was subject to
raids from outside, and in the nineteenth century it was
overrun in the Fulani wars. The area was annexed by British
colonists in the late nineteenth century. The state apparatus
before the nineteenth century comprised a royal household,
titled nobles who ruled villages within the state, an army, an
administrative group which collected taxes, and a religious
elite, and this was the basis of the nineteenth-century
kingdom - after the removal of the Seguwa dynasty.
Not all early states were sedentary in their organisation
around a defined focus - what became the state capital.
Krader's (1968, 1978) work on the nomads of the Mongol
empire illustrates an exception to the generalisations
discussed above. The pastoral Mongol and Turk societies of
the Central Asia steppes lived what in many ways was a
typical pre-state existence, in kinship-based societies which
traded with each other and with their agriculturalist
neighbours. Separate from these nomads, however, was a
ruling class of military leaders - the Khans - who received
tribute from the various producer groups. One of these
leaders- Chingis Khan- created a separate state apparatus,
a military retinue who left their home communities to serve
him. Together they created the Mongol empire, from which
Chingis Khan extracted tribute as he moved from one
community to another. Many of the areas which he
conquered and extracted tribute from later won
independence, with separate dynasties being established (out
of the elite class) in Persia, China, Russia and Turkestan.
For a period, therefore, the Mongol empire was focused on a
mobile early state apparatus.
The geography of the early state
Most early states were subdivided territorially because of the

inability of the sovereign to control the entire area from a

single base. The major problems were the speed of transport,
which meant that peripheral areas in particular were
relatively isolated and thus difficult to control; and the size
of the surplus extracted, which was insufficient to support a
large administrative class, necessary for close control, and to
ensure its loyalty. Subsidiary territorial units were either
created or, as often occurred in the case of conquest,
integrated with the early state. These sub-territories were
ruled by members of the sovereign's class who owed loyalty
to him and were required to provide him with tribute, taxes
and, when demanded, military manpower. To ensure their
loyalty, these subsidiary rulers were given land and the right
to control it (and those who worked it) as landlords. The
military and administrative arms of the central bureaucracy
existed to maintain that loyalty. The court of the sovereign
frequently moved around his domain, visiting the subsidiary
landlords to obtain displays of allegiance and illustrating to
all the location of sovereign power. (In some states, the
sovereign had no base, but instead spent all of his time
moving - usually slowly, with long stays - around the
territory, visiting the various landlords.)
This aspect of the geography of the early state is well
illustrated by France (Teunis, 1978). Within the national
territory until the thirteenth century, there was a series of
principalities - such as Anjou, Aquitaine, Burgundy,
Flanders, and Normandy - whose lands had been granted to
counts and dukes by the sovereign, the King of France. (The
first king, the son of the Count of Paris, was proclaimed in
987, following a military defence of the town that was to
become the core of the state after the collapse of the
Carolingian empire.) These landowners were the only
individuals to owe loyalty to the king; the labouring class
owed it only to their relevant local landlord, in a feudal
relationship. The links between the sovereign in Paris and the
principalities were weak, and many of the latter were
operated for long periods virtually as independent states.
Their rulers were strong enough to make alliances with the
king, against either other rulers or an outside threat, with
each other, or with outsiders seeking to expand their spheres
of influence into France. Each count and duke sought to

accumulate land and possessions (through marriage treaties,
for example) and most operated a series of subsidiary
territorial units (through castle-wardens and viscounts). The
kings considered themselves the rulers of all France, but
many were unable to effect control over large areas.
Unification into a single polity required a strong monarch,
with the ability to extract a large surplus (through control of
productive areas and of trade).
A further example of the problems of creating a large,
unified early state is provided by the Indian subcontinent.
The transition from pre-state to early state occurred in a
large number of separate units, each with its own ruling class
and governmental apparatus. These states were frequently in
conflict with their neighbours, so that many boundaries were
far from permanent and a number of states disappeared.
Occasionally, the ruler of one of these states was able to
establish some degree of sovereignty over a large number of
others, creating an empire with a complex governmental
apparatus.
In all, sixty-three states/dynasties have established some
kind of empire within the subcontinent (for details, see
Schwartzberg, 1978: 254-5). Of these, four - excluding the
British- established hegemony over at least 60 per cent of
the land area: (i) the Mauryan empire, whose peak was c. 181
Be; (ii) the Gupta empire (c. 400 AD); (iii) the Khalji-
Tughluq empires (c. 400 AD); and (iv) the Mughal empire
(seventeenth-century AD). Each had a large state apparatus,
with several levels of control. Each was followed by
fragmentation, so that the British movement into India
encountered a large number of separate states. Some were
annexed into British India but many of the Central Indian
princely states remained, creating a complex administrative
mosaic. When the British left in 1947 more than 600 separate
states remained, and such fragmentation hampered the
creation of the new Republic.
Whether the process of unification and stabilisation of the
early state produced a highly centralised organisation, as in
France, or some more diffuse structure, as in India for much
of the time, in all cases (except those mobile states like the
Mongol empire) the organisation was imprinted on the

landscape in its settlement and transport systems. Most
sovereigns lived in towns (although many also had several
rural residences, on their estates), and these were the
outward indications of their power - spiritual as well as
temporal. The surplus extracted from the various parts of the
territory was used, among other things, in conspicuous
consumption, which included the construction of urban
environments (palaces, cathedrals, entire sections of a town)
that demonstrated the sovereign's status and power. In the
towns also were the workshops of the craftsmen, artisans
and others (musicians, etc.) who met the sovereign's
demands (and those of his highly paid retinue), and the
homes of the merchants who organised the trade that
(because he taxed it) accentuated the monarch's wealth.
Outside the capital city- the home of the sovereign- some
of the landed aristocracy (the rulers of the sub-territories)
also had urban bases for their displays of conspicuous
consumption, although many preferred to live on their lands.
These towns were also important trading centres - holding a
market required royal or landlord permission - and
therefore sub-foci of the territorial organisation of the state.
Thus a hierarchy of urban centres was created, reflecting the
hierarchy of control: the greater the centralisation of power
and its display, the larger the capital city and the greater the
flow of tribute to that place (Johnston, 1980c). To facilitate
that flow, a transport network was built. This, too, focused
on the capital whose accumulation of wealth and initial
advantage formed the foundation for the geography of later
modes of production.
Types of society in the early state
The early state was not a homogeneous form, with a similar

balance of characteristics in each example. Several variants
have been recognised, out of which three types are generally
identified. The first was termed the 'Asiatic mode of
production' by Marx; it was characterised by the absence of
private land ownership. (For a discussion of whether it can
properly be termed a mode of production, see Hindess and

Hirst, 1975.) Its main features were despotic or totalitarian
rule, combined with community land ownership. Each
community paid tribute to the state, which reciprocated by
providing a defence service and, if necessary, the irrigation
works needed to facilitate agricultural production. A second
type was the slave system in which ownership of labour was
added to ownership of land.
The third type, characteristic of the early state in Europe,
was feudalism. According to Hindess and Hirst (1975: 190)
this comprises:
A ruling class of landlords who hold the direct producers

in a relation of political/legal subordination, and direct
producers who own the means of reproduction of their
own labour power, are legally unfree and are compelled to
render surplus-labour to their political superiors.
The surplus labour is rendered as feudal rent, in any

combination of the following categories: labour-rent,
involving working so much time for the landowner; rent-in-
kind, involving the delivery of tribute such as foodstuffs or
raw materials (which may be either consumed or traded by
the landlord); and money-rent, which has to be earned by the
producer through sale of produce in a market system (itself
probably taxed by the landlords).
The nature of feudalism and the ability of landlords to
retain the subservience of their producers are topics of
considerable research and debate. Hindess and Hirst argue
that feudalism was not an economic mode of production
because there was no clear separation of the labouring class
from its means of production - the land. Thus the
differentiation between the exploiters and the exploited had
to be maintained by political and ideological means. The
state provides the rationale for the exercise of political
power:
The state not merely guarantees the title to property, or

secures the class relations, it constitutes the titles, the
classes, and it provides the conditions for, and the means
of, exploitation. The state appears as determinant and yet
its role is undetermined and unexplained.
(Hindess and Hirst, 1975: 229)
To explain the existence and nature of the state under

feudalism, they argue, it must be placed within the political
ideology that legitimates feudalism for the population as a
whole.
This ideology was enshrined in the religious structure,
which was used to define the social structure. According to
Abercrombie eta/. (1980: 64) it is widely believed that
ideology was crucial for securing legal titles to land [and

that] religion contributed to the ideological incorporation
of subordination by developing theodicies. It has become
standard practice to quote the old adage about
The rich man in his castle
The poor man at his gate -
God made them high and lowly,
and ordered their estate.
They counter this, however, by pointing out that in feudal

societies the Church was strongest in the towns and weakest
in the rural areas, the. latter resulting from both low
participation rates and the poor quality of the clergy. Thus
the Christian ideology was largely the ideology of the ruling
class.
The peasantry remained incorrigible. They were largely

untouched by the civilising role of the church throughout
the Middle Ages and they remained the main vehicle of
magical, irrational practices ... [until] the peasantry as a
class was transformed into wage labourers.
(Abercrombie eta/. , 1980: 69-70)
Peasant revolt against landlords was frequent and

agrarian turmoil almost constant. But revolts were generally
very localised and there were few major 'class rebellions'
over wide areas that the landlords had to put down. In
Britain, for example, the Peasant's Revolt of 1381 was

largely confined to the south-east of England, although it
clearly involved considerable organisation over what was
then a very large area. Such 'mass' risings were very
infrequent, however. More typical were localised
disturbances reflecting particular problems. Occasionally, a
general problem stimulated a large number of quasi-
independent local protests, as in the 1475 separate outbreaks
enumerated for the 'Captain Swing' risings of 1830-2
(Hobsbawm and Rude, 1973). But organisation of rural
labour in Britain has always been difficult, as Newby (1979)
illustrates in his discussions of trade unionism among
agricultural workers; class solidarity is difficult to achieve
when the class is widely scattered and communications are
slow.
In considerable measure, therefore, it was the geography
of the state territory that enabled the feudal mode of
production to survive, with elements extending into the
capitalist era. Revolts were local and fairly readily crushed;
labouring-class solidarity throughout the state territory was
virtually impossible. Thus,
The fact that the dominant class could not adequately

impose its culture upon the peasantry also works in reverse
in terms of peasant consciousness. Given the general
problem of communication based on isolated rural
communes, there was no coherent peasant consciousness
which could have mobilised the peasantry against the
landlords as a class of oppressors. Material conditions
ruled out the development of anything but a localised
sense of identity and solidarity. However, even with a
definite class consciousness, the peasantry was controlled
by the landlord's hold over tenancy of land and by the
landlord's monopoly of other means of production, such
as mills and dikes. These features of economic control
were themselves largely dependent on the superior military
strength of the landlords as a class. Hunger, drudgery and
disease did the rest.
(Abercrombie eta/., 1980: 72)
Class conflict was restricted because of the spatial separation

of the workforce, and one of the major strengths of the
ruling class, as Tilly (1975c) makes clear, was its control over
the food supply.
The feudal system was a relatively stable mode of
production, therefore. The labouring class resented its
position and frequently agitated against the landlords, but
with little success. The landlords, in their turn, sometimes
agitated - individually or severally - against the sovereign,
seeking to increase their own power and to counter the
latter's rule. Occasionally, major changes occurred, as states
were re-created, but the general trend - as illustrated by
France - was for an extension of central rule and of the
sovereign's power, based on greater control of the means of
production.
In Britain, the period between the Roman departure and
the Norman conquest was one in which 'the territorial
foundations of the economy were strengthened' (Jones,
1978: 57). Saxon and Scandinavian settlement imposed
socio-territorial organisation on separate parts of the
country, replacing the Celts who retreated outside the
English lowlands. Manorial feudalism was established, and
this was strengthened by the imposition of a single sovereign
authority in England by the Normans. Within the country, as
Dodgshon (1978) illustrates, the details of feudal operations
varied considerably but the overall result was a relatively
stable system of economic relationships, buttressed by state
and ideology. In England (and later in Britain) the state, as in
France, became increasingly centralised and dominant. In
Germany, however, the local rulers were able to hold out
against a strong central power (the empire) and to create a
mosaic of relatively independent city-states; only in Prussia
was a strong political-administrative apparatus established
(Poggi, 1978).
Feudalism was not general throughout large areas of the
world, however, and several separate types of social
organisation - related to the feudal mode of production in
certain ways - have been identified. Hechter and Brustein
(1980) list two others in Western Europe: sedentary pastoral
and petty commodity. The former occurred in much of
northern Europe (including most of the British Isles and all

of Scandinavia), and its social organisation was typical of
what have been described above as chiefdoms. The petty
commodity type was urban-centred and based on long-
distance trade; it characterised much of the Mediterranean
coast plus Switzerland and parts of the Low Countries and
Northern Germany (the Hanseatic League).
Feudalism was largely constrained to central England plus
central France and the Rhinelands and central Iberia. And it
was in these feudal areas that the first modern states were
established, according to Hechter and Brustein, because they
had much more political conflict - between a landed
aristocracy and an expanding urban bourgeoisie - than was
the case in the other two types. To maintain their power, the
aristocrats yielded some of their independence to the creation
of a strong central state, and the states so created were able
to extend their spheres of influence into the other areas
because of their strength - a function of the hierarchical
nature of feudal society as a result of land tenure law; and
their ability- the greater increase in agricultural productivity
made possible by the open-field system. Thus the origins of
the modern state, and certain aspects of present world
political geography, reflect, in their view, the geography of
the feudal mode of production.
From feudalism to capitalism and the early to the modern

state
The transition from feudalism to capitalism, which involved

replacement of the feudal mode of production, occurred in
Western Europe. Elsewhere, the pre-capitalist modes of
production, although in many cases very successful as
indicated in the volume of surplus extracted and the size of
cities (see below), did not stimulate movement towards a new
mode. The changes originating in north-western Europe were
very rapid, however, and in little more than a century
virtually the whole of the earth's surface was incorporated
into a single world-economy centred on the North Atlantic
shores, whose origins stem from the sixteenth century
(Wallerstein, 1974). Why the breakthrough occurred in

Western Europe is of only marginal relevance here: clearly it
was a combination of favourable environmental conditions,
successful feudal societies, including the related
mercantilism, the readiness of individuals to invest in
innovation and the power of the state. What is of importance
is that it led to a rewriting of political geography, and to a
growth in state power.
Capitalism does not differ from other modes of
production simply because it is dominated by manu-
facturing, trade, and the circulation of capital. All of
these elements were present in feudalism, which included
commodity production by craftsmen and their wage
labourers, large volumes of trade, and usury. As a separate
mode of production, capitalism is characterised by the means
by which the labour process is articulated: the working (or
labouring) class is separated from its means of production. It
is denied access to land, and is forced to sell its labour power
to landowners (defined broadly to include all ownership of
land resources, not just farming land) so as to ensure the
reproduction of its material conditions. Those who employ
labour retain part of the revenue from selling the products of
labour power, so that the working class receives only a
portion of the fruits of its efforts. This portion retained by
the capitalist class (the surplus value) is partly used for
consumption - reproduction of the class - and the remainder
is reinvested (as capital) in labour power, to extract more
surplus and allow expanded reproduction, greater
consumption, increased accumulation of assets and greater
economic power for the capitalists (the bourgeoisie). Thus
capital, unlike land and labour, is not a given factor of
production. It is a result of the operations of a mode of
production which involves one group - through its
monopoly over a single factor of production (land) - forcing
another to work for a wage which is less than the price
received for the products. This 'exploitation' of the working
class is legitimised in capitalist ideology; the surplus value is
defined as a return for the risks of entrepreneurship.
In agriculture the development of the capitalist mode of
production meant that the peasants had to be deprived of
their rights to use land (within the constraints of feudal rent).

The landlord may have taken the land for himself, creating a
propertyless rural mass who were forced either to work for
him as wage labour or to leave. He may have leased or rented
it to individuals, who would be charged a capitalist, or
differential, rent rather than a feudal, or ground, rent; the
former is set so that the tenant is encouraged to produce as
much as possible from the land. Or he may have sold the
land, creating a class of small farmers, who operated as petty
capitalists. Thus the number of landowners varied from
place to place, influencing the nature of the emergent
society; in parts of the New World, for example, the sale of
land at very cheap rates created a large class of independent
landowners, with consequences for the structure of society
there (Hartz, 1964; Harris, 1977).
The transition to capitalism eventually involved the
development of a particular method of production - large-
scale manufacturing - and the consequent urbanisation of
the workforce, but its growth was not inextricably linked to
this. Its major feature was the encouragement of the
investment - production - accumulation cycle, and it also
involved the extension of trade as a means of obtaining
needed resources and finding markets for the increased
production. Thus the development of the capitalist mode
involved the growth of a large merchant class, defined as all
those involved in the processes of buying and selling. These
were the administrative class of capitalism, inserted between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
In order to pursue their aims, both the bourgeoisie and the
merchant class needed the state, to provide legitimation and
to ensure the stable conditions necessary for capital
investment and accumulation. Without such stability,
capitalists may not be prepared to gamble on large-scale
investments, so that
the extreme development of trade and commodity

production has definite legal and political conditions of
existence. On the one hand regular and systematic
commodity circulation on an extensive scale presupposes
some legal guarantee of constraints and a legally
guaranteed 'equality' of buyer and seller in respect of

certain contracts. There must therefore be a legal and
political apparatus capable . . . of enforcing such
guarantees. On the other hand regular commerce
presupposes the pacification of the countryside . . . and it
requires that commerce be relatively free from arbitrary
interferences.
(Hindess and Hirst, 1975: 288)
The state was required to perform this function of guarantor

of the right to trade. To do it, power had to be removed from
the feudal lords and transferred to a central body, to ensure
no local 'arbitrary interferences'. Thus under the capitalist
mode of production,
states make up a system fundamentally different from an

ancient empire, with its heterocephalic, semi-sovereign
components tied to an imperial center by relations of
subordination. The modern states system is made up of
coordinate, juxtaposed, sovereign units.
(Poggi, 1978: 87-8)
Early states that were already strongly centralised were thus

in a better position, ceteris paribus, to provide such
guarantees and act as stimulants to capitalist expansion.
Transformation of the mode of production required
alterations in political organisation, and thus the transition
from the early to the modern state. The new bourgeoisie (the
merchants and the industrialists) wanted political
representation alongside the landowners (who were
eventually reduced to an inferior position, as in the British
House of Lords). Parliamentary government emerged as a
permanent gathering of elected members (from a limited
franchise), replacing an infrequent meeting of hereditary
feudal landowners, and these representatives oversaw the
operation of the bureaucratic apparatus. Eventually the
sovereign was either removed or rendered impotent. The
Parliament became the sovereign institution so that, to the
extent that it was representative of the population as a whole,
sovereignty was transferred to the people.
This does not imply that parliamentary government was
necessary to the development of industrial capitalism. A
number of other forms might have emerged, and indeed
there were many variants on the nature of the parliamentary
government among the various capitalist countries. As
indicated in the discussion in Chapter 2 on theories of state
action, the detail is largely irrelevant to the larger dynamic of
capitalism. So long as a form of political organisation was
provided that would allow capitalism to thrive, this was
sufficient; that parliamentary democracy emerged as the
common form indicates that it was sufficient, but does not
imply that it was necessary.
To support the state in its legitimation and protection of
capitalism, a new ideology was required: that which
bolstered feudalism was largely antagonistic to capitalist
aims (Abercrombie et a/., 1980: 97). The new creed was
required to legitimise not only inequality but also the method
of accumulation, which promoted inequality. This was done
with an ideology of
Philosophic radicalism ... founded on an individualistic

hedonism that was manifest in the rejection of obligation
for utility, maximisation of individual utilities and the
glorification of continuous accumulation. It separated out
the economy from other social institutions, placed it
beyond political control and claimed that it worked
according to natural laws. The purpose of state activity
was to maintain social harmony in areas outside the
economic system, but in as abstentionist a manner as was
congruent with the purpose.
(Abercrombie et al., 1980: 99)
Individualism - or at least the individualism of capitalists;

some Americans call it privatism - is central to this ideology:
the state provided the apparatus for both its celebration and
its unfettering by the working class, on whose loyalty it
depended. Religion was incorporated: according to
Abercrombie et al. (1980: 101) Wesleyan Methodism was
especially important to British owners of manufacturing
industry with its 'transformation of self-discipline into a sign
of moral virtue and the emphasis placed on working for

salvation by means of material activity on earth'. And the
entire ideology formed the basis for the legal structure within
which capitalism operated, including constitutions such as
that of the United States, and its interpretation by judges
(Clark, 1981).
Whether, at least in the early stages of capitalist
expansion, this new ideology was accepted by the working
class is dubious. The ninteenth century was a period of much
working-class dissent - illustrated by Chartism in Britain
(Hobsbawm, 1968)- and
The machinery of ideological transmission was hardly well

developed or effective before the late nineteenth century
... There was no mass education, no mass media and very
limited adult literacy.
But there was no urban working-class cohesion in the face

of capitalism, just as there was none to counter either
feudalism or emerging capitalism in rural areas. The new
bourgeoisie, like the landed aristocracy, distanced itself from
the proletariat, almost exclusively with regard to residence
and as much as possible at places of work, recreation, and
worship. (The larger the workplace, the greater the
distancing and the greater the use of intermediate classes to
link the employer and employee impersonally.) Within the
working class there were sectional and sectoral conflicts
because the discipline of unemployment and payment by

results provided all the compulsion that any owner would
ever require. During the transition to industrial capitalism,
some concern for the ideological apparatus within the
factory was evident and was related to what owners saw as
the problem of instilling time-and-work discipline into the
labour force, but the dull compulsion of economic
relations soon provided the discipline and reduced the
need for any process of indoctrination.
(Abercrombie, eta!., 1980: 114-15)
At least until the twentieth century, the intra-class

conflicts and the spatial divisions within the working class
prevented any development of cohesive anti-capitalist
movements. The state as regulator of labour relations acted
largely at local and low-key scales. (The amount of social
unrest in Britain was much less in the later parts of the
nineteenth century than in the earlier decades. This may have
been a reflection of economic prosperity; it may also have
been a result of the increased strength of the state as a
regulator of economic and social activity, a strength whose
legitimacy was not fully contested until the great depression
of the 1930s.)
The process of accumulation which is central to capitalism
required sources of raw materials, labour, markets and ever-
increasing productive efficiency. (Without the latter,
individual capitalists would be unable to compete in the
marketplace unless they had some monopolistic protection.)
None of these conditions necessitated the inter-
nationalisation of the process; it could have been that
cheaper materials, expanding markets and capital
accumulation based on increased productivity could all have
been achieved within the confines of a single state. But this
was very unlikely, given the geography of resources, the
rapid growth in demand for them, and the expanding market
requirements. Thus the growth of capitalism and the spatial
expansion of production-marketing relationships are often
treated as interdependent. Such spatial expansion required
the support of the state. The bourgeoisie needed the military
and diplomatic backing of the sovereign body whereas the
latter, increasingly a separate sector of society, needed a
successful economy to provide revenue via taxation which
supported its legitimation and other functions. Thus the
interests of the bourgeoisie, who dominated the economy,
came to dominate the state and the two sectors became
complexly interdependent.
The modern state and its capitalist allies developed within
the containers of the pre-existing system of early states; in
some countries - such as Germany and Italy - greater
integration of the territory under a single state apparatus
was necessary for industrial 'take-off'. With the
internationalisation of the system, so the capitals come into

contact and conflict:
The states system was intrinsically dynamic because of the

persistent tension between, on the one hand, the
absoluteness of the notions of sovereignty and raison
d'etat (which articulated and legitimated each state's
commitment to self-aggrandisement), and, on the other,
the continuous and inescapable presence of other states
bounding that 'will to sovereignty'. Over and over again,
each state came up against limits to its sovereignty in
the form of competing states striving to satisfy their own
self-defined interests. Hence in this system every
accommodation was conditional, every alliance
temporary, and every claim ultimately enforceable only
through coercion - if necessary in the field of battle . . .
the limits to a state's sovereignty were seen to be the limits
to its ability to make good a particular claim.
(Poggi, 1978: 90)
The nineteenth century saw many of these conflicts

between capitalists with their state backers. Only in the
twentieth century did these become major eruptions,
incorporating much of the world, as when, for example,
both Germany and Japan attempted to impose economically
autarkic designs on the state system (Calvocoressi and Wint,
1972). By then, capitalism was itself being transformed into
late capitalism.
Colonialism
Within its own territory, the role of the state as capitalism

developed was largely to act as regulator and legitimator,
allowing capitalists as free a rein as possible in their pursuit
of surplus value. Beyond its own boundaries, the state was
involved in aiding expansionist policies. In some cases, this
meant the annexation of neighbouring territories (as in the
development of the United Kingdom); in others, it meant
acting as broker between capitalists and a foreign power. The
main role - especially for the major capitalist states in the

nineteenth century- was as the vehicle for colonialism.
Colonialism and colonisation took many forms,
depending on time, place, colonial power and the individuals
concerned. Eventually, most of the world outside the
capitalist hearth of north-western Europe was brought under
alien domination. Sub-states were established (sometimes
taking over from colonial, capitalist enterprises such as the
East India Company) and social and economic life in the
colonies was regulated in the best interests of colonial
investors and their agents. Where necessary, native peoples
were subjugated by force; in some places, they were literally
decimated (as in Australia, New Zealand, and North
America), whereas in others the loyalty of their leaders was
bought. Uniformity was then imposed, so that the ideology
of the victors became the rule: in most colonial empires
There is unity of the state's territory, which comes to be

bounded as much as possible by a continuous geographical
frontier that is militarily defensible. There is a single
currency and a unified fiscal system. Generally, there is a
single 'national' language. (This is often artificially
superimposed upon a variety of local languages and
dialects, which sometimes are harshly suppressed but more
often are slowly uprooted by an expanding public
education system ... ) Finally, there is a unified legal
system that allows alternative juridical traditions to
maintain validity only in peripheral areas and for limited
purposes.
(Poggi, 1978: 93)
The extent to which uniformity was required depended on

the colonial power (the French, for example, made residents
of their colonies French citizens; the British did not); the aim
was to ensure acceptance of colonial rule and the
expropriation of surplus value to the home country.
Many of the areas colonised in this way - in Africa,

America and Asia - were already the homes of successful
pre-states, which had not made the transition to capitalism.
Their success is shown in the size of their towns, the centres
of conspicuous consumption. Thus in 1600 there were thirty
cities with populations exceeding 20 000 in Africa and
twenty-eight in America, and there were eighty-six in Asia
with populations exceeding 40 000; Europe in 1600 had 121
with populations exceeding 20 000, with most of the largest
in the south of the continent, notably Spain (the data are
given in Chandler and Fox, 1974). Some of the societies
which supported these cities were in relative decline by the
time of major contact with industrial capitalism: others were
not and subduing them was a major task.
Colonialism overrode the spatial structure of the non-
capitalist world outside Europe. It superimposed its own
urban system to articulate trade and other movements
(Johnston, 1980c) and it ignored the boundaries of the
existing states. A new set of boundaries was drawn, in many
places after conflicts between various colonial powers and
their agents. As a result, some of the colonies incorporated
members of several pre-existing early states or pre-states,
and some state populations were divided between two or
more colonies. In many cases, these populations had
developed strong internal cohesion under the early state, and
had distinctive linguistic, religious and other traits. These
were to form the base for later nationalist movements in
many parts of the world where the colonising power had
been unable to impose its own homogeneous culture (see
Chapter 5).
Late capitalism
The current stage in the development of economy and society

is variously termed 'advanced', 'late' and 'monopoly'
capitalism. This is not a new mode of production, but
'merely a further development of the imperialist, monopoly-
capitalist epoch' (Mandel, 1978: 9) characterised, according
to Mandel, by: (i) the defeats of the working class in wars
and by fascism; (ii) the 'Third Technological Revolution',
with a very high level of automation replacing labour by
machines; (iii) the acceleration in technological innovation;
(iv) the use of permanent rearmament to absorb much

surplus capital; (v) the international concentration and
centralisation of capital that accompanies the rapid growth
to economic dominance of multinational corporations; and
(vi) permanent inflation.
Of these characteristics, the most relevant to the present
discussion is concentration and centralisation. These two
trends are the consequences of competition and the unending
search for profit. In any one economic sector under
industrial capitalism, the successful firms slowly eliminate
the less successful, at an international scale, usually through
pricing policies which force bankruptcies and stimulate
mergers. Eventually, the sector becomes dominated by a few
large firms, which may form an oliogopoly: this is
concentration. Beyond a certain level, it may be impossible
for any individual firm within the sector to expand; the
market is saturated (internationally), the market share of the
other large firms cannot easily be invaded without the risk of
cut-throat competition which might be detrimental to the
oligopoly as a whole, and further investment is discouraged.
Thus the firms must seek to invest their surplus value
elsewhere, and they invade other sectors where the prospects
for accumulation are more promising. In this way,
concentration in individual sectors is followed by ownership
in the economy as a whole becoming centralised. Control is
focused into fewer hands, as successful managers take over
larger segments of the world economy.
Ownership and control become increasingly separated as
these two trends operate. The large conglomerates are rarely
the personal possessions of individual capitalists and their
families. They are public companies in which all can invest.
The largest investors are those who have accumulated wealth
under industrial capitalism - and continue to do so - and
they retain ultimate control through their manipulation of
funds and their influence over the senior appointments; most
part-owners - the small shareholders - play no role in the
running of the company. The diffuseness of ownership, and
the constant movement of investment in search of better
profits, has created a major economic sector based on the
circulation of capital. (Thus the banking industry in Britain,
for example, exerts a dominant influence over the activities

of the trusts and pension funds set up for small savers and
members of the working class, including those run by the
trades unions: Minns, 1981.) Allowing the working class to
invest in such companies - either directly or, more
commonly, indirectly, through institutions such as insurance
companies and pension funds which are major elements in
the system of finance capital - is part of the legitimation
process for late capitalism, insofar as it encourages support
for the system and discourages protest. For the present
discussion, however, a major feature of concentration and
centralisation in late capitalism is its international scale,
which makes most states relatively insignificant elements
within the operation of a world economy dominated by a
small number of companies which are larger and more
wealthy than many individual states.
The ideology of late capitalism must
justify accumulation . . . provide socially sanctioned

values which make legitimate the appropriation as profit
of the value created by collective labour, since profit is the
basis of accumulation and therefore of the reproduction of
the economic system.
(Abercrombie eta/. , 1980: 131)
The socially sanctioned values include: the right to own
property and to use it to make profits; the justification of
social and economic inequality on the argument that
capitalism must be efficient and that this can only be
achieved if managers are well compensated - this is the
professional component; the neutrality of the state, which
serves no particular class but only the interests of all; and the
superiority of bourgeois culture. These are somewhat
contradictory, however - the ownership of property and the
arguments for a managerial meritocracy are not readily
squared - and create difficulties for the legitimating body,
the state.
The development of mass media and other forms of mass
persuasion under late capitalism suggest the need, unlike
earlier phases, for diffusion of the upper-class ideology to
incorporate the working class and ensure its support.

Nevertheless, Abercrombie eta/., (1980) suggest that- at the
superficial level at least - such ideological conditioning has
not occurred; accumulation, inequality, and the power of big
business are still widely resented - internationally and within
countries - and class antagonisms remain strong.
However, this is not associated with unanimity within the
working class and large-scale movements for the overthrow
of capitalist hegemony:
There do not appear to be any immediately obvious

practical consequences of denying the ideology ... There
is very little active political protest that occurs outside the
existing political framework or that attempts to subvert
this framework.
Protest occurs at the workplace, but general strikes are

extremely rare; individual decisions of both capital and state
are contested, but there is no mass protest (and that which
sometimes occurs rarely lasts). The reason for proletarian
acquiescence, it is claimed, is the same as in all other stages
of economic evolution: the threat of unemployment and
relative deprivation. The working class
have not formulated a radical belief system which contains

a model of an alternative society . . . This obviously
reduces the threat to social order . . . should subordinates
have developed such an oppositional ideology. This state
of affairs need not be accounted for in terms of the
indoctrinating power of dominant ideology ... reformism
has produced real, tangible benefits for the working class,
with the result that, for many, it no longer appears
necessary that existing institutions, including capitalism
should be destroyed. Radical transformation by
revolutionary means would lead inevitably to disruption.
(Abercrombie eta/., 1980: 153).
Benefits can be won within the system, without the need to

incur the costs of creating a new one.
The creation of this pragmatic working-class ideology, in

principle opposed to bourgeois ideals but in practice
prepared to live within them, is very much a function of the
state. As illustrated in Chapter 1, the state is a major actor in
the late capitalist world economy. Its three functions
according to Mandel (1978: 475) are: (i) providing the
necessary conditions for capitalist accumulation; (ii)
repression of any threat in the capitalist system; and (iii)
integration of the dominated classes. All three tasks are
larger under late capitalism than previously. The
concentration and centralisation trends mean that
investment tends to avoid risky sectors, basic industries
which do not offer substantial profits, and long-term
projects: if immediate and continuing substantial returns
cannot be virtually guaranteed then investment may be
channelled elsewhere, very probably to another country.
Thus the state, in a great variety of ways, must subsidise
capital. If it did not, it would find it difficult to prevent
proletarian protest at the lack of employment as capital
shifted overseas. At the same time, it must convince the
working class of the necessity to provide such subsidy and to
maintain a profitable capitalist operation, within the state
territory; under late capitalism and its advanced industries,
'Belief in the omnipotence of technology is the specific form
of bourgeois ideology in late capitalism' (Mandel, 1978:
501), and this belief must be propagated.
The legitimation activities of the state are greater under
late capitalism because the potential threat of working-class
protest is greater; the proletariat are better educated, better
organised (because of larger workplaces) and better able to
damage the entire system than before, and so they must be
pacified through what are generally known as welfare state
policies; these make the population, both individually and
collectively, even more dependent on state provision of
services for the continuity of their daily lives, especially in
urban areas, and so diminish the likelihood of revolutionary
protest. In most countries, for example, they have been
enfranchised and their leaders incorporated into the
capitalist system. At the same time, the franchise, according
to Mandel, atomises society into individuals casting secret
votes at the polling booth and so defuses potential working-

class solidarity. Finally, the existence of the state itself is a
disintegrating element within the world-economy; its focus
on national interests divides the world proletariat into
antagonistic, sectional groups, thereby aiding international
capitalism.
This major set of roles for the state in late capitalism has
already been described in previous chapters and its various
realisations are discussed in the remainder of the book. The
presentation here has shown that the evolution of the state
has been part of the evolution of contemporary society; it is
an integral element in all modes of production, but of
increasing size (if not importance) in the later ones.
Throughout, its basic nature and functions have been the
same; to integrate the antagonistic elements in unequal
societies, through a bureaucratic apparatus, and to provide
the conditions under which these inequalities, and their
causes, will be maintained.
Beyond late capitalism
Marxist theories of political economy see capitalism passing

through a series of crises, progressively more severe. A
consequence of this is the final stage in societal evolution,
from capitalism to socialism. This new mode of production
will be brought about by the revolt of the proletariat
(Mandel, 1977).
As yet, that revolt has not occurred: crises have been
contained, largely by the state, or have dissipated. The
proletariat has not launched an international revolution.
National revolutions have occurred. Few of these, and none
of the major ones, have been against a local, late capitalist
hegemony, and some (e.g. Spain) have been the reverse. In
1917, the Russian Revolution did not face a modern state, let
alone a late capitalist one; a similar revolution in the same
year in Oklahoma attracted no support from the American
late capitalist proletariat (Weinstein, 1967). Only in Chile,
and to a lesser extent in small countries such as Guyana,
Jamaica, and Malta, have anti-capitalist governments been
elected to power (Jamaica's was ousted in 1980 at an

election; Chile's was removed by an American-backed
insurrection). Thus where socialist states have been
established, they were largely in revolt against earlier stages
of societal evolution, and the major role of the state there
has been to create an affluent society without capitalism.
(Events in Poland in 1980-1 indicate its relative failure
there.) In the USSR, this has involved mimicking capitalist
industrial methods and its emphasis on large scale has
required a large state bureaucracy, both to further the
industrial aims and to regulate the workforce. As under
capitalism this bureaucracy has become self-perpetuating
and self-seeking ('the Russian proletariat progressively lost
the direct exercise of political and economic power. A new
privileged layer began to emerge which acquired a real
monopoly of the exercise of power in all areas of society':
Mandel, 1977: 110). In China, the goals are somewhat
different, but the regulatory function is just as important
and the separateness of the administrative cadre is clear.
Conclusion
The state, then, has evolved with society, as a central element

in the mode of production. Its basic roles are few; its
performances of them manifold. The remainder of this book
outlines their nature, and illustrates the focal element of the
state in the political geography, and hence the human
geography, of the world.
4 The State and the
Contemporary World-
Economy
The evolution of late capitalism, as outlined in the preceding
chapter, has concentrated and centralised economic power at
a world scale into a small number of multinational
conglomerates. Most of these conglomerates are much larger
than the majority of the world's countries, if one compares,
for example, assets controlled against national wealth or
annual turnover against gross national product. Thus the
major capitalist enterprises are among the most important
actors in the contemporary world-economy.
This dominance of the world-economy by a relatively
small number of capitalist corporations has emerged fairly
recently. Prior to that, most companies were relatively small,
compared with the states with which they dealt, especially
those with the most advanced economies. Further, during the
period of industrial capitalism most economic sectors, within
as well as between countries, were characterised by large
numbers of competing firms no one or few of which were
large enough to dominate activity within the sector. As a
result, although the state acted in the interests of capitalism
as a whole it was not particularly influenced for long periods
by individual capitalist firms. This is no longer so. The
growth of monopolies and oligopolies has made the state
much less powerful in its dealings with capital and its
growing subservience to international capital is reflected in
its activities.
In the contemporary world-economy, the state is caught in
an increasingly difficult position athwart the antagonisms
between capital and labour. On the one hand it must counter
certain of the activities of capital in order to protect its
The State and the Contemporary World-Economy 67
citizens and their interests and to maintain its legitimation.

On the other hand, it must act as an ally of capital, otherwise
its citizens will have few interests to protect and legitimation
will be lost. The tension between these two demands is the
current situation of the state; its illustration is the purpose of
the present chapter and the next, with the focus in this one on
the relations between state and capital.
The contemporary world-economy
The framework for the discussion in this chapter is provided

by the work of Wallerstein (1974, 1979; for a critical review
of Wallerstein's work, see Brewer, 1980). In looking at total
economic and social systems -those which are self-contained
-he identifies only three types: the world-empire; the world-
economy; and small, highly autonomous subsistence
economies. The first two are examples of world-systems; the
third is not.
A world-empire comprises an economic system, with a
specially structured division of labour, which is controlled by
a single political system - although the degree of control may
be very weak in some parts. It is thus an autonomous unit, or
a closed system in more technical jargon (Bennett and
Chorley, 1978); the political and economic boundaries are
conterminous. In a world-economy, on the other hand, there
is no such spatial matching. The economic system operates
over a wider area than the political so that each political unit
is not a self-contained economic and social system. World-
empires are largely characteristic of the pre-state and early
state eras: although there have been attempts to create them
since (so-called policies of economic autarkism), no capitalist
system associated with modern states has attained the level of
closure necessary to portray it as a world-empire.
According to Wallerstein (1974: 348) the world-economy
type is necessary for the continued operation of capitalism:
It is the peculiarity of the modern world-system that a

world-economy has survived for 500 years and yet has not
come to be transformed into a world-empire - a
peculiarity that is the secret of its strength ... Capitalism

has been able to flourish precisely because the world-
economy has had within its bounds not one but a
multiplicity of political systems ... Capitalism is based on
the constant absorption of economic loss by political
entities, while economic gain is distributed to 'private'
hands ... [it] is based on the fact that the economic
factors operate within an arena larger than that which any
political entity can totally control. This gives capitalists a
freedom of manoeuvre that is structurally based.
It is the operation of this world-system, within the degrees of

freedom provided by the political system - the pattern of
states - that is the concern of the present chapter. The role of
the states varies, according to where in the division of labour
they are situated. This division - which has clear spatial co-
ordinates - comprises a core, where capital is accumulated,
and a periphery where labour power is exploited. Between
them are semi-peripheries, comprising both former cores
now in decline and others 'promoted, so to speak, as a result
of the changing geopolitics of an expanding world-economy'
(Wallerstein, 1974: 349). States are associated with, though
not necessarily conterminous with, these divisions, so that to
understand the geography of the growing world-economy
and the contemporary interaction between states and
capitalism it is necessary to sketch in outline the role of states
in the creation of the current core-periphery organisation.
The state and evolution of the contemporary pattern
The early state system of the pre-capitalist, world-empire era

comprised a large number of separate, relatively stable
territorial units; most of them were small in both area and
population. These states were interdependent with regard to
certain goods, especially the luxury items consumed by the
ruling classes, but largely self-sufficient in subsistence goods.
Their boundaries were in most cases relatively ill-defined and
there were large areas which were not permanently under the
control of a central state.
The pressure to accumulate and to establish hegemony

over larger areas led to the development of larger states, with
the stronger ones overcoming their weaker neighbours and
extracting surplus value from them. In this way, the major
urban centres of the world were established, as the centres of
consumption and the nodal points in the circulation of
capital; minor centres were articulation points in the imperial
organisation for the channelling of surplus. Occasionally,
two major empires came into conflict, either where their
boundaries met or where their expansionist aims converged;
when such conflict led to war one (sometimes both) of the
imperial powers subsequently decayed. More frequently, the
dominant power faced revolt from within its subject
territories, and eventually the empires crumbled as central
hegemony could not be maintained. The small, independent
states which had been incorporated into the empires were
then able to reassert themselves, in some cases after a period
of relative anarchy (in a return to the pre-state stage). Such
conflicts were extremely demanding on the imperial state,
with the needs to maintain a standing army and to raise
additional forces. The costs of supporting its military
presence meant that greater demands had to be placed on
subject people, which generally fuelled future rebellion and
hastened the demise of the empire.
Such world-empires were common in all continents. With
the development of the capitalist world-economy, however, a
new form of empire with a much stronger military and fiscal
base was created. These empires were established outside
Europe by the maritime powers - Spain, Portugal, France,
Britain and the Netherlands - and within Europe (and into
Asia) by the Austro-Hungarians, Turks and Russians. (For a
discussion of why certain states developed their empires
more rapidly and extensively than others, see the section in
Chapter 3, p. 5, on the work of Hechter and Brustein,
1980.) Development of the empires was sometimes slow, with
the European countries being unwilling to annex further
lands, and so stretch their resources, at certain times;
Britain, for example, was very unwilling to adopt New
Zealand as a colony in the 1830s because of the costs relative
to the perceived benefits.
The primary aim of colonisation was economic, with the

state acting as the capitalists' ally, despite the alternative
ideological justifications characterised by phrases such as
'the white man's burden'. Within most colonies, exclusive
rights to natural resources and to labour were granted to
home investors and markets for home production were
guaranteed. (Manufacturing was prohibited in many
colonies and imports from other countries proscribed.)
Where relatively advanced early states were encountered - as
in South Asia and much of sub-tropical Africa and Latin
America - these had to be incorporated into the relevant
segment of the world-economy, often under threat (if not
actual use) of arms. Incorporation generally involved
winning the support of the pre-existing ruling class by
allowing them to retain some rights over land and the surplus
obtained. Where no strong opposition was encountered, the
aboriginal inhabitants were easily dispossessed and a new
state established. Two types of colony were formed. In the
first, permanent settlers from the colonial power were
involved in occupying and exploiting the land resource (in
several cases aided by imported slave or convict labour), and
most of these were given some form of self-governing state
relatively early. In the other type, citizens of the colonial
power became temporary residents of the colony, with the
task of controlling the colony and channelling its surplus: in
these, the state apparatus was kept more firmly in the hands
of the colonial power.
In establishing their colonial empires, the European
powers paid relatively little attention to the mosaic of pre-
states and early states whose lands were being conquered.
New territorial organisations were imposed on the basis of
perceived resource availability and agreements between
competitors (as in the nineteenth-century 'Scramble for
Africa' involving several European powers). Existing states
were destroyed and replaced by new ones that lacked unity
and, to the inhabitants, raisons d'etre.
The success of colonial ventures reflected the ability to
exploit the local land and population and to maintain control
over the inhabitants. Such exploitation and control was
resented, and led to political agitation against the colonial
power. For success, such agitation needed military backing

and therefore it was in the colonies that had been given some
element of self-government that local nationalist movements
were stimulated to present a serious threat to the occupying
powers. The first successful revolts occurred in North
America, where the British settlers achieved political
independence; they were followed during the nineteenth
century by a series of revolts against Spanish and Portuguese
rule in Central and South America. In this way, new states
were created, as they were later in the other British settler
colonies: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa
(without military revolt in the first three).
Decolonisation in Asia and Africa did not take place until
the twentieth century. (Many areas, especially in Africa,
were not effectively colonised until late in the nineteenth
century.) Dissension against colonial rule was endemic in
many colonies and occasionally led to significant armed
rebellions, as in India, but it was not until after the Second
World War that the threat of rebellion (aided often by other
independent states), greater national consciousness among
the exploited populations in an increasingly well-articulated
anti-colonial ideology, and ideological doubts among the
colonial powers allowed the movement to political
independence to proceed. Even so, in many colonies that
movement was slow and involved several decades of political
and armed struggle, with the colonial powers unwilling to
yield to elements whose ideology threatened the security of
colonial investments after political domination had been
withdrawn; a major aim of the decolonisation process was to
guarantee economic hegemony over the new states. By the
1960s, however, decolonisation was proceeding rapidly.
When it was established in 1945 the United Nations
Organisation, to which most independent states belong, had
fifty members: by 1960 there were ninety-six; there were 124
in 1970 and 146 in 1978.
While the traditional colonial powers were contemplating
retreat, however, others were seeking to establish empires. In
the 1930s, both Germany and Japan sought to establish new
economic spheres of influence via political and military
domination of formerly independent states, and there was a
minor attempt by Italy. These led to the Second World War

and, in the vacuum after that conflict, a new empire was
established, based on Moscow. There the 1917 Revolution
led to the establishment of an ostensibly socialist state,
which, for ideological and economic reasons, has sought to
extend its hegemony. In the late 1940s, it was able to do this
by engineering socialist 'revolutions' in the countries
separating it from Western Europe and these countries (with
the partial exception of Yugoslavia) have been drawn into a
socialist empire, which is now far from independent of the
Western-based, capitalist world-economy. Each of the
Eastern European states is ostensibly independent, but, as
illustrated in Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968 and
Poland in 1980-1, this independence is brittle and subject to
Russian control. The same is not true to the East, however,
where the Russian attempt to incorporate China into its
empire failed and a separate empire - with its own military
conquests, as of Tibet- has been established.
The withdrawal of the colonial powers has not been
accompanied by a fragmentation of the world-economy.
This, as already illustrated in the discussion of late
capitalism, has become stronger, so much so that economic
hegemony was possible without political control of
dependent territories. The capitalist system focused on
north-west Europe, North America and Japan dominates the
entire world and neocolonialism has been established, with
the capitalists of the dominant countries able to exercise
economic hegemony over the decolonised world with the
support of the state but without the need for permanent
military occupation. Under neocolonialism, states have
judicial independence but their economies are dominated
and exploited by foreign powers, thereby retaining many of
the features of colonial dependence. In many cases, the
neocolonial power is the same as the old colonial power,
hence the term. Elsewhere, it is another power - as is the case
with the role of the United States in Latin America; in such
cases, the economic domination is often termed
'neoimperialism' (the single term 'neocolonialism' is used
here to cover both types of economic domination). It is the
operation of neocolonialism and neoimperialism, and the
role of the state in this, which concerns the remainder of this

chapter.
Core, periphery and semi-periphery
Outside the Soviet and Chinese blocs, therefore,

decolonisation has changed the political organisation of the
world, and created a large number of new states, but has
only slightly influenced the economic pattern. Many
countries have achieved political independence but
economically (and so socially and culturally) they remain
almost as dependent as before. This economic stability in the
international system reflects the strength of the capitalist
world-economy and its centralisation on the countries
flanking the North Atlantic. The result is a relatively simple
division of the world into three main zones, which follow
Wallerstein's categorisation.
(1) The core. This consists of the successful colonial
powers of the nineteenth century plus the more recent
neoimperialist powers which have achieved economic success
without major, long-lasting colonial ventures: Britain,
France and the Netherlands are the main members of the
first group; the United States, Germany and Japan dominate
in the second. Other countries - notably Belgium, the
Scandinavian countries, Switzerland and, to a lesser extent,
Italy - are linked to this core.
The core countries are the recipients of the surplus
exploited elsewhere in the world-economy. Nearly all of the
major conglomerates of late capitalism are owned by
shareholders resident there, and management is directed
from headquarter offices in one of the core states (often
known as the metropolitan economies). And, perhaps even
more importantly, the major institutions involved in the
circulation of finance capital, the channelling of investment
and the realisation of surplus are located in the core. This
financial situation is illustrated by the geography of net
international investment (i.e. foreign investment in a country
minus foreign investment from that country). Of sixty-three
countries for which data were available in a 1976 World
Bank survey, twelve had a net international investment

exceeding $US 100 million; the largest was Brazil ($US
1009m.) and only one of the twelve was in the core of the
world economy. Countering this, seventeen had a negative
net international investment figure (i.e. holdings overseas
exceeded foreign holdings in that country). The largest- $US
7335m., $US 2026m., and $US 1786m. respectively- were
for the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. Most
of the others were in the core, with the main exceptions being
oil-producing countries (Saudi Arabia, Libya and Venezuela)
and South Africa (Kurian, 1979: 109-10).
Most of the countries of the core have broadly based
industrial economies. None is self-sufficient in the
production of needed raw materials and few are self-
sufficient (or could be) in the production of food. As their
industries have become technologically more advanced, and
the levels of material consumption of their populations have
increased, so their demand!> for raw materials (including
energy) and foodstuffs have increased rapidly. The United
States alone consumed 117m. of the 643m. tons of steel
produced in the world in 1975 (Kurian, 1979: 269) and
2050m. tons (coal equivalent) of the 8951m. tons of energy in
1976 (Kurian, 1979: 191-2); its energy consumption per
capita was four times the world average and 1000 times
larger than that in the country using least. Some of the
supplies come from other countries within the core, but most
come from outside it, making the metropolitan economies
highly dependent on others. They also need to sell the surplus
production of their labour, both to ensure legitimation at
home (without such sales, unemployment might be much
higher) and to obtain needed foreign exchange. The range of
goods and services either sold or available for sale is large,
and few countries are dependent on a few commodities for
economic survival. (Where they are, as in the case of small
countries such as Switzerland, high levels of skill are needed
to ensure success, along with a state system that is strongly
supportive of local enterprise - in the Swiss case, with special
reference to the financial sector.)
A final characteristic of the core countries is the high level
of personal consumption spread across a large proportion of
the population. Simple indices such as per capita income

levels demonstrate this, but the great gulf between these
countries and the majority of the population in the rest of the
world is best illustrated by consumption levels. In 1964-6,
for example, the world average calorific intake per person
per day was 2386; in the countries of the core it was 3043 per
day, whereas in the periphery it was 2097. In 1970, it was
estimated that only 3 per cent of the population in the core
had an insufficient daily protein energy intake, compared to
up to 30 per cent in parts of the periphery (Dando, 1980).
(2) The periphery. This is the other extreme of the world-
economy, the set of states in which neocolonial and
neoimperial exploitation is greatest, where the returns to
indigenous labour are smallest and levels of consumption
lowest.
The periphery comprises most of the countries which are
variously described as 'the Third World', 'the developing
world' and 'the underdeveloped world'. Many of its
countries are relatively small, have a limited resource base,
and are highly dependent on the production of one crop or
mineral resource for export earnings (Johnston, 1976a):
most, too, are dependent on a single country (almost
invariably in the core) as the market for their products and
the source of their imports (much of this dependence reflects
the dominant position in peripheral states of a few firms with
headquarters in the relevant neocolonial/neoimperial
country).
The relationships between core and periphery are deeply
embedded in the world-economy and it is very difficult for
any peripheral state to combat its dependence on one or
more core economy. The peripheral states are dependent on
purchasers in the core, who control the markets for
commodities which, with few exceptions, are readily
substitutable. Further, in few cases does a single peripheral
country dominate the production of any one commodity, so
that it could manipulate its price. For many peripherally
produced commodities, an increase in production - after a
good harvest, for example - can lead to a decline in the price
received, and so harm the economy and perhaps lead to a fall
in investment for future production. Low production and
potentially higher prices, on the other hand, can be
countered by the core countries declining to buy, and relying
on stocks built up during periods of low prices plus a
diversion of spending into other commodities.
Attempts to control prices in the peripheral economy (by
producer boards, as in certain semi-peripheral countries such
as New Zealand) are fraught with difficulties and require a
viable local economy which has the reserves to finance an
industry through a crisis. This is rarely the case, so that a
peripheral country has little control over its income, which is
generally low and extremely variable. (To this must be added
the constraint of moving commodities to the markets.
Peripheral economies rarely control either the shipping lines
used or their prices, and they almost invariably, because of
weak bargaining positions, have to pay transport costs for
both imports and exports.) Over imports, individual
peripheral countries, as very small customers in large
markets, have virtually no influence on prices.
Accumulation in peripheral countries is extremely
difficult, therefore. With regard to international trade, the
terms of trade (the ratio of the change in prices of imports to
the change of income from exports) are frequently against
the dependent peripheral economies, making for economic
instability. Further, the services that are required for
development - in technology, for example, and from
financiers - must be purchased, so that a growth strategy
requires one or more of favourable terms of trade, a steady
market for exports, and encouragement for local
accumulation. The latter, in a capitalist economy, requires
either a concentration of surplus in a few firms (in a small
country) or a great willingness in the population to forgo
consumption so that investment can be increased (probably
via the state). But most peripheral countries have a
considerable proportion of their major productive industries
(and their financial sectors) owned overseas, with the surplus
therefore being recycled abroad rather than retained. The
multiplier effects of these industries usually distribute small
amounts of profit widely through the economy, with little
incentive to growth. Thus Barnet and Muller (1975: 162)
conclude that: 'The proposition that developed and
undeveloped countries will get rich together through the

expansion of global corporations is, at best, exactly half
true.'
(3) The semi-periphery. This final zone comprises a
number of countries which are less dependent on the core
than are those in the periphery: some have moved from
peripheral via semi-peripheral to core status (the main
examples are the United States and Japan). Their economic
structure lies between the highly diversified pattern of the
core and the highly dependent of the periphery. (In part this
is a correlate of size; many countries of the semi-periphery,
such as Argentina, Australia, Brazil and South Africa, are
relatively large.) Wage levels are generally higher than in the
periphery and both the amount of industrialisation,
including the degree of indigenous industrialisation, and the
level of technological development are large. There is some
local capital accumulation.
Entry to the semi-periphery reflects a number of factors.
In some countries, it represents colonial-settler origins, in
which independence was easily obtained and local capital
accumulation made possible (the ex-British Dominions are
good examples of this factor in operation, as was the United
States when it passed through the semi-peripheral stage). A
local bourgeoisie able to develop local resources is another
crucial factor, especially in a period of downturn in the
capitalist world-economy when a large local market may be
captured by indigenous capitalists. Japan is a clear example
of a country rising through the semi-peripheral stage largely
through its own efforts, which involved several decades of
state support while Japanese businessmen learnt how to
operate in the world economy (Vernon, 1977).
Countries enter the semi-periphery through a combination
of indigenous resources (land and labour) and local
development strategies. In the past, some have climbed out
of it, into the core (Germany, Japan, the United States, etc.);
whether this can happen in the future is doubtful, however,
because of the increasing stranglehold over semi-peripheral
economies held by the multinationals. In Latin America, for
example, of Argentina's largest fifty companies, 50 per cent
of their sales are transacted by multinationals; in 1962, all of
Mexico's rubber, electrical machinery and transportation

industries were foreign-owned and by 1970 so were two-
thirds of the metal industry and the entire tobacco industry;
and in Brazil, in 1971 multinational corporations accounted
for 70 per cent of the sales in the country's most dynamic
economic sectors - rubber, motor vehicles, machinery,
household appliances, and mining (Barnet and Muller,
1975). The main problem for indigenous industrialisation is
the high level of technology involved. Development of this is
dominated by the core countries whose multinational
corporations invest heavily in research and development.
Peripheral and semi-peripheral countries cannot afford this
investment, and so can only obtain access to new technology
on the multinational's terms: this inhibits indigenous
development and ensures that surplus value circulates back
to the core.
A clear example of the problem of rising through the three
stages today (or of following Rostow's (1971) stages of
economic growth) is given by the experience of the OPEC
countries in the 1970s. In 1973, as part of the Arab-Israeli
conflict, the Middle East oil-producing countries - which
sold oil to the multinational companies such as Shell, BP and
Exxon - increased prices markedly. Since then, the OPEC
cartel has maintained close control of prices, and the major
oil-producing countries have amassed great reserves of
Western currencies (Brandt Report, 1980): by the end of
1980 the OPEC countries (of which Saudi Arabia and
Kuwait are the most significant in this respect) had
accumulated a surplus of $300 000 million as a result of their
pricing strategy (The Times, 11 March 1980). It was
impossible to invest this money locally and it had to be
recirculated via the international banking system. Thus the
OPEC states were able to inflict injuries on the core
countries (and also on the peripheral, which were much less
able to counter the price increases) but they were unable to
use this to reorganise the world-economy; expenditure of
some of that surplus on local development is involving the
core-based multinationals.
A similar core/semi-periphery/periphery typology could
be developed for the non-capitalist countries. The core is the
USSR; the semi-periphery comprises the command

economies of Eastern Europe (Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia,
East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Rumania and, to a lesser
extent, Yugoslavia); the periphery includes a number of
small countries dotted around the world and dependent on
Moscow, such as Cuba. The mechanism in this system is
command from Moscow rather than manipulation by
multinationals but the general pattern is the same. The
peripheral countries are poor and development is limited; the
semi-peripheral countries have been allowed to develop so
far, but in a co-prosperity sphere which is focused on, and
dominated from, Moscow. As shown below, however, the
countries of this bloc have found it necessary to trade with
and obtain finance from the capitalist system.
The state and the core-periphery structure
The world today, according to the above description, is

divided into four main blocks: the core; the semi-periphery;
the periphery; and the socialist/command economy states. In
the first three, the division reflects the expansion of the
capitalist world economy and the success of the major firms
(now the multinational corporations) of the countries now
forming the core. The organisation of the world economy
focuses very much on this core.
Membership of the various blocks is not fixed; nor is
prosperity within each .. Thus, for example, in the first
centuries of the capitalist world-economy, Spain was a
leading core state; it is now in the semi-periphery where
eventually it may be joined by others currently in the core.
The first major industrial revolution centred on Great
Britain, during the nineteenth century. During much of the
twentieth century, the United States has been the dominant
core country and the locale for a second industrial
revolution. Today, the United States is in relative decline,
and Japan is becoming dominant.
All of the description of the core-periphery structure
presented here has been in terms of named countries. These
are not natural divisions of the world-economy but sections
of it. Within late capitalism, capital is extremely mobile as its

owners seek worthwhile investments. All investment involves
risk, but capitalists seek to minimise this by putting their
money in viable enterprises. One of the functions of the state
in late capitalism is to minimise risk and attract capital.
In a free-market capitalist system there is a natural
tendency for the rate of profit to fall in any sector. Profit is
defined as surplus value, which can only be extracted from
labour. Thus greater investment in an industry, aimed at
increasing productivity via the replacement of labour, must
produce diminishing returns as the labour force from which
surplus value can be extracted declines in size. Further, the
increase in productivity, given constraints on market size and
purchasing power, leads to crises of overproduction.
Together the falling rate of profit and the decline in sales
discourage capitalist interest in an industry and investment is
deflected elsewhere.
Investment is in economic activities, but all of these are
spatially specific, so that the cyclical booms and slumps of
individual industries affect different places differentially.
These may be within the same country (see next chapter) or
they may be in different countries. With regard to the latter,
this means that capital is shifted around the world in search
of worthwhile investments, alternatively stimulating and
depressing local economies.
If the operation of the capitalist system was totally
unconstrained, the result of these shifts of capital would be a
highly volatile economic geography. It is at least partly
constrained, however, by the division of the world-economy
into separate countries. In each, the role of the state is not to
maintain the health of capitalism as a whole but only that of
local capitalism; foreign capitalism is not to be deported,
since because of interdependence this would be inimical to
home interests, but it is not to override local interests. If a
healthy local capitalism is not maintained, the legitimation
of the state by the resident population may be uncertain. In
part, the need to maintain a healthy capitalist economy,
which exploits local labour, and the need to maintain social
harmony among the proletariat are contradictory. The state
must occupy an intermediate position, attempting to satisfy
both classes yet never able to. It must encourage capital

accumulation, and act as the ally of the capitalist system. In
many cases, however, this may involve it aiding investment
overseas, which is not in the interests of its proletariat. Thus
at the same time it must act against capitalism and in the
interests of the working class.
In the contemporary world economy, therefore, the state
is involved in two major roles, which are contradictory. The
first - the state versus neocolonialism - involves it
negotiating with the capitalist system, on behalf of the local
proletariat. The second - the state as the ally of
neocolonialism - involves the state activating policies that
assist capitalist investment at home and abroad, if necessary
to the detriment of proletarian interests.
The state versus neocolonialism
With the technological developments that characterise late

capitalism, the rapid population growth in the peripheral and
semi-peripheral countries (consequent on the export of
medical knowledge from the core countries), and the unequal
distribution of purchasing power, the market for many
goods and services is much smaller than that needed to
absorb all that could potentially be produced in the capitalist
economy. Thus in the world as a whole there is a glut of
labour, much of it either unemployed or underemployed and
living at little more than a bare subsistence level. This
exacerbates the antagonism between capital and labour
which is endemic to the mode of production.
This antagonism between capital and labour is somewhat
diffused and defused by the division of the world-economy
into more than 150 sovereign states. Within each, a major
task for the government is to try and obtain and maintain,
first, a high level of employment and, second, high real
wages; this aids the legitimation both of the particular
government and of the state itself. Such a task is not peculiar
to countries in only one or two of the stages outlined above;
it is as important in core countries as it is in the periphery.
Governments and states compete in the conditions that
they offer to capitalist enterprises, to subsidise their costs,

minimise their risks, and, as far as possible, guarantee them
substantial profits. A necessary, though not sufficient,
condition for industrial operations is a basic infrastructure,
comprising public facilities and utilities such as power, water
and transport systems plus an education system which
produces a labour force with the necessary skills. Without
these, capitalist firms - especially those involving high
technology - cannot operate. In addition, however, firms
will seek concessions that will make production cheaper.
They may want: tax holidays - or total exemption from
certain taxes; subsidies to the cost of labour or power; laws
which allow exploitation of labour; avoidance of duties on
the movement of materials, products, and money; and so on.
The package offered by individual states will reflect
government and bureaucratic perception of the best carrots
to offer (without alienating the working class) and the
particular industries being sought. Thus New Zealand, for
example, provided cheap and plentiful hydroelectric power
to attract a Japanese-financed aluminium smelter; the
United Kingdom has subsidised the construction of motor-
assembly and engine-building plants and the costs of
building ships; and so on. The aim is to get jobs and to get
money circulating within the economy, thereby creating
more jobs.
Although the attraction of employment opportunities is a
major task, it is not the only one. Some strategies involve the
attraction of money, in the hope that this will generate
further employment. The flag of convenience has been used
in this way by several countries, notably Greece, Liberia,
Panama, and Singapore. Ships registered in such countries
are subject to little or no taxation- above the registration fee
- and much less stringent conditions (wages, safety, etc.)
regarding labour. Thus, for example, the P & 0 Company
sought in 1980 to re-register its vessels under a flag of
convenience rather than in Britain, which would enable it to
employ cheap, foreign labour. Other countries operate as tax
havens, with no or low tax rates aimed at attracting
investment and other benefits for capitalists domiciling their
companies (or themselves) there. There are several major tax
havens- Switzerland and a number of the West Indies- plus

many minor ones, including the Channel Isles, the Isle of
Man and, for foreign companies, the United Kingdom itself.
The geography of such tax havens is constantly changing and
difficult to identify: 'private capital's search for havens of
one sort or another is relentless, inventive, and often
successfully cloaked in secrecy (Kidron and Segal, 1981: map
37). In addition, several countries operate tax-free zones to
attract industries, as at Shannon Airport in the Irish
Republic. These employ local labour, and thus contribute to
local income multipliers, but pay no local taxes and customs
duties on materials imported and goods exported.
As the demand for certain raw materials grows, so
possession of workable resources is a major asset for
countries. With many materials, however, the accessible and
easily worked deposits have been exhausted, so that
development costs, once resources have been proven (also
increasingly expensive), are high. States wish their resources
to be developed, because exports will bring foreign exchange
and local use will save on the cost of imports. Exploration
must be encouraged, therefore, by tax concessions and by
allowing the multinational companies with the expertise to
receive substantial returns on their investments. During the
last decade, following the OPEC-induced price rises for oil,
states have competed to get oil companies to explore within
their territories. The size of the tax-take will influence the
extent of both exploration and exploitation; oil companies
have been unwilling to exploit some of the smaller fields in
the North Sea (compared to those in the Gulf of Mexico)
because of the costs, relative to the allowed profits. Thus
states must tread a difficult balancing line, attracting
investment without allowing all of the profits from
indigenous resources to be channelled elsewhere.
Because the capitalist world-economy is international in its
coverage the problems of the state versus neocolonialism are
evident in every country, core, peripheral or semi-peripheral.
In addition, there are certain problems that are typical to
states in each of these three groupings.
The state versus neocolonialism in the periphery
Of the three types of country in the world-economy, those in

the periphery in general face the most severe problems,
because of their dependency and, in most cases, their rapidly
expanding, underemployed proletariat. In these countries,
the problems facing the state include:
1. Ensuring a stable (if not rising) income from exports,
2. Providing a base for industrialisation, which needs both a
physical infrastructure and a trained labour force,
3. Encouraging local accumulation and investment, rather
than conspicuous consumption,
4. Attracting foreign capital and investment,
5. Providing employment for the local population,
6. Facilitating the import of relevant technology.
Together, some of these may ensure some improvement in
real living standards. Without them, success in the world
economy is unlikely and the legitimation of governments and
the state itself is at risk.
A range of strategies is open to governments in the
periphery. One is to attract overseas capital to exploit local
land and labour resources, in the expectation of some spin-
off. Exploitation of labour occurs in what are known as
'export platform industries', in which companies based in
core countries get routine tasks - for example, in the clothing
and electronics industries - undertaken by cheap, semi-
and/or unskilled labour in peripheral countries, thereby
undercutting labour costs in the core substantially (and more
than compensating for the costs of transport and
administration). The very low incomes paid, in a system
which is a direct lineal descendant of the plantation
economy, make little contribution to the peripheral
country's economy. Exploitation of land resources includes
continuation of the system of cheap food and raw material
production in the periphery. More recently, in several
countries the local resources have been developed for
tourism. Again, the main beneficiaries are the core-country
multinationals which operate the package tours and which
reap the profits; the main returns to the local economy are
those paid to the labour force which services the tourists plus
the producers of 'souvenirs' (Britton, 1980).
The best-placed countries for the development of both
'export platform' and tourism functions within the periphery
are those close to core states. A prime example is provided by
Mexico. For a long period that country has prohibited the
ownership of land in its border zones but in 1966 it launched
a Border Industrial Programme to attract American capital
and to provide employment for local residents; ways of
circumventing the law on land ownership were devised
(House, 1982). Under the programme, foreign industrialists
can import all equipment and materials free of duty, but 90
per cent of their labour force must be Mexican. In 1965,
there were only twelve American-owned plants in the Rio
Grande border zone, employing 3087 persons. Eleven years
later there were 455 plants, providing jobs for 76 000, and in
1979 the respective figures were 570 and 120 000; three-
quarters of those employed are female, so that the
programme has been more successful in creating jobs for
those formerly outside the workforce rather than for those in
the large pool of the officially unemployed. A major benefit
to American industrialists has been the chance to exploit
cheap Mexican labour. In 1973, Mexican wage rates were
about one-third of those in the United States for the same
occupations. Since 1976, the devaluation of the peso has
halved labour costs, giving the Mexican border areas a
competitive advantage over other export platforms, notably
in Asia where labour has traditionally been even cheaper.
There are other examples of border industrial areas
established to exploit cheap labour, as in the Bantu
homeland of Bophutatswana in South Africa. And there are
also tourist border areas. The Rio Grande towns of Mexico
offer cheap pleasures for North Americans (House, 1982),
for example, and the hotels of Lesotho, Swaziland, and
Bophutatswana provide gambling and the forbidden
Playboy magazine for the South African neighbours.
The other major route available to the state in peripheral
countries wishing to remain and prosper within the capitalist
world-economy is to try and stimulate local industry whose
growth will become self-generating. The difficulty with this
strategy is that industrialisation today requires large-scale

investment in technology and know-how and in order for the
development to survive it must be very productive (and thus
use little labour); large industries are not feasible in many
small, peripheral countries. Some governments have sought
to obtain industries by nationalising foreign holdings.
Usually this strategy fails, because of the penalties imposed
by core countries on whom the peripheral country remains
dependent, because local residents are often unable to
operate the assets acquired, and because the part (of a
multinational) is not viable when abstracted from the whole.
The peripheral countries are entering the industrialisation
process at a late stage, in which the types of development
that, if successful, could compete in the world-economy will
employ few people and stimulate relatively little growth in
society as a whole. Nevertheless, governments have little
alternative but to seek to advance along this path. Their
problem, however, is that in most cases they cannot afford
industrialisation. Many have insufficient reserves with which
to cover the cost of imports for more than a few months;
many have overseas debts equal to more than half of
national income per annum; and many have to spend more
than 10 per cent of income from exports on repayment of the
national debt (see Kidron and Segal, 1981). The total debt of
the 'developing' countries -excluding those in OPEC - in
1973 was $6200 million. Seven years later it was $63 300m.,
and in 1990 it is predicted as $85 lOOm. (The Times, 31
March 1980). In 1976 seven countries, all in the periphery,
had external public debts amounting to more than half of the
annual GNP, and in thirty-three more it exceeded 20 per
cent; servicing this debt took more than 2 per cent of GNP in
thirty-three countries (Kurian, 1979: 107-9).
Such financial problems frequently generate others, such
as the rapid inflation which has affected many peripheral
countries in recent years. Servicing the debt becomes an
increasing problem, and eventually the state may be unable
to cope. To assist in such crises, the International Monetary
Fund was created at Bretton Woods, New York in 1944. It
holds assets (placed there by member countries) which can be
'bought' by member countries when they are in balance-of-
payments difficulties. In addition to the special drawing

rights, a member country can also negotiate standby credits
for particular difficulties. To receive these, however, it must
accept certain IMF conditions about the operation of its
economy. These generally concern such items of domestic
policy as exchange rate practices, import regulations, control
of budget deficits, controls of bank credit, and policies
regarding foreign investment (Payer, 1974); the intention is
to control domestic inflation, to make the economy more
receptive to foreign investment, and to ensure that debts are
repaid.
The result, it is claimed, is typically 'the take-over of
domestically owned businesses by the foreign competitors'
(Payer, 1974: 41), because the local depression harms
domestic businesses, devaluation raises their import costs,
and liberalisation of imports opens their previously protected
markets. Loss of local business means a loss of jobs, so that
IMF programmes, with their 'basic aim . . . to discourage
local consumption in order to free resources for export'
(Payer, 1974: 42), hit hardest at the working class of
peripheral countries; the only local gains are for exporters
and the greatest overall gains go to the multinationals.
The policies of the IMF offer short-term relief to
peripheral countries with balance-of-payments problems
(and also to semi-peripheral and core countries when called
in), therefore, which is in the long-term interests of the
international financial markets of the capitalist world-
economy. The country which calls in the IMF surrenders its
fiscal autonomy in return for loans, which must be repaid,
and allows the future form of its economy to be dictated by
outside financiers, to the detriment of local enterprise. Thus,
it is concluded:
Nominally independent countries find that their debts, and

their constant inability to finance current needs out of
imports, keep them tied by a tight leash to their
competitors. The IMF orders them, in effect, to continue
labouring on the plantation, while it refuses to finance
their efforts to set up in business for themselves. It is debt
slavery on an international scale. If they remain within the
system, the debtor countries are doomed to perpetual

underdevelopment, or rather to the development of their
exports at the service of multinational enterprises, at the
expense of development for the needs of their own
citizens.
(Payer, 1974: 49)
Or, more prosaically:
To hear Jamaica tell it, the International Monetary Fund

is a boy scout who offers to help a sick old lady across the
road - until half way across he grabs her handbag and
pushes her under a bus.
(The Times, 6 June 1980)
The IMF insisted on Jamaica cutting public spending

drastically, so as to produce a better economic situation for
exporters. This, it was claimed, harmed the Jamaican
proletariat, allowed the capitalist countries to halt Jamaican
socialism, and failed to help exporters because the country
(like most in the periphery) had insufficient productive
capacity to react to the stimulus; the Jamaican government
failed to meet the IMP's requirements, and the drawing
rights were withdrawn. (The socialist government was then
defeated at a general election, and the foreign capitalists
were invited back in. An 'economic recovery programme'
was submitted early in 1981, seeking loans of $US700m. over
three years from the IMF: The Times, 27 March 1981.)
Economic instability is likely to lead to political instability
as well, with the legitimation of the state (as well as the
incumbent government) at considerable risk. Attacks are
likely to come from both left and right, with the more likely
victors being the latter. Very frequently these are led by the
military, who impose a dictatorship on the country to restore
'law and order' and the sort of stability that is acceptable to
the capitalist world-economy. Military coups are relatively
common in such situations, especially in countries that have
recently experienced decolonisation; of the fifteen sovereign
states created between 1945 and 1955, nine had experienced
coups by 1962 (Finer, 1976: 2).
Such military dictatorships are often acceptable to the

capitalist world economy, because they pursue policies
favourable to international finance, and the army can be
'bought off' in similar ways to the local elite incorporated by
colonial capital. Thus in Indonesia in the 1960s the regime of
Sukarno had nationalised many foreign-owned companies in
its self-reliance programme but was experiencing severe
economic problems as well as strong internal political
dissent. Sukarno was ousted in a military coup in 1966; the
new government repudiated the self-reliance policies and
invited the IMF in. Credit was provided (and debt burdens
increased) and foreign investment encouraged. As a result, it
is claimed:
Indonesia stands virtually no chance of climbing out from

under her debt burden ... Indonesia's vast natural
resources are mortgaged for an indefinite future to
subsidize an oppressive military dictatorship and to pay
for imports which support the lavish life-style of the
generals in Djakarta.
Indonesia is considered one of the great 'success stories'
of the IMF . . . but that success has nothing to do with a
rational balance on its international payments account:
still less does it refer to the welfare of the peasantry of
Java or the urban proletariat of Djakarta. The success is
that of the great multinational corporations who have
through the IMF cadged their governments into financing
the balance of payments deficits which their profits have
caused; and of Japan, who has secured through IMF
policies the assurance that Indonesia will continue to
export its petroleum and timber to serve the needs of the
Japanese economy rather than its own.
(Payer, 1974: 90-1)
Military governments in most countries rule without the

general consent of the proletariat; they must impose
themselves by force of arms. Lacking the ability to produce
the needed arsenal of guns, tanks, rockets, aircraft, ships,
etc., these governments must use some of their foreign
currency to purchase armaments (or must accept loans from
countries that will provide arms - and technical assistance -

in order to keep them stable in the capitalist system). These
sales are of considerable importance to the economies of the
core countries, which are the principal arms producers and
suppliers. Between 1950 and 1972 exports of arms to the
Third World (excluding Vietnam) totalled $20 020 million
(in constant 1968 US dollars); the main suppliers were the
United States ($7220m.), the USSR ($5390m.) and the
United Kingdom ($2980m.), and the main purchasers were in
the Middle East (Stockholm International Peace Research
Institute, 1975). Military expenditures as a percentage of
GNP averaged about 6 per cent in the 1970s, slightly higher
in the developing than in the developed world.
These economically and politically unstable peripheral
countries frequently become the focus of conflict between
the capitalist system, based on the United States, and the
socialist, based on Moscow. As ex-colonies, most begin in
the capitalist system and have resources needed by capitalist
economies; they are recipients of much foreign investment.
Protection of these resources and investments leads the core
countries to provide aid to governments sympathetic to their
interests, whereas the socialist countries may provide support
for groups seeking to alter the political structure. In some
countries, at least for a short period, the governments may
play off Washington and Moscow in the hope of greater
benefits. More usual, however, is for the incumbent
government to be backed by the capitalist core and the
insurgents by the socialist: even if the country has few
resources, the ideological need to 'maintain a country's
freedom within the capitalist world' or 'to free the people
into socialism' ensures outside interest. The extent of that
interest ranges from mild support, through indirect aid
(Angola) and minor involvement (El Salvador), to covert
activity (Chile) and all-out war (Vietnam). The periphery
of the world-economy is indeed the battleground for the
superpowers. Their great military power and the devastating
likely consequences of a nuclear war mean that, despite
much posturing, a major conflict is unlikely. Small conflicts
in the periphery, with either guerilla or conventional
warfare, are the trials of strength, in which one side seeks to
keep a country within one economic sphere (the capitalist)

and the other seeks to win it for the other (the socialist). The
long-term interests of the periphery are secondary to the
ideological and economic interests of the cores.
The state versus neocolonialism in the semi-periphery
In many respects, the situation in the semi-periphery is very

similar to that in the periphery. Individual countries are very
much subject to the economic vicissitudes of commodity
markets in the core countries and to the requirements of
multinational capital. Occasionally, one experiences severe
balance-of-payments difficulties and calls in the IMF.
Sometimes, too, a country may be the focus of armed
conflict; among the European semi-peripheral countries, for
example, military regimes have ruled in Portugal, Spain and
Greece in recent decades, and Turkey experienced a coup in
1980.
The main characteristic differentiating semi-peripheral
from peripheral countries is their relative economic strength,
much of it built on one or more of size, prosperity of the
market, and available resources. Such strength allows the
state to bargain with multinational companies more
forcefully than is the case in the periphery, and to advance
endogenous development. The result is that whereas the
situation in the latter can be described as dependency - with
the peripheral economy almost totally subservient to that of
the core countries - that in the semi-periphery is best
described as dependent development.
In the movement of countries from peripheral to semi-
peripheral status (and hence from a position of dependency
to one of dependent development), the situation and nature
of the state changes. According to Evans (1979), in the
peripheral stage the role of the state is largely incidental: it
reflects the strength of the capitalist landholders (or owners
of mineral resources) whose wealth is built on exports and
who have little reason to want to break the situation of
dependency. Some intervention in the economy was needed -
either in attracting overseas capital to invest in infrastructure
or, as in Argentina, Brazil and New Zealand, borrowing

money either to invest in or provide guarantees for railroad
and other expansion - but was relatively minor. With the
movement into the semi-peripheral stage, however, and the
need for a stronger central apparatus to stand between
capital and labour and to foster dependent development, a
larger, more centralised and more active state was required.
Using the example of Brazil, one of the most rapidly
industrialising semi-peripheral countries of the last two
decades, Evans (1979) suggests that the state must play three
linked roles during dependent development. The first
involves its links to multinational enterprises, necessary for
the attraction of foreign investment; this is termed the
'selling out' state. The second involves its protection and
stimulation of the local bourgeoisie, assisting it in the
expansion of industries formerly owned by foreign capital;
this is the nationalist state. Finally, there is the state 'out-for-
itself' role, which reflects its operation of state enterprises.
The relative importance of the three can vary over space and
time, depending on the significance of foreign, local and
state investment in the development process.
Whatever the balance, the state must 'juggle a complex set
of aims and strategies' (Evans, 1979: 215) as it seeks to
advance the goals of each group. The antagonisms between
the three groups and between one or more and the proletariat
can create dissent within the country (hence the military rule
in Brazil and elsewhere) but 'cooperation among state
enterprises, the multinationals, and the elite segment of local
capital continues, the stable carapace of dependent
development' (Evans, 1979: 273). Within that triple alliance,
Evans claims, the role of state enterprises was crucial, in
placing a priority on local accumulation rather than the
global maximisation of profit. Of course, it requires a strong
state apparatus - based on substantial local resources - to be
able to bargain with multinational capital in order to create
dependent development rather than dependency.
This contemporary role of the state in the semi-periphery
is matched by changes in the nineteenth century when
countries such as Germany and the United States moved into
the core of the world-economy. Rubinson (1978) argues that
in those two countries it was a political transformation by

industrial interests, in alliance with agricultural, that
stimulated growth. Thus once a core-periphery pattern has
been established, its alteration depends on the abilities of -
and resources available to - local economic interests to
mobilise politically and use the state to advance their
capitalist goals. Military power often aids this pursuit of
economic objectives (Chase-Dunn, 1978).
The arc of semi-peripheral countries around the core -
Mexico with respect to the United States; Ireland, Portugal,
Spain, Greece, southern Italy and Turkey, plus Yugoslavia
to some extent and also some North African countries, for
Europe - benefit from their proximity to the industrial
heartlands, thereby helping to promote dependent
development. Their relatively cheap labour attracts the
multinational companies, not only to serve the local market
but also to undercut more expensive labour in the core. Thus
Renault signed a contract in February 1980 with the
Portuguese government. It is to build an assembly plant in
Setubal, capable of an output of 80 000 cars annually, and a
factory at Aveiro to build 220 000 engines and 80 000
gearboxes a year. Part of the production will be exported. In
return for creating 6-7000 jobs, the Portuguese government
has agreed with the operating company (65 per cent owned
by Renault, 25 per cent by the state, and 10 per cent by a
joint holding company) to cover any losses that Renault may
suffer because of fluctuations in the exchange rate and to
compensate the firm if the Portuguese market falls by more
than 8 per cent in a year between 1980 and 1984 because of
government measures to restrict car buying (The Times, 14
February 1980). The Irish Industrial Development Agency
has offered similar incentives to attract electrical and
electronics companies. They include export tax relief until
1990, a maximum tax rate of 10 per cent from 1981, up to 50
per cent cash grants for fixed asset creation, training grants
up to 100 per cent of costs, research and development grants,
and factories and housing; between 1975 and 1980, they
succeeded in attracting fixed investment by 100 companies
totalling over 300 million (The Times, 6 June 1980).
In the past, peripheral and semi-peripheral countries have
provided labour for the core, either migrants who have

settled permanently or guest-workers. The migrants have
included the many millions who settled in the New World in
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, many of whom
entered at the bottom of the economic ladder. Today, such
mass migration is over. Increasingly the core countries will
allow only skilled workers to settle there, creating a brain
drain which penalises the periphery and semi-periphery by
removing much of its skilled labour, especially professionals.
Guest-workers still move to the metropolitan economies of
the United States (from Mexico, many of them illegally) and
Western Europe (from southern Europe/North Africa).
They are exploited by capital in the core, and their payments
to dependants at home make a minor impact in the economy
there.
Increasingly, political difficulties in the core are making it
more desirable for the cheap labour to be exploited 'at
home', and the state in the semi-peripheral countries is
encouraging such development, in the hope of permanent
gains from industrialisation and the growth of an indigenous
skilled labour force, with the initiative to stimulate more
local development. It may be, as Barnet and Muller (1975)
point out, that the increased strength of the semi-peripheral
states will reduce the profits of multinational enterprises
there. They doubt, however, whether this will lead to a
redistribution of income and wealth within those countries
which are characterised by small, extremely affluent elites
and large, impoverished proletariats. Indeed, some analysts
claim that industrialisation in places like Sao Paulo increases
income disparities rather than reduces them.
The state versus neocolonialism in the core
The countries of the core are no more immune to the

problems of competing with multinational capitalism than
are those of the periphery and semi-periphery, although in
the core the problems may not be endemic at any one place.
In many parts of the core, the problems have been generated
by success. The returns gained from the world-economy have
been passed on, in part at least, to the proletariat in terms of

relatively high levels of material consumption. Thus, as most
economic and social indicators illustrate, the populations of
the countries of the core are the best fed and best paid in the
world (on average) and live in the best material conditions.
(There are a few exceptions to this, notably the ex-settler
colonies now in the semi-periphery, such as Australia and
New Zealand.)
Prior to the onset of late capitalism, this success did not
rebound on itself; local capitalists reaped large profits and
paid their workers relatively well, in return for high
productivity. But under late capitalism, and the development
of the multinational corporations, local labour has been
competing with the much cheaper overseas labour. As a
consequence of this competition, many companies have
shifted their routine operations to the export platforms of
the periphery and semi-periphery, and entrepreneurs in non-
core countries (such as Hong Kong) have penetrated the core
markets with much cheaper goods than can be produced
there at the prevailing rates for labour. Thus in Britain
between 1970 and 1975, 428 300 jobs were lost in twenty-
four industries, 47 000 of them as a result of increased
imports from Third World countries (The Sunday Times, 10
February 1980). Hardest hit were the textile industries,
notably those concerned with cotton fabrics.
In general, the losses of the core countries to the periphery
and semi-periphery are relatively small: Britain, for example,
imports much more from the EEC than from the periphery
and maintains a healthy surplus in trade with the latter but
not the former. Nevertheless, the number of job losses to
overseas competition in general is large, and is especially
important in certain parts of the country (such as
Lancashire). Further, although much surplus extracted from
other parts of the world returns to the core (albeit by circular
routes via tax havens in some cases), it is not necessarily
invested in creating jobs in the core and, when it is, it is
usually in industrial sectors that are not labour intensive.
(The exceptions to this are the labour-intensive service
industries involved in the circulation of capital, but these too
are now being automated to a considerable extent.)
In the core countries, therefore, the internationalisation
and multinationalisation of the world-economy is creating
serious unemployment problems in the traditional
manufacturing sectors, such as steel, heavy engineering,
ship-building, and textiles. This is creating a legitimation
problem for governments and for the state. Most
governments are firmly wedded to full-employment policies,
and so they must try to stimulate investment in job creation;
the role of the state is to maintain and increase business
confidence in its territory, thereby stimulating investment
(Block, 1978). In the traditional industries, as Holland
(1976) makes clear, the concessions they can offer are
insignificant compared to international labour-cost
differentials, so that the lost jobs cannot be recovered. Thus
the state needs to stimulate new industries, in sectors not, as
yet, largely comprised of routine manufacturing operations.
To do this means both considerable state investment in
research and development by local firms and concessions to
multinationals to ensure that they locate within the state
territory. Whether this can provide sufficient jobs, of the
sort that can absorb the unemployed from the traditional
industries, is doubtful. In the long term, new generations of
skilled workers (trained by the state) may be relevant to such
industries, but in the short term the older generations may
not, creating an unemployment, and thus a legitimation,
problem which is likely to last for several electoral cycles.
As these problems of fighting the multinationals and
maintaining legitimation with the proletariat increase, so the
state in the core faces an apparently ever-deepening fiscal
crisis. According to the threefold typology of state
expenditures introduced by O'Connor (1973) - social
investment, social consumption, and social expenses (see
above p. 23)- it is the first which is necessary to promote
capital investment, in a great variety of ways. Social
consumption expenditure is necessary to maintain legitimacy
with the working class, whereas social expenses are needed to
maintain state power. As the demands for more social
investment increase, so social consumption must be reduced,
unless the state is to increase taxes, to create money, or to
borrow heavily. Raising taxes, it is believed, tends to stifle
capitalist initiative and to scare off investment; creating

money stimulates inflation and the problems which stem
from it; borrowing heavily leads to increased interest rates,
which also discourages private investment.
In the battle with neocolonialism, the core states must
increase social investment. Almost inevitably, this leads
them to cuts in social consumption, which generates a
legitimation crisis. (Such cuts may be insisted on if the
country needs to call in the IMF, as Britain did in 1977:
Coates, 1980.) Furthermore, such cuts may be difficult to
impose - in total, if not in type: if jobs cannot be created
through social investment policies, then the demands for
social consumption (unemployment and welfare benefits)
will increase, as might the need for social expenses (on law
and order) if legitimation problems mount. Hence the fiscal
crisis of the state: the demands for state expenditure to
subsidise private appropriation of surplus increase, but the
state is limited in its money-raising activities unless it takes
steps that will harm private appropriation. (The same is true
in the semi-periphery, where the state is a major agent of
industrialisation: see Fitzgerald, 1979, on Peru.)
Different governments entrusted with management of the
state have taken different steps to try and solve the fiscal
crisis. The 1974-9 Labour government in Britain, for
example, saw increased public spending as a means of
stimulating industry and maintaining jobs, but this led to
problems of inflation and debt. The Conservative
government elected in 1979 sought to reduce public spending
and taxation, thereby giving incentives to private capital: this
has led to problems of unemployment as investment has not
increased and capital has flowed out of the country.
In their battles against neocolonialism and the
multinational corporations, the states of the core have
experienced increasing difficulties in raising taxes from the
corporations. The latter are involved in the creation of
strategies to avoid paying taxes in countries where they
operate, via
the technological breakthroughs of the accounting

industry. The space-age alchemists have discovered the
incantations that turn banks into nonbanks, dividend into
interest, and profits into losses. Research and development
in tax avoidance conducted in programs of international
business at institutions of higher learning such as New
York University and Columbia University is at least five
years ahead of government research on loophole closing
. . . Skilled obfuscation is now an essential accounting
tool.
(Barnet and Muller, 1975: 263)
Even American Presidents apply this strategy and manage to

avoid paying income tax by deducting 'costs' involved in
willing their personal papers to the state.
The battle between the state and the multinationals as the
former tries to collect taxes and the latter to avoid them
involves the corporations manipulating the flow of goods
and money to their advantage, and hence to the disadvantage
of the proletariat who must either pay higher taxes
themselves or suffer from reduced state financing. The
techniques of transfer pricing within multinationals have
been devised to circumvent regulations on, for example, the
amount of local ownership of subsidiaries and associates,
taxes on corporate profits, customs duties, and exchange
controls. Nine 'transfer pricing conduits' have been
identified (Plasschaert, 1979; Robbins and Stubargh, 1973):
1. payments for goods (trade)
2. payment of interest on trade credits
3. contribution to equity by parent company
4. divided payments on equity
5. loans to subsidiary
6. interest payments by subsidiaries
7. payments of fees (e.g. on patents)
8. payments for services
9. payments for invisible overheads
By routing money along these various channels to their best
advantage, corporations can avoid taxes and other
payments, partly if not in total. For example, profits can be
routed - via charges for goods, services and loans, etc.,
provided for one branch of the corporation by the other - so
that they are realised in the subsidiary or head office located

in the country with the lowest tax rate (preferably, of course,
a tax haven with no corporate taxes). Governments seek to
prevent, or at least minimise, these routings, but the contest
with the multinationals' accountants continues. The extent
of such activity is unknown. It only surfaces after
investigation, such as that into the Swiss-based multinational
Hoffman-La Roche which sold the ingredients for Librium
and Valium to its British subsidiary at 437 and 979 per kilo
respectively; the British Monopolies Commission found that
the prices if the subsidiary had bought from an Italian
producer would have been 9 and 28 (Plasschaert, 1979:
95-6). Some analysts claim that the United States alone loses
several billion dollars of tax income annually (Vernon,
1977), one consequence of which, because transfer pricing
and trade within conglomerates are not fully reported, is the
claim that balance-of-payments figures are totally unreliable
(Barnet and Muller, 1975: 267).
The problems of the core countries are somewhat different
from those of the periphery and semi-periphery, therefore,
but all three groups are engaged in battles against
multinational capital. The world-economy operates as a
single unit, transcending international boundaries. It
contains inbuilt tendencies to create areas of relative
development and underdevelopment. The territories of
individual states are subject to these tendencies, and their
governments seek to counter the tendencies, to capture
investment, employment and tax income. They act as vested
interest groups within a system, just as trade unions do
within a workplace. Capital is being shifted around the
world, being invested where the perceived returns are good
and stable. In the core countries, this shifting is leading to
problems of unemployment, and governments are battling to
stop capital moving out and to attract more in; this will
provide and generate jobs, help to maintain government and
state legitimation, and provide income (although the state
has a separate battle with multinational enterprises over
taxes and duties). In the periphery, governments are seeking
to attract investment from the core, again in many cases
offering concessions to try and create employment. And in
the semi-periphery, governments are trying both to attract

outside capital and to stimulate local enterprise. Much of the
activity is aimed at employment creation, and is short term in
its goals because of the need to ensure legitimation.
The state as ally of neocolonialism
The previous section has portrayed the state as a protector of

local interests within its own territory; the interests
concerned are those of local capital seeking protection from
imports and those of the labour force, seeking protection of
their jobs and living standards. On the international scene,
this involves the state as an antagonist of multinational
capital in its neocolonial role. In addition, however, the state
must protect the interests of home-based capitalists seeking
profits overseas. (Again, this is to protect home employment
and living standards, via the multiplier effects of the
returned surplus, or at least the portion spent at home.) In
this role, it is an ally of neocolonialism.
The state in the core countries dominates in this role,
because those countries have the greater resources to call
upon and have the traditions of colonialism and imperialism
tying foreign markets to them (as with the imperial
preferences which operated in the British Commonwealth).
Outside the core, only the OPEC countries have any large
resources on which to base an aggressive stance on behalf of
local capital. They lack both tradition and indigenous
multinational industry, however, plus a critical element in
world power play- nuclear arms. (The socialist states have
both resources and nuclear arms, of course, and to some
extent they too act as allies of multinational capital: see
below, p. 104.)
Two basic functions are performed by the state in this role
as the ally of neocolonialism; the protection and prosecution
of supplies and markets. Each sector and enterprise within
capital would like an exclusive sphere of influence in which
its monopoly would allow it to manipulate prices to its
advantage. This is less possible now than it was before
decolonisation began; nevertheless, governments seek to
protect their capitalists as much as possible. Two methods of

doing this are the diplomatic and the military. The former
involves networks of consulates and other agencies plus trade
missions and fairs aimed at winning contracts. The military
method is used when interests are threatened, as when
American Presidents send warships to the Straits of Hormuz
to protect tankers (shifting 'our oil') moving into and from
the Persian Gulf.
In some situations, the military function is used to buttress
regions in peripheral states which are favourable to core
country interests, and even, by covert action, to seek the
downfall of a government which is not sympathetic to
multinational capital (as in Chile: Agee, 1976). In Zaire, for
example, some 70 per cent of the non-subsistence sector is
estimated to have been controlled by the Belgian Societe
Generale group (including Union Miniere) on the eve of
independence in 1960. Most of the revenue for the new state
came from Union Miniere. Five days after independence, the
copper-rich province of Katanga declared that it was
seceding from Zaire. Belgian troops were sent there to
protect Belgian nationals, and although the breakaway
government was not accorded diplomatic recognition it
received 'all possible military and administrative assistance'
from Belgium (Lanning, 1979: 237); Union Miniere and its
associates openly admitted and boasted of the support given
to the rebels. The secession attempt failed, but Union
Miniere and its backers in Belgium remained vital to the
economic health of Zaire. Eventually an accommodation
was reached between the small local elite - trained by the
Belgians - and the company which
did not seek to realign the dependent structures of the

Zairean economy; merely to force the mining companies
and others to accept. the Zairean bourgeoisie as
intermediaries between foreign investors and Zaire's rich
natural resources ... There is no fundamental objection
to the continuing exploitation of Zaire by the mining
companies, as long as the Zairean rulers get a sufficient
share of the surplus generated by the mines.
(Lanning, 1979:255)
Thus the multinational capitalist interest, aided by the core

state, has been able to prolong the dependent peripheral
status of a potentially rich country. The same is true in other
parts of Africa.
The military function of the core states is to maintain
stability in the peripheral and semi-peripheral states that are
being exploited by core-based multinationals; such stability
must, of course, be sympathetic to the aims of capitalism.
This guarantor activity operates in a variety of ways, some
overt and others not. In several cases, treaties have been
signed (such as the Colombo Pact and CENTO) which allow
the core states to offer military protection for peripheral
regimes, and thereby to keep them in power. In many cases,
this involves the core state providing military assistance;
between 1950 and 1968 the United States reported $33 260
million of such assistance, which excludes any expenditures
on the Vietnam War. The major recipients were in Europe,
East Asia, the Near East and South Asia. In addition, the
United States trains large numbers of foreign military
personnel, in all types of warfare and policing activities
(Buchanan, 1972). Not only does this prop up governments
in peripheral states for the benefit of American
neoimperialism, it also benefits arms producers in the core.
Between 1974 and 1978, the United States sold $22 400m. of
arms to countries outside the developed world, with the
largest consignments being $6700m. to Iran and $4600m. to
Israel. Such expenditures - many of them financed by
American loans - sustained hundreds of thousands of jobs in
the United States.
Within the periphery, the major neoimperialist nations of
the core operate in somewhat separate, although
overlapping, spheres of influence. Between 1974 and 1978,
for example, the United Kingdom's main arms sales were to
Saudi Arabia, Iran, Oman, Brazil and China. France's main
customers were Greece, Iraq, Morocco and South Africa,
and Germany's were Turkey, Iran, and Algeria: the USSR's
main customers (outside the Warsaw Pact group) in the same
period were Iraq, Syria, India, Algeria, Ethiopia, Libya,
Cuba, and Peru (US Arms Control and Disarmament
Agency, 1980). Occasionally, the overlapping of spheres of
influence generates conflict, especially when the contact is

between the USSR and the United States, each of which is
seeking to have a peripheral state as a member of its relevant
bloc. In most cases, the USSR has fomented instability
(sometimes via other countries) which leads to armed
conflict, and the United States has sought to protect the
incumbent government, which is sympathetic to the capitalist
system. In South-east Asia, in particular, the United States
has sought to protect pro-capitalist regimes, on the basis of
Eisenhower's domino theory that the fall of one country to
the communist sphere of influence will stimulate the fall of
others. This has led to all-out wars in Korea and Vietnam,
long campaigns against guerillas in Malaya (fought by the
United Kingdom, the ex-colonial power), incursions into
Cambodia and Laos, and massive American aid for
sympathetic regimes in Taiwan, Thailand, and the
Philippines and Indonesia.
The conflict between the countries of the capitalist core
(led by the United States) and the socialist bloc is being
fought in the peripheral states, increasingly in Africa and
America as well as Asia. It is presented in the core as an
ideological conflict, with the aim being to keep the
threatened countries in the 'free world'. The freedoms being
protected are often ill-defined (those enunciated in the
American Constitution - freedom of religion and religious
practice, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of
petitioning the government - are often absent in the
countries being protected); that always being promoted, but
rarely made explicit, is the freedom of private enterprise (or
the freedom to make profits via capitalist exploitation).
Defence of the 'free world' is defence of multinational
capitalism.
The conflict between the superpowers (the United States
and the USSR) has the potential to involve, and destroy, the
whole world. This potential has not been realised, and the
two combatants have restricted their activities to local
conflicts, often through third parties (other states, as in the
Middle East). Each appears to known how far to push the
other without triggering a major conflict, as Vietnam and
Korea make clear. Occasionally, one will take advantage of
the other's weaknesses either to effect a change in the spheres

of influence or to put down a potential defection, as with the
American entry into Lebanon, the British/French Suez
invasion, and the Russian invasions of Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, and Afghanistan. Battles are not over
boundaries, as they were in the nineteenth century, but over
countries.
Indeed, for the last two decades at least the capitalist and
socialist cores have been pursuing policies of detente, aimed
at reducing tension and slowing down the arms race.
According to one commentator (Levinson, 1978: 7)
the political and ideological phenomenon of detente is the

post-facto servant of an economic reality. For the USSR
and the East-bloc countries detente has never been about
avoiding nuclear war. It has been about acquiring from the
capitalist West sophisticated technology and know-how,
modern, more efficient machinery and, of course, the
credits to finance them and exports to pay for them. For
the USA and the Western World, detente has facilitated
the extension of the international rationalisation of
production.
Thus the socialist states have needed capitalist technology.

In return, they have been able to offer cheap, disciplined
labour. Assisted by the core states, with offers of long-term,
low-interest credits, multinational companies have
established plants in the socialist bloc. In some cases,
payment has been a sort of barter, as in the Vodka-Cola deal
(negotiated by Richard Nixon); Pepsi established a plant in
Russia and in return was given the monopoly over the
distribution of Soviet wines in the United States. In other
cases, some of the production is returned to the core,
undercutting core labour. Renault, for example, built a
factory in Yugoslavia able to produce 150 000 cars a year,
50 000 of which were to be sold on the Renault West
European network, and a plant in Rumania which made
gearboxes for cars being assembled in France. The
ideological basis for detente therefore overlays the state in
the core acting as an ally of neocolonialism, and suggests
why major conflicts between the United States and the USSR
are avoided; the socialist bloc has been incorporated into the
world-economy. (It has borrowed heavily from the capitalist
bloc to enable it to buy technology, etc., and when Poland
was unable to meet its payments in 1981 the governments of
creditor countries came to an IMF-type deal with the Polish
government, waiving payments for certain years in return for
Polish agreement to increase exports.)
A state can also promote the interests of local capital
overseas through various aid policies aimed at promoting
economic growth and removing poverty in the periphery and
semi-periphery. According to Hensman (1975: 253):
The magnificant rhetoric which clothes the transactions

between rich and poor peoples in sentiments of friendship,
goodwill and altruistic love depicts our age as the noblest
in all of human history.
But reality, he claims, is far from the rhetoric. Citing the

example of the 'selling' of the American Aid Programmes to
the population there, he shows (1975: 257) that 'ninety-two
per cent of the "aid" funds spent on commodities benefited
US business and industry', and concludes that while such aid
to the poorer countries may be 'highly commendable morally
... there is no doubt that it accelerates the process of anti-
development, and makes the war on world poverty more
difficult than ever before' (1975: 265).
According to this view, aid is not given to other countries
in an altruistic manner (except in certain circumstances, and
then usually in relatively small amounts, such as immediately
after an environmental disaster). Instead it is given with
strings that tie the recipients to the donor country rather than
to spend it to generate indigenous development. Thus the
ideology may be that aid is 'a transfer of concessional
finance not explicitly used for commercial gain or military
purposes' (McKinlay, 1978: 235), but the real purpose may
be exactly the opposite. Two models of aid-giving can be set
against each other, therefore; the recipient-need model
suggests that allocations among countries should be related
to their needs, whereas the donor-interest model suggests
that the allocations should be closely linked to the donor

country's foreign policy interests (which in turn, as suggested
above, are closely linked to the commercial interests of local
capital). The aim of such foreign policy, it is claimed, is to
create commitment and dependency (McKinlay and Little,
1978). Commitment involves the aid donor indicating
support for a low-income country, thereby deterring any
incursions there by a hostile third state and encouraging the
recipient state to remain within the donor's sphere of
influence. Dependency occurs because the recipient comes to
rely considerably upon the donor but that reliance is not
reciprocated. Thus the peripheral country is tied to the core
donor, in a neocolonial situation.
The relative importance of these two models has been
evaluated for West Germany (McKinlay, 1978) and for
Britain (McKinlay and Little, 1978). For Germany, the
recipient-need model is entirely rejected - 'Humanitarian or
welfare criteria . . . are unable to explain the variance in
German aid' - and the donor-interest model is strongly
supported - 'Germany through its aid programme
discriminates in favour of its exports' (McKinlay, 1978: 246-
7). Military considerations are apparently irrelevant,
however - unlike the situation regarding American aid
(McKinlay, 1977), and also in Britain where
while the major preoccupation is maintenance of a sphere

of influence, other interests do contribute to the pattern of
aid disbursed ... there is a selective antagonism to
Communism, a preference for multi-party 'democratic'
regimes and, in the case of absolute commitment, a
humanitarian influence ... former colonial ties, though
not all-embracing, are still very influential, while security
considerations reflect historical associations rather than
the explicit concern with the containment of Communism
that is prevalent in the USA's programme.
(McKinlay and Little, 1978: 329-31)
It is difficult, of course, to divorce the containment of

communism from the promotion of capitalist interests.
A considerable volume of aid is in the form of foodstuffs,
which is clearly in the interests of the recipients but also

favours donors who have surpluses that they wish to dispose
of (making it a 'cheap' form of aid) and farmers they wish to
subsidise. The most comprehensive pattern of food aid was
developed by the United States under the 1954 Agriculture,
Trade and Assistance Act. Between 1955 and 1973 it shipped
food and other agricultural products under this programme
to the value of $24 736 million, or 22 per cent of all food
exports; some 31 per cent of this went to Africa and the same
to the Far East (Tarrant, 1980: 233). One clause of the 1954
Act (removed in 1966: The Times, 28 April 1980) indicates
the explicit importance of the donor-interest model; the aim
is
to promote the economic stability of American agriculture

and the national welfare, to make maximum efficient use
of surplus agricultural commodities in the furtherance of
the foreign policy of the United States and to stimulate
and facilitate the expansion of foreign trade in agricultural
commodities produced in the United States.
Indeed, the Act was originally intended to last for three

years only, as a means of disposing of accumulated
surpluses. (That such an intention is not peculiar to the
United States was illustrated in 1981. Sixty peripheral
countries of the Asian, Caribbean and Pacific grouping
sought long-term food aid contracts at below market prices
from the EEC. Britain opposed this, because it would
stimulate further agricultural overproduction within the
EEC and increase the community's agricultural budget,
which, it is claimed, makes greater demands on Britain than
on other countries: The Times, 10 April1981.) The recipients
have been countries with considerable needs which also fit
the donor's interests (such as Egypt and Jordan, Sri Lanka
and Bangladesh) but also countries with little demonstrable
need (Chile, Korea and Cyprus). Others received much less in
the 1970s; countries on the edge of the Sahel, for example,
had similar needs to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh but received
only about one-third of the volume of aid per capita,
whereas Haiti, Somalia and the Yemen PDR received very
little, relative to needs. As Tarrant concludes (1980: 250), 'it

clearly pays to live in a food-deficit country which has some
international political significance'.
Finally, states can act as allies of local capital through a
variety of policies aimed at advancing their trading interests.
Manipulation of foreign exchange rates and of bank interest
rates, the provision of export credits and the erection of
tariff barriers against imports: these and many other policies
discriminate in favour of certain groups. Those best able to
enact them are usually those with the strongest economies,
which are not being pressured by international creditors and
the IMF. Thus discrimination can best be practised in the
core, especially by the countries in that group which are
currently most successful within the world economy:
economic success breeds the ability to build on that success
and to accentuate international differences.
The changing morphology of the state system
By the time that late capitalism came to dominate the world-

economy virtually the whole of the earth's surface was
covered by a mosaic of sovereign states. (The main exception
was the Antarctic continent, with virtually no proven
resources to attract permanent settlement to such an
inhospitable environment.) The morphology of that mosaic
had been largely determined during the colonialism era.
Occasional conflicts led to major reorganisations, notably in
Europe east of the Rhine after the two World Wars of the
twentieth century, but the set of containers in which the
neocolonial, late capitalist economy was to act was largely
predetermined.
During the last few decades, there have been relatively few
changes to the spatial morphology of the state system. As
outlined above, a few countries have been foci of conflict
between the core countries of the capitalist world-economy
and the major elements (USSR and China) in the socialist
bloc. There have also been some changes generated within
individual countries - of which the most significant have
undoubtedly been the separation of India and Pakistan
followed by the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan.

(Such changes are dealt with in more detail in the next
chapter.) In addition to these, however, there have been two
major movements which have been aimed at altering the
nature and distribution of state sovereignty; one involves the
extension of sovereignty from land into the sea and its
submarine resources and the other involves various forms of
state amalgamations.
Colonisation of the sea
Certain areas of the marine surface of the earth have long

had strategic importance for states, both those adjacent to
the relevant waters and those colonial powers whose shipping
used the waters. As a result, such waterways (the straits of
Gibraltar and Aden, for example) have been defended and
fought over, and colonial outposts (e.g. Malta, Singapore)
have been established to defend trade routes. With the
exception of these narrow and strategic waterways, however,
there has been relatively little interest in states claiming
territorial sovereignty over maritime space. The recent
changes in attitude reflect the growing technical ability to
exploit submarine resources and the depletion of marine
resources (again a function of technical improvement).
Marine life has long been a source of food and other raw
mateials for coastal communities, and the economies of
some countries have depended heavily on this. Most states
have always sought to protect their coastal fisheries and have
proclaimed sovereign rights over inshore areas; the accepted
range of these areas was three miles from the country's
coastline. Other countries have accepted these rights, and
their nationals have not fished within the inshore zones.
There seemed little need to establish wider zones until
relatively recently, largely because competition was slight
and the marine resources were sufficient to sustain the
demands made. Fishing technology was such that ships could
not remain at sea for long and relatively few areas could be
exploited from more than one country: thus relatively wide
exclusive fishing zones existed de facto if not de jure.
Advances in fishing technology allow ships to remain at

sea for many months and to extract large tonnages of fish.
Modern fleets, including their support vessels, are able to
fish anywhere in the world, and to store catches on board
using refrigeration technology. Thus they can 'invade' the
waters which other countries formerly treated as their own
exclusive fishing zones. The new fleets, reflecting large
capital investments, were associated mostly with the core
countries of the late capitalist world (including Japan) plus
the USSR and Poland. The waters that they 'invaded' were
mainly those close to peripheral and semi-peripheral states,
many of which discovered that their economic foundations
were being eroded by these encroachments into their de facto
resource environments.
The response of the affected states has been to claim de
jure control over wider fishing zones. Off the west coast of
South America, for example, Chile, Peru and Ecuador
declared a 200-mile exclusive economic zone in 1952 to
protect local interests in the anchovy and tuna resources and
to prevent the increased volume of fishing there by fleets
from Japan, Korea and the United States. Protection of this
zone has led to some incidents involving exchange of fire
(Couper, 1978). Six years later, Iceland declared a twelve-
mile fishing limit, to protect the local economy, to the
detriment of fishermen from Britain who had traditionally
trawled off the Icelandic coast, and in 1972 this limit was
expanded to fifty miles, stimulating the action, complete
with minor naval skirmishes, known as the Cod War. By
1976, Iceland had extended the exclusive fishing zone to 200
miles, despite a ruling from the International Court of
Justice that the extension to fifty miles was not justified.
Britain and the EEC have now declared 200-mile exclusive
fishing zones, but there has been a major dispute within the
EEC over the access rights of fishermen from all the member
countries to each state's zone.
The definition of exclusive fishing zones - which are far
from easy to protect - reflects both a desire by each state to
protect local interests and a general desire, linked to the first,
to control the rapid depletion of marine resources.
Management of fish stocks is extremely difficult, but
extension of fishing zones - and their recognition - will, it is

felt, assist those most affected by the competitive fishing to
operate sensible strategies. International agreement over
what has traditionally been considered common property is
difficult to achieve, however, as illustrated by the
conferences held to try and reach agreement on limits to
whaling in the deep seas outside the exclusive zone.
In attempts to solve disputes concerning sovereignty over
marine and submarine resources, the United Nations has
convened three Law of the Sea conferences since the Second
World War. The third of these conferences, at Caracas in
1974, Geneva in 1975 and New York and elsewhere from
1976 since, resulted in acceptance of a territorial sea, over
which the state has sovereign rights, extending twelve miles
out from the country's coastal baseline, with a further twelve
miles as a contiguous zone over which it has control of such
activities as customs and immigration. Proposals were also
made for exclusive economic zones, 200 miles wide, to be
accepted in legal conventions.
Although fish and other marine resources stimulated inter-
state conflict over marine space, much more attention has
been paid to resources on and beneath the seabed. The first
Law of the Sea conference (at Geneva in 1958) was
stimulated more by this last issue than by fishing disputes,
and particularly by the American claim, enunciated in 1945
by President Truman, to all resources on or under the
continental shelf contiguous to the United States. The
particular resource in question at the time was oil, large
quantities of which were being discovered under the seabed.
Such a resource was crucial to the economies of adjacent
states; its existence led, for example, to conflicts over the
location of an inter-State boundary between the States of
Victoria and South Australia where it extended into a
potential oil and gas field (Prescott and Logan, 1967).
The Geneva conference drew up an agreement on the
allocation of sovereign rights to seabed and submarine
resources. It divided the ocean floor into two main zones: the
continental margin and the abyssal floor. The margin was
further subdivided into: the continental shelf, a relatively
shallow area surrounding the coast with an average depth of
133 metres at its edge; the steep continental slope, averaging

1830 metres at its foot; and the continental rise, with depths
averaging 1500-5000 metres. Under the agreement, each
coastal state was given sovereignty over any submarine
resources beneath the continental shelf, with the legal edge of
the shelf being defined as a depth of 200 metres; in addition,
states which had the available technology could claim
sovereignty over resources in contiguous zones at greater
depth. The third Law of the Sea conference redefined seabed
sovereignty as
the seabed and subsoil of the submarine areas that extend

beyond the territorial sea throughout the natural
prolongation of its land territory to the outer edge of the
continental margin, or to a distance of 200 nautical miles
from the baseline from which the territorial sea is
measured where the outer edge of the continental margin
does not extend to that distance.
The decisions of the Law of the Sea conferences created

grounds for conflict in coastal waters adjacent to several
states, especially where those waters covered potentially rich
mineral and oil deposits. The 1958 agreement laid down rules
for solving such disputes - notably by suggesting the use of
the median line where the territorial waters of two states met
above the continental shelf. Such an area was the North Sea,
under which large resources of gas and oil were proved in the
late 1960s and early1970s. The disputes included one between
Britain and Norway. Between those two countries, but much
closer to the Norwegian than to the British coast, is a deep
trough (of some 650 metres) which the British claimed
marked the edge of the continental shelf. The Norwegians
claimed that the trough was merely a tectonic depression
within the shelf and the British accepted this argument,
agreeing that the boundary between the two sectors should
be the median line within the North Sea. This resulted in the
Norwegians gaining sovereignty over considerable oil
reserves (then unknown).
Further south, the median line principle meant that West
Germany was allocated sovereignty over only a very small
part of the south-eastern North Sea. The Germans took their

case to the International Court of Justice, which allocated
them a larger concession (which has as yet few proven
resources), largely at the expense of the Danes. The British
and the French, too, have been to court (in their case, a
specially convened Court of Arbitration) over the definition
of their common boundary in the western English Channel
and the Atlantic approaches. At issue were the importance of
the Channel Islands, the Eddystone Rock, the Scilly Isles and
the Hurd Deep (a trench crossing the continental shelf) as
determinants of the boundary's location (Merrills, 1980). The
Court's decision largely favoured the trench. The Scilly Isles,
for example, were allocated a half-effect: one median line
was drawn as if they were not there and another as if they
were, and the median between the two was selected as the
boundary.
As the exploitation of offshore resources becomes more
viable, so the issues of sovereignty over maritime space
between adjacent and facing states will become more
important, in some places - such as the Aegean Sea (see
Blake, 1981) - setting immense tasks for boundary-drawers
and arbitrators. Already, some general agreements have been
reached at the Law of the Sea conferences; oilrigs, for
example, cannot be defined as islands for the purpose of
delimiting exclusive economic zones. Increasingly, however,
attention is being redirected beyond the continental shelf to
the deep sea abyssal floor, from which it is now possible to
remove resources.
As long ago as 1872, the British scientific vessel Challenger
dredged up manganese nodules from the Pacific bed. A
century later, exploration had shown that all ocean basins
contain such nodules, or concentrations of them; the eastern
Pacific is the richest area, and consortia have been created to
exploit these resources (Earney, 1980), which are
conservatively estimated as several billion tons in the Pacific
alone (sufficient to meet demands, at present levels, for
thousands of years). Exploitation of these resources raises
two important political issues (Payne, 1978). The first is that
if the core countries develop these manganese nodules, the
periphera1 countries which currently supply them with
nickel, copper and cobalt (all obtainable from the nodules,

as well as manganese) will suffer severe economic recession
because of the decline in their export incomes; not
surprisingly, such countries wish to control the exploitation,
in order to keep prices high. Secondly, there is the issue as to
which states - if any - should receive the royalty revenues
from exploitation of the nodules. The abyssal floor is outside
agreed sovereignty rights, so the peripheral countries would
like to see the resources on it controlled by an international
agency which would allocate revenues in favour of the Third
World.
In the late 1960s the United Nations passed a series of
resolutions aimed at achieving a moratorium on any
development by consortia seeking to exploit the deep sea
resources. These stated, for example, that resources beyond
the accepted limits of state sovereignty should be exploited
to 'benefit mankind as a whole' and that no claim of
sovereignty over the abyssal floor would be recognised. The
peripheral countries involved in this issue (known as the
Group of 77) want an international agency established to
control exploitation of deep sea resources, with the revenues
distributed in favour of the poorest countries. Most core
countries, on the other hand, want freedom for the consortia
(most of which are dominated by multinational
corporations) to exploit the resources as efficiently as
possible, within the general regulations that would be laid
down by a Seabed Authority. The United States, the USSR
and Japan, for example, all favour relatively unimpeded
access, and they were unable to reach any accord with the
Group of 77 at the various sessions of the third Law of the
Sea conference. The United States could well decide to
proceed unilaterally, having had before Congress since 1974
a bill which states that
the national security interests of the U.S. require the

availability of mineral resources which are independent of
the export policies of foreign nations . . . it is in the
national interest . . . to utilize existing technology and
capabilities of the United States mining companies by
providing legislation which will encourage further efforts
to insure national access to available deep seabed minerals.

(Payne, 1978:952-3)
If the United States does licence consortia to exploit the

abyssal floor before an international treaty has been agreed,
this will be a further major change in the geography of state
sovereignty. Technological developments have made the
exploitation of marine, seabed, and submarine resources
economically viable almost irrespective of environmental
conditions. The necessary capital investment is immense,
however, and this plus the technical expertise is concentrated
in a few core countries only (The Sunday Times, 27 April
1981). Again, therefore, it seems that the changing political
geography of the world will be dominated by the states able
to act as allies of neoimperial multinational capital. The only
alternative is for all states to recognise that this is an example
of common resources (see p. 169 on the tragedy of the
commons) and that a social contract benefiting all is
required.
The creation of super-states
The major thrust of the argument in this chapter has been

that under late capitalism the power of most states relative to
that of multinational corporations has been in decline. Even
those states which are able to act as allies for neocolonialism
by the multinationals are to some extent also fighting battles
versus neocolonialism, as they seek to maintain levels of
employment, increase material standards, and advance their
own legitimation.
A disadvantage for many countries in these tussles with the
multinationals has been their small size. To counter this,
many suggestions have been made for states to co-operate
and create larger units, at least for certain purposes, which
would provide larger markets for local capitals and allow
them to compete with outsiders. With this economic
strength, states would have greater bargaining leverage with
the multinationals, and would be better able to protect the
interests of their proletariats. Such co-operation can take a
number of forms, including (Kahnert eta/., 1969; Johnston,

1976a):
1. Free trade areas, in which tariffs and quotas on flows
between member countries are removed, but each retains
the right to determine tariffs and quotas involving third
parties,
2. Customs unions, in which the members erect common
external tariffs as well as eliminating those on internal
flows,
3. Common markets which, in addition to the above
measures, lift restrictions on all factor movements
between member countries,
4. Economic unions, with integrated economic systems,
including a common monetary system,
5. Supranational political unions, more or less equivalent to
federations.
Relatively few attempts have been made to create such co-
operative ventures, despite frequent calls for greater activity.
(Many of these are ideological in nature, claiming capitalist
strength and solidarity is necessary to counter the communist
threat, and vice versa. As already demonstrated, such
rhetoric often invokes the protection of freedom, including
the freedom to make profits.) Undoubtedly the major
example is the European Economic Community, a group of
ten countries in and around the core area of north-western
Europe, which have created a common market (three of the
countries had previously formed an economic union) and
which aim, according to the Treaty of Rome, to integrate
into a political union. Creation of the EEC occurred just
after the Second World War, and part of the intention was to
assist in regeneration and to create a strong bloc that could
both counter Russian hegemony to the east and equal
American strength in the world. Each of the individual
countries entered to gain particular advantages, with the
largest and strongest - especially among the initial six
members- being able to dictate terms which benefited them:
Germany, for example, sought conditions which would
extend the tariff-free market for its industrial goods whereas
France sought an agricultural policy, that would protect
farmers there, and special associate status for its overseas

territories (Blacksell, 1981).
Whether the EEC has been successful is in question.
Certain vested interests have been protected, but progress
towards union has been very slow. Much of the debate within
the Parliament and the Commission has been on national
grounds, and in the latter each country has been given a
virtual veto. To a considerable extent, the EEC is treated by
each member country as an institution in which each seeks to
advance its own causes, while subscribing as little as possible
to the solution of problems in the others. States have been
unwilling to yield sovereignty and have gained little in the
battle against the multinationals; they continue to compete
against each other for employment and to advance local
interests. Thus within the EEC, the United Kingdom
Parliament is being pulled in two directions. On the one
hand, there are moves to enhance the powers of the
Community, and the interests of the United Kingdom in
particular, whereas on the other there are attempts to protect
British sovereignty. Moves towards political unity within the
EEC, with the implied transition to a federal state, are
creating considerable tensions, both within and between
member countries.
Outside the core, efforts to create super-states have been
markedly unsuccessful. Attempts at full political union - as
with Syria and Egypt, and Syria and Libya - have rapidly
foundered, as have attempts at federation - Malaysia with
Singapore, British West Indies, and Rhodesia and
Nyasaland. In each case, individual national interests have
overridden general ones. In the periphery, too, attempts to
create free trade areas, customs unions, and common
markets have met with little success, in many cases because
the various economies are competing with rather than
complementing each other on world markets. (This is the
situation with the Central American Common Market, for
example.) The only success story in the periphery has been
the formation of the OPEC producers' cartel, which has
influenced not only oil prices but the path of the capitalist
world-economy since 1973. Whether that experience can be
repeated in a significant way for other products of the
periphery is doubtful, however. The power still rests in the

core.
Conclusions
The state, as made clear in Chapters 2 and 3, is a part of the

economic and social relations of the mode of production. In
a late capitalist situation, therefore, it stands between the
antagonistic forces of multinational capitalism and local
labour forces. Its major functions are contradictory, and
involve it in a difficult balancing act, seeking both to
promote the interests of multinational capital and to protect
the situation of the proletariat. To retain its legitimation the
state must keep the support of both camps. If it fails, it could
well have to yield to the demands of international capital,
which sets firm constraints on local autonomy in its aid
programmes. The alternative may be political unrest and
revolution, either right wing or left, military or proletarian.
Within this difficult central position there are many state
functions. All of them involve the state promoting some
aspect of the mode of production, which in most cases is late
capitalism. Instilling an ideology; tackling dissidents;
subsidising capitalists; promoting the interests of workers:
all of these tasks, at home and abroad, fall to certain states at
certain times. They are part of the complex interrelations
without which late capitalism could not function.
With regard to the various theoretical positions outlined in
Chapter 2, this discussion has made clear the central role of
the state within modern society. As stressed there, however,
the study of particular actions needs to engage one or more
of the other theories. In most cases, the instrumentalist
approach is not particularly useful, because capital is not a
single unit within society and the state is operated by a
separate group within society; only in small, peripheral
countries where the economy is dominated by but a few
companies can this approach shed much light on how and
why the state acts.
Much more useful is the managerialist approach, which
sees the state as an independent actor, operating within the
constraints set by the world-economy. In certain situations

those constraints may be very tight. Even then, however, a
government may, perhaps at the risk of its legitimation, if
not that of the state as a whole, decide to override those
constraints: in Jamaica, for example, the government led by
Michael Manley rejected the IMF and its terms for helping
the country solve its economic problems; the government of
Edward Seaga, which replaced it after an election in 1980,
was much more prepared to accept conditions laid down by
multinational capital and its allies. In other situations - as
illustrated earlier in the contrast between Britain's Labour
and Conservative governments in the late 1970s - the
constraints are not so tight that different groups are unable
to express their own views of how the state should react to
the current conditions of late capitalism. There are many
ways of trying to ensure both profitability for capital and
employment/high living standards for the proletariat, so
long as achieving one does not alienate the other too far.
5 The State, its Territory
and its People
The previous chapter looked at the relationships between the
state and the late capitalist world-economy, emphasising the
tensions between its dual roles as ally of and antagonist to
neocolonialism and neoimperialism. In the present chapter
attention is turned towards the other major relationship of
the state, that with the population of its sovereign territory.
The division between the two is in some sense artificial, since
many of the interests of the population are concerned with
relationships with multinational capital. However, in its
threefold spending functions of social investment, social
consumption and social expenses, the state plays many roles
with regard to its population and territory, and these are
outlined here.
The conventional model of the state with regard to these
relationships - and the one that is propagated in the ideology
of late capitalism - is that of pluralism (see Chapter 2).
According to this, government - and thus the state - acts as
the mediator between contending interest groups.
Representatives of these groups seek to be elected and to run
the state apparatus on the basis of their proposals for
operating society and economy. Elections - the foundation
of democracy - are thus fundamental to the pluralist model,
and the geography of elections is part of the mechanism of
governmental policy-formation (Johnston, 1980d). Once in
office, a government is subject to pressures from various
interest groups, including the bureaucracy that operates the
state. The groups which it favours should be those which
elected it, although clearly it cannot totally ignore the claims
of others if it is to retain its legitimacy. Because in most
countries elections take place within the spatial framework
of a set of constituencies, this means that the geography of
The State, its Territory and its People 121
elections should be matched by a geography of government

policies (Johnston, 1979a). The details of the latter
geography will reflect the managerial decisions taken within
the state, both by the elected representatives/ governments
themselves and by the bureaucrats entrusted with the
operation of accepted policies.
This general model suggests the need to integrate
managerialist and pluralist perspectives in a treatment of
relationships between the state and its territory, recognising
the parameters to autonomy of state action set by the world-
economy. Recently, however, several authors have suggested
that the pluralist perspective is diminishing in importance.
Richardson and Jordan (1979: vii, 191-2), for example, have
suggested that in what they term 'a post-parliamentary
democracy' (i.e. Britain)
The familiar framework for studying policies - examining

legislative behaviour, political parties, elections -
inadequately explains how key issues are managed. We see
the current policy style as the balancing of group pressures
. . . A symbiotic relationship between groups and
government has developed ... [we conclude that] our
traditional notions of democratic representative
government ... have been abandoned ... the traditional
model of Cabinet and parliamentary government is a
travesty of reality . . . we would doubt the ability of
governments to roll back the tide of group involvement in
policy-making ... [they] have always struck bargains with
barons.
This argument has been developed in a stronger theoretical

and historical framework by Jessop (1978). He defines
democracy as 'the legal entitlement of "citizens" to
participate in the determination of the policies to be executed
by the state' (1978: 13) with economic and political power
being separated so that 'economic power can be used to
prevent the abuse of political power and political power can
be employed to counteract the shortcomings of the market'
(1978: 17). This, he claims, is in the best interests of the
bourgeoisie when they are politically and ideologically
dominant. However, the growing power of non-bourgeois

economic interests (the unions) and the universal franchise
conceded to proletarian demands have eroded that political
and ideological power so that 'the democratic republic poses
serious threats to the rule of capital in relation to the
appropriation and exercise of state power' (1978: 40). Thus a
new institutional form has been created, corporatism, which
is
a system of representation in which capital and wage-
labour are entitled to participate in the formulation and
implementation of state intervention in the economy and
in other matters relevant to capital accumulation.
(Jessop, 1978: 41)
The major decisions are made by governments outside the

parliamentary institutions. Nevertheless, an elected
government is needed to curb any excesses by the corporate
actions - and thus maintain the legitimation of the system -
and to support the bureaucracy.
The corporate economy that Jessop refers to gives many
individuals two votes:
Corporate democracy refers to a democratic system in

which 'citizens' participate through the exercise of voting
rights in relation to a corporation which represents their
interests in the formation of state policy; the unit of
representation is the corporation rather than the
constituency organised on a territorial basis and citizens
participate in their capacity as economic agents.
(Jessop, 1978: 48)
For most members of the proletariat, therefore, the

corporation is a trade union. However, there is also the
'traditional' vote, for a political party seeking to form a
government by collecting enough seats - allocated on a
territorial basis - either to have a majority in Parliament or
to command a place in a coalition. Whereas corporatism
itself may have geographical elements, therefore, the
parliamentary system necessary for the legitimation of
corporatism certainly does. Further, as Finer (1975b) has

argued, the parliamentary system is far from impotent in its
relationships with the corporate system: thus the
geographical elements of parliamentary representation are
important to any study of the corporate operations.
Much of the remainder of this chapter looks at aspects of
the relationship between the geography of parliamentary
representation and the geography of government policy. This
is set within the framework of a discussion of core-periphery
structures within states. Two types of structure are
identified, an economic and a cultural, and these are the
basis for discussions of, first, economic and social policies
and, second, secessionist movements. Finally, there is a
section on one type of group pressure on governments, in
both the democratic and the corporate systems, over
environmental issues.
Core and periphery within states
The preceding chapter outlined the development of a core-

periphery spatial structure within the capitalist world-
economy. In it, states were characterised as being of the core,
the periphery, or the semi-periphery although, following
Wallerstein, it was realised that the boundaries of core and
periphery are rarely conterminous with those of modern
states. Some countries comprise parts of two, if not all three,
of the zones. More importantly, it will be argued here, many
states have clear core-periphery structures of their own, even
if as a whole the state is clearly entirely within one zone. For
most countries the processes of economic and social
development create a spatial pattern of inequalities focused
on a core.
In the present chapter, two models of core-periphery
formation are outlined. The first, as in the previous chapter,
is associated largely with the distribution of economic and
political power. There is a geography of resource and capital
outflow from the periphery and of accumulation and
conspicuous consumption in the core. Economic and
political power are closely interwoven, and so the core
dominates the periphery. Such an economic division of a

country presents it as a unified spatial system: each part is
integral to the whole, and there is no social or cultural
differentiation correlated with the economic. This is not the
case in the second model in which the degree of social and
cultural articulation of the whole is less, and the periphery is
culturally distinctive as well as economically backward.
These two models are interlinked in many countries, with
the peripheral status on the economic dimension reflecting
the cultural (often ethnic) differences. Whether both are
present reflects the nature of the particular state and the
policies of successive generations of rulers and state
functionaries. The two are outlined separately here, with a
final section indicating their links.
Internal colonialsim
In many countries, the emergence of a core-periphery

structure reflects the geography of the country's expansion
into the integration of other areas - perhaps also early states,
pre-states, or even capitalist states - and their populations
into a single unit. This raises the important issue of the
separate definitions of a state and a nation. A state, outlined
earlier, is a sovereign unit with defined boundaries in which
the entire population is subject to the rule of the recognised
body. A nation, on the other hand, is
a form of human group whose members usually share a

range of objective cultural characteristics, values and
aspirations, and a close political association with a
particular piece of territory.
(Muir, 1975: 84)
The nation may be conterminous with a state, in which case

one can speak of a nation-state. Where such a situation does
not exist, nationalism may be present. Muir (following
Minogue, 1967) suggests six forms of nationalism:
1. Anti-state, in which the national movement is created
before a territory exists or is acquired, as in the movement

for a Jewish homeland,
2. Post-state, in which a nation is formed after the state has
been defined,
3. Third World anti-colonial, in which unity is created in the
fight against a colonial power,
4. Pan-national, in which attempts are made to unite
existing separate nations for a given end that is perceived
to require strength through numbers,
5. Community conflict, in which a particular characteristic
(skin colour perhaps) is used as the base for building
group cohesion to fight a stronger group within a state,
6. Totalitarian, in which an individual or an oligarchy forms
a nation in its own image.
For the present purpose, the two most important of these are
the post-state and community-conflict forms, in which
nationalism is part of the creation of a state and opposition
to it.
An example of these two types of nationalism is provided
by the British Isles, which for several centuries were all in the
same state. Initially, as described in Chapter 3, there were
several early states. In England, these were fused into a
single nation-state after the Norman Conquest - providing
an example of post-state nationalism. England was created
as a uniform nation-state, with a single language and religion
(later to become a state religion) and a common set of legal
and administrative procedures (with only a few minor
variants). The adjacent states of Wales, Scotland and Ireland
were then acquired, largely through conquest. The British
state then included several separate nations. Attempts were
made to homogenise these and to create a single British
nation-state. These have never been entirely successful,
however, and have been countered at various times, with
varying degrees of success, by community-conflict
nationalism.
The creation of the British state involved a process of what
has been termed 'internal colonialism', in which the
peripheral areas of a state contain a population with separate
ethnic characteristics from that of the core, that act as the
central point of national sentiment against the core. As in the

colonialism described in previous chapters, the residents of
the periphery are discriminated against economically,
socially and politically - often on the basis of language or
religion, which define the nation (Hechter, 1975: 33). The
difference is that whereas the colonies already alluded to are
separate states, those discussed here are nations incorporated
into the core state: 'Thus the aggregate economic differences
between core and periphery are causally linked to their
cultural differences' (Hechter, 1975: 33-4).
In the attempt to create the British nation-state, the
internal colonies had first to be pacified and then, as far as
possible, Anglicised. Thus in the Union with Wales- which
occurred in 1536 although the conquest was earlier - the
English land law, judicial system and state religion were
imposed on the alien Celtic culture, and the English language
was insisted upon as the medium for government.
Previously, as a result of the conquest, Welsh lands had been
allocated by the English sovereign to Englishmen. In
addition, a series of penal laws- in force from 1410 to 1510
-forbade the acquisition of land by Welshmen in the border
areas and in the boroughs, Welshmen were forbidden from
holding office under English lords, and Englishmen who
married Welsh women were redesignated as Welsh. After the
Act of Union, Welsh-speakers were not allowed to hold
public office, and all appointed judges were English
(Hechter, 1975: 74).
The Union of Scotland and England was achieved through
negotiation, after English victories in battle. The Union of
the Crowns in 1603 led to the Anglicisation of the Scottish
nobility, who moved to London (Webb, 1978: 35); it was
followed in 1707 by the dissolution of the separate Scottish
parliament. Similarly with Ireland, incorporation of the
Dublin parliament (in which only Protestants could sit) into
Westminster in 1801 came long after military conquest.
Incorporation was for a number of immediate reasons,
including border security and monarchical aggrandisement.
But in the long term it was the economic advantages which
were most important in the development of internal colonies.
Ireland, for example, provided first cattle and then grain to
England. The main beneficiaries were the English landlords.

(Hechter, 1975: 86- quoting Swift- claims that one-third of
the income from Irish exports was returned to England as
rents.) At the same time, indigenous industrialisation was
forbidden (Regan, 1980) and English banks were able to
recirculate Irish deposits to profitable use elsewhere.
After the formal union Ireland, like Scotland and Wales,
became integrated with the United Kingdom and the formal
and legal barriers to economic activity were removed,
although members of the dominant religion were still
discriminated against. By then, however, Ireland's
subsidiary position was firmly established. As internal
colonies, the three nations differed, according to the nature
and causes of the colonisation. In all three, however,
Anglicisation was incomplete. The same was true in other
parts of Europe where relicts of former nations remained in
the expanded states. Spain, for example, includes several
such relicts (and lost one other - Portugal): some -
Catalonia, the Basque country, Galicia, Levante and the
Balearic islands - have linguistic distinctions which in several
cases have been the base for local nationalism; whereas
others, notably Navarre and the Canary Islands, have some
traditions of autonomy from the Castillian core but no local
nationalism (Linz, 1973). But in other countries where the
cultural traditions in the newly formed states were much
more uniform - as in France and Germany - post-state
nationalism has been extremely successful. (In the German
case, of course, the whole of the German linguistic area was
not integrated into the one state, and this led to pan-German
nationalism movements, notably in the 1930s.)
Building states
The internal colonialism process described above is one

means by which new lands and peoples have been absorbed
into a state but, because of the unequal treatment accorded
to the colonies, a single nation-state was not forged in the
entire occupied area. Rokkan (1973) has suggested that the
variables influencing the form of state-building relate to the
structure of the space involved, in particular the nature of

the centres, the peripheries, and the transactions between
them; influences on transactions include the physical
environment, the technological conditions for movement,
the military conditions, the economic situation, and the
cultural differences. He suggests that there are four 'master
variables' which distinguish the sequence of state-building in
different parts of the world: secular-religious differentia-
tion; linguistic unification distinctiveness; differentiation
and independence of city networks; and the con-
centration/dispersal of landholdings. Countries with
particular characteristics on these dimensions - such as
uniform language and religion and a focus on a single major
city - are easier to integrate into nation-states than are
others. He has demonstrated this in his work on electroal
cleavages (Rokkan, 1970), suggesting a transition from a
core-periphery basis for voting to one based on class
position with no spatial referents; the model does not fit all
situations, however (Taylor and Johnston, 1979).
The investigation of electoral cleavages is generally
undertaken using survey data, uncovering relationships
between voter characteristics and voter behaviour (as in
Rose, 1974), although the existence and strength of cleavages
can be inferred from aggregate data (such as election
returns). Many of these investigations have shown that the
major variables associated with party choice, with varying
degrees of strength, are occupation (reflecting class), region
of residence, language, and religion. All of the last three may
indicate a core-periphery structure reflecting a situation of
internal colonialism, where one cultural group dominates
another: this is the situation in Belgium (Hill, 1974), for
example, and it is argued that it is true in Wales and Scotland
(see below, p. 143).
But voting along such cleavages does not necessarily
indicate a failure to build a nation-state. In Switzerland, for
example, religion and language are major electoral
cleavages, as well as class (Kerr, 1974), and these two are
regionally separated: the linguistic cleavage has been very
strong, for example, in the voting behaviour on the referenda
relating to restrictions on the number of foreign workers
(Johnston and White, 1977; Johnston, 1980e). But this has

not led to either violence and repression or secession and
separation: instead, the country remains a cohesive unit
despite its clear spatial-cultural divisions, perhaps reflecting
its federal structure and lack of a strong central state. In
Holland, too, strong cultural differences based on religion
are a major feature of national politics (Lijphart, 1975), but
are not the basis of either cultural hegemony or movements
against the nation-state. Daalder (1973: 15) suggests that
both of these countries 'attained international sovereignty
with only minimal internal consolidation . . . nation-
hood typically grew through extensive processes of
accommodation and compromise' in consociational
democracies in which no one cultural group achieved (or
perhaps even sought) dominance.
Nation-building - or, more correctly, nation-state building
-in Western Europe has taken a variety of paths, therefore,
with greater tendencies towards the imposition of one group
upon another in some countries than in others. Internal
colonialism - and the consequences discussed below - is not
a general feature of contemporary European states, although
where it is, economic and social deprivation often follow.
This is the case in the USSR, for example, where Russian
hegemony over other ethnic groups is reflected in a variety of
indices. Thus, for example, there are substantial variations
in the amount of living space per person in state-provided
housing between the various republics; generally the Central
Asian and Siberian regions fall well short of the national
norm, whereas the populations of the western republics are
much better provided for (Bater, 1980: 106). There are
parallel variations in the provision of health care facilities,
although the differences have been narrowed considerably
since the Revolution in 1917 (Smith, 1979).
In one part of Europe there has been considerable nation-
state building during the twentieth century. Rokkan's (1973,
1980) analyses of Europe show that states with strong cores
have been typical of the continent's periphery, producing
relative stability in its geography, whereas the continent's
central area has been characterised by fragmentation
(reflecting the mixture of languages and religions) and weak
states. The area has been a source of conflict between various

stronger states on the periphery, right up to the present day.
Thus 'the Balkans were the part of Europe where the process
of nation-building progressed more slowly and unevenly
than elsewhere, and under most complex conditions' (Pasic,
1973: 117) with a large number of rival towns competing to
be the cores of states, and with many different cultural
groups who could be substantial minorities in a new state
(Bowman, 1921). Ethnographic mapping was a central
element in the delineation of new state boundaries after the
First World War (there was much diversity between the
maps, as Wilkinson, 1951, makes clear for Macedonia), and
the treaties creating the new states included clauses to protect
minority groups, intended
not merely to be just to minority populations, to see that

they have equality of treatment at the hands of a dominant
national group, education in their own language, freedom
to worship as they choose and in whatever language, and
in general freedom from persecution as a submerged
people, but also by equality of treatment to prevent those
forms of bitter propaganda which keep alive hatreds
between peoples and lead directly to international
scheming and war
(Bowman, 1921 : 28)
Outside Europe, there has been much post-state

nationalism associated with attempts to build new nation-
states out of the remnants of European colonialism. Two
main types of nation-state building in these areas reflect the
two main types of colony: the settler colony in which the
Europeans established themselves in relatively empty lands
which were appropriated from the indigenous inhabitants,
and the enclave colonies in which the Europeans established
economic and political power over existing states, in many
cases disrupting the pre-existing state mosaic.
Within the latter areas,
barring a few exceptions (e.g. Thailand and Afghanistan),

a common feature of virtually all societies in the Third
World is that their specific ways of economic, social, and

political development were cut short at one stage of their
history by the imposition of foreign rule. Also their
emergence as sovereign states ... was, in many instances,
decisively influenced by external forces. As a result ...
the states and nations already emerged are still in flux.
(Mukherjee, 1973: 271)
In many cases, this has involved attempts to build nation-

states in areas of pluralistic populations, in which certain
ethnic groups have become dominant - as in Malaysia,
Singapore and Indonesia in Asia, in all of which there has
been a concentration on creating what Chan and Evers
(1973) call a pragmatic identity to avoid alienation of one or
more groups and its likely impact on state cohesion. This
pragmatic identity has to be created within the set of
containers - the colonies - created by the occupying powers
and in which, as made clear in the previous chapter, those
powers retain much vested interest. But the new states have
ill-defined and conflicting boundaries, as contrived

geographic creations seeking to delimit their borders and
come to terms with their geopolitical heritage of size,
shape and sites in the crazy-quilt pattern
(Rivkin, 1969: 11)
The creation of nation-states out of colonial states, then,

often conflicts with the desire to create them out of tribal
situations (i.e. the early states that preceded colonisation),
very similar to the situations in many European states:
What is called tribalism in Africa is part of the universal

and timeless problem of how culturally pluralistic societies
hold together and function within the framework of a
single political system . . . strong attachments and
loyalties to subnational collectivities, and rejection of the
authority of the central government need not necessarily
be a reflection of backwardness.
(Gellar, 1973: 409-10)
Nigeria, for example, contains more than 400 distinguishable

ethnic groups, with eight accounting for 75 per cent of the
population and three for one-half (Himmelstrand, 1973:
431). The best course for successful nation-state building in
such situations, according to Rivkin (1969), would be based
on a decentralised, probably federal, multiparty, democratic
state rather than on a centrally organised, one-party, unitary
authoritarian state. Whether this is possible depends not only
on the abilities and actions of the indigenous nation-builders
but also on the views and actions of external powers, with
their neocolonial and neoimperial interests. In some cases, as
in Katanga, they may actively (if covertly) support the
disintegration of a state; in others, as in Biafra, they may
oppose such a process (others supported it). The likelihood is
that many of the enclave ex-colonial states will contain
several, if not many, conflicting nations.
In the ex-settler colonies - notably Australia, New
Zealand, the United States and parts of South America -
conflicts between state and internal nation are unlikely
because of the numerical dominance of the immigrants. Each
of those former colonies includes within its territory early
nations some of which - such as the Indians in North
America and the Aborigines in Australia - have been granted
(usually inferior) lands. Occasionally these nations may
challenge the authority of their conquerors (as in New
Zealand's Maori Wars in the nineteenth century and present
land claims) but the integrity of the state is not affected.
Each of these countries has absorbed immigrants from a
variety of linguistic, religious, political and general cultural
backgrounds. These have created regional cultural variations
in the United States (Sharkansky, 1970) but have not
threatened the nation-state. The only threat was the
American Civil War, in which one section of the country
attempted to secede from the Union to protect its economic
mode of production based on the exploitation of slave
labour, which the other section sought to eliminate. One
consequence of this war was a slight change to the political
geography of the United States; the western counties of
Virginia were opposed to secession - as advanced by the
slave-owners of the State's Piedmont belt - and by
The State its Territory and its People 133
continuing to send elected representatives to Washington

were able to form the new State of West Virginia, despite
Article IV of the Federal Constitution (Winberry, 1977).
Two settler colonies have had less success in the creation of
a unified nation-state. The first is Canada, where separate
French and English colonies were integrated into a single
dominion, with the French-speaking areas developing an
economic peripheral status. The other is South Africa, where
three groups came into contact (the Boers, the English
settlers, and the Bantu: the Boers claim that they and the
Bantu arrived simultaneously; the Bantu claim that they were
there much earlier): two other groups were then introduced -
the Indians, as labour for the sugar plantations of Natal, and
Cape Coloureds, the result of Boer-Bantu miscegenation. A
theory of racial superiority developed by the Boers made
integration of all these groups into a unified nation-state
impossible. Thus the Boers - who renamed themselves the
Afrikaaners, following their capture of political power in
1948, created a periphery of states- the Bantu homelands-
in which the majority black population was to be forced to
live. (The remainder of the world's states have declined to
recognise the sovereignty of these creations.) These
peripheral states are in a position of almost total dependency
on white- (increasingly Afrikaaner) dominated South Africa.
They are intended only for the Bantu population, however.
The other non-white groups are in an intermediate position.
They are disenfranchised, and lack any basis (territorial or
otherwise) for the development of national identity. In all,
this situation of the subjugation and deprivation of a large,
cheap labour force is greatly in the interests of both local and
multinational capital, which creates great problems for the
countries of the core regarding their political and economic
relations with South Africa.
Industrialisation and core-periphery structures
The industrial revolution of the eighteenth and nineteenth

centuries in north-western Europe produced a major spatial
reordering of the world-economy, at both national and
international scales. Prior to industrialisation, the major

differences between regions of a country were two: the
differences between types of agricultural region and their
relative prosperity; and the differences between the towns,
especially the capital city with the court and the conspicuous
consumption of the bourgeoisie, and the countryside. In
general, the former differences in levels of living were not
great, and the affluent were only a small group.
With industrialisation, a core-periphery spatial structure
was created in most countries, and the inter-regional, as well
as the inter-group, economic differentials were magnified.
The core remained the area of greatest wealth, but in parts of
the periphery new industries were established. Most of these
were based on either local raw materials, such as coal and
iron, or environmental conditions suitable for certain types
of manufacturing, as in textiles. In many cases, areas have
developed on the basis of a single industry, even a single raw
material resource, and their prosperity has as a consequence
been short-lived. In others, a broader industrial base has
made the economic prosperity more secure, creating the
equivalent of a semi-periphery at the international scale.
Development of this spatial structure has reflected the
operation of free-market capitalist forces, encouraged by the
state which has created a conducive environment for those
forces (Clark, 1981) and, where and when necessary, has
subsidised them through social investment expenditure, as in
American policies towards railroad construction (Johnston,
1982a). Basically, capital obtained from non-industrial
sources (trade, agriculture, rents, etc.) was invested in the
new manufacturing potential. Some capital was invested
locally in the periphery; some was channelled to areas and
industries of considerable potential from the country's
financial institutions in the core. Local capital produced
profits that were spent and reinvested locally in many cases,
generating further growth through multiplier effects, but
profits on capital from the core were retained there, to be
consumed away from the centres of production and to be
reinvested wherever the potential seemed greatest. Thus at
least part of the surplus generated in the new industrial areas
left them, to join other capital flowing into the core from
international investments: increasingly, as late capitalism

developed, local investors in the periphery either felt it more
profitable to direct their capital elsewhere too, or they were
taken over by outsiders.
Not all areas in a country were affected by
industrialisation at the same time so that the periphery
contained two types of region. The first were the agricultural
areas, some more prosperous than others but more sharing
substantially in the economic advances. The others were the
new industrial regions, with their factories and towns and
increased prosperity, at least for some. In time, some at least
of those industrial areas declined, relatively if not absolutely.
The local raw materials on which their factories depended
may either have been exhausted or undercut by cheaper
competitors, so that investment moved elsewhere and jobs
were lost. Or the market for their products declined, as new
ones were invented to replace them or imports were found to
be either better or cheaper (or both). This led to
disinvestment. Capital was removed from the areas and jobs
were lost. Nothing was put in their place, and the regions fell
into decline. Other regions were growing, perhaps based on
newly discovered resources.
The history of industrialisation in the long-established
manufacturing countries is one of ephemeral prosperity for
many areas based on a single source of wealth. The periphery
is built up, only to decay and be replaced by a new-born area
(Hall, 1981). In the United Kingdom, for example, regions
such as Lancashire, West Yorkshire, South Wales, Central
Scotland, the North-east and the West Midlands were boom
areas in the nineteenth century, based on industries such as
textile manufacture, iron and steel, and ship-building. In the
twentieth century, these industries have declined. In some
regions, others have grown to replace them - as with the
motor industry in the West Midlands - but the conditions
that created such a semi-peripheral status were particular to
certain regions only (Chinitz, 1961). The new industries were
not tied to the raw materials of those regions, and many were
established in the cities of the core, especially London, close
to the country's main markets. In the United States, early
industrialisation focused on the raw materials and resources
of New England and Appalachia. It then shifted to the major

cities of the north-east - the manufacturing belt - and, more
recently, to the newer regions of the Sunbelt (the south and
west: Johnston, 1982a). These shifts reflect the dynamic of
capital as the most efficient locations are sought in terms of,
for example, labour costs. With the centralisation and
concentration typical of late capitalism, the shifts have
mainly been of the manufacturing elements of the large
corporations: the financial headquarters have remained in
the core, creating a relatively stable prosperous centre
around which there were frequent shifts in the fortunes of
the manufacturing regions.
The rewriting of the regional pattern is in some cases
strongly influenced by political activity within the state, with
the rePresentatives from particular parts of the country able
to promote regional interests, in alliance with local capital.
In the United States, for example, the rise of the Sunbelt in
recent decades has been based on what Sale (1975) identifies
as six economic pillars: agriculture and agribusiness; the
defense industries; aerospace and other 'high technology'
industries; oil; real estate; and leisure. Some of the economic
growth reflected locally financed development of local
resources. But it was stimulated in many other ways, in
particular by subsidies from the Federal government. What
Sale terms 'the Southern Rim' (everywhere south of the
Mason-Dixon line) benefited in 1970 from the Federal
budget, 53 per cent of which was allocated to the six
'economic pillars' and of which it received about 70 per cent
(the Southern Rim contains about 35 per cent of the national
population). This leads him to the conclusion that
the basis for the Southern Rim's sweeping economic

development - is the huge federal treasury . . . the
enormity of this reservoir has been responsible for the
sudden and extraordinary economic resurgence of the last
few decades. Washington rather than Wall St. is at [its]
core
(Sale, 1975: 65)
A major reason for the state choosing to promote this

particular geography of economic development has been

political; the Southern Rim has been immensely powerful in
Federal politics with both Presidents who have favoured
southern development (Johnston and Nixon) and extremely
powerful senior members of both houses of Congress. The
latter, using processes described below (p. 159), have
advanced southern claims: 'A Congress with Southern Rim
power is not indifferent to Southern Rim interests' (Sale,
1975: 148).
Under industrial and late capitalism, therefore, a
periphery has been created in many countries comprising a
set of industrial regions, each of which is dependent on a
particular type of manufacturing. As demand for the
products of that type falls, or as capital finds that it can
manufacture them much more cheaply elsewhere, so the
industries decline, and with them the regions that depend on
them. Thus the long-term economic geography of the
periphery is characteristically one of boom, followed by
stagnation, followed by decline and the search for
replacement industries to employ the people made jobless by
the decline. Almost every country which has experienced
industrialisation for some decades has at least one declining
region as a result. The complement to such decline is growth
elsewhere. This may be in the traditional core region of the
economy, as in the United Kingdom, or it may be in a newly
developing region which has not yet experienced major
growth, as is the case in the United States.
More recently, the pattern of decline has been of a finer-
grained, intra-regional nature. Even within prosperous
regions, a combination of forces is leading industries to
move away from inner city areas and into either the suburbs
or smaller settlements in the city's hinterland (Thrift, 1979).
This is just the latest variant of the pattern of spatially
uneven economic development which is typical of capitalism.
Prosperity in an area creates problems for capital, which
must identify new areas for cheaper production, leaving the
older areas to languish. For a time, these areas were entire
regions; now the periphery is the city heart. The financial
institutions are moving too, not out of the core, necessarily,
but out of its heart at least. The state must encourage such
moves, for it must protect the health of the capitalist system:
as will be described below, this can create legitimation
problems for it.
The discussion so far in this section has been about long-
term changes in the capitalist space-economy and their
relative impact on core and periphery. There are also short-
term changes which have similar uneven spatial impacts.
Capitalism typically proceeds in a cyclical fashion, of
alternating booms and slumps. In the latter, certain sectors
of the economy - notably manufacturing - are affected more
than others. Given that many of these sectors are spatially
concentrated, then the short-term effects of these slumps
(unemployment because of falling demand and the
consequences of that) are felt more severely in some areas
than in others. Usually it is the periphery that is hardest hit,
while the financial institutions of the core are less affected.
Internal colonialism and the economic core-periphery

The previous sections have identified two types of core-
periphery spatial structure within countries: the cultural,
which results from the failure of the nation-state building
process fully to incorporate and assimilate one population
with another (such failure may be intentional, of course);
and the economic, which results from the operations of the
capitalist world-economy. In some countries, these two types
have overlapped, with economic peripheral status in part
reflecting cultural.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the Celtic periphery
was in part transformed by industrialisation but its situation
of dependency was not substantially altered. In general, the
transformation occurred only in those areas where industries
were established, notably in South Wales, in Central
Scotland, and around Belfast. The industries involved -
coal-mining, iron and steel manufacture, and ship-building -
grew rapidly in the nineteenth century but have been
declining fast in the twentieth. Thus the cities and towns of
these regions are now experiencing substantial economic
distress, for their economies were in most cases narrowly
based and there was little stimulus to indigenous

development as much of the profits flowed to landowners
and industrialists in England.
Industrialisation in these parts of the periphery involved
Anglicisation of the population, and the replacement of
core-periphery political cleavages by the class cleavage
typical of industrialised England. In Wales and Scotland as a
whole, for example, the percentage speaking the local Celtic
language declined between 1891 and 1961 from 57 to 39 in
the former and 11 to 3 in the latter. Within Wales, by 1891 in
the industrial counties only 30 per cent spoke the Celtic
language compared to 62 in the non-industrial counties; in
1961 the respective percentages were 10 and 45 (Hechter,
1975: 197).
The division within these peripheral nations into the
industrialised and non-industrialised parts has been
emphasised in studies of voting patterns. Cox (1970), for
example, has divided Wales into traditional (non-
industrialised) and modern (industrialised) areas. The
former lacks a dominant social class cleavage. Its politics
have long been influenced by the land issue - dividing the
Welsh tenants from the English landlords - and by religion.
In modern Wales, on the other hand, economic issues
generated by industrialisation and exploited among the
proletariat by the Labour Party have led to the development
of a social class cleavage. The same is true in Scotland, where
Labour exploited economic issues in the Central Lowlands:
in Ireland, prior to 1922, nationalist issues dominated
voting, and in recent decades this trend has continued in
Northern Ireland.
Core and periphery: a summary
This discussion has suggested that the core-periphery

structure of the capitalist world-economy is reproduced in
most individual countries. Two types of structure have been
identified; in both, their evolution involves the state. The
economic structure reflects the operation of capitalist market
forces aided and abetted by the state's social investment
expenditure. The cultural structure reflects a particular form

of state expansion - internal colonialsim - and the failure to
incorporate several nations into a single nation-state. Some
countries (like the United Kingdom, Belgium and Canada)
have both of these; some (the United States, Italy and the
Netherlands, for example) have only the economic.
One way in which these differences are reflected, at least in
some countries, is in the cleavages that form the basis of
electoral behaviour; elections are crucial in many countries
because they provide legitimation for governments and the
state itself. The cultural core-periphery structure is often
indicated by voting patterns, as in Canada where there are
strong inter-provincial differences at national elections
(Blake, 1967) and where each province has its own internal
electoral cleavages - notably in Quebec. The economic core-
periphery structure has not produced particular electoral
cleavages, but has emphasised social class cleavages in many
places. Thus the peripheral regions (and now the inner cities)
are the electoral bastions of parties dependent on the votes of
the proletariat (as in Great Britain and in France).
Both core-periphery structures have electoral implica-
tions, therefore, and are likely to influence govern-
ment policies, even the nature of the state. (The latter
is illustrated by the failure of the Canadian provinces over
several decades to agree a formula for the passing of
constitutional amendments: as a result, the Constitution
remained as the British North American Act of 1867.) The
next two sections of this chapter look at aspects of those
implications and influences. The first considers secessionist
movements as consequences of the failure of nation-state
building; the second looks at area policies to counter the
class cleavages.
Nations against the state: secessionist movements
Many states are currently experiencing difficulties with

nationalist movements within their territories. Some of these
are long running; some are revivals of dormant movements;
some are new. In many cases, the aim is to split the nation
from the embracing state, either entirely or in part. In others,

the aim is slightly different.
The most common form of nationalist secession
movement is associated with sub-state nationalism (Orridge,
1981) in which part of a state claims separate nationhood and
the right to create a separate (probably independent) state on
that foundation. The claims of Welsh and Scottish
nationalists in the United Kingdom at the present time, of the
Irish throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, of Flemish and Walloons in Belgium, Basques in
Spain and Quebecois in Canada, are all examples of this
type. Unification nationalism, on the other hand, involves
members of a nation split between two or more states
claiming the right to establish a state of their own. The
Kurdish claims, for example, cover parts of Iraq, Iran,
Syria, the USSR and Turkey, whereas the Jews claimed
rights to a traditional homeland from which they had been
dispersed over several centuries. Finally irredentism involves
members of a group resident in one state claiming that they,
and their territory, should be part of another; transfer rather
than independence is claimed, as with the Sudeten Germans
in the 1930s and some Northern Irish in the 1970s. (In
addition, anti-colonialism is sometimes represented as a
form of nationalism, in which the occupying power is to be
removed.)
All of these types of movement involve claims to create
separate nation-states. Others merely demand some greater
autonomy within an existing - perhaps federal - state.
Sharpe (1979) identifies these moves as part of a general
decentralisation trend, countering the centralisation which
has characterised twentieth-century states. This trend is
divided into three types of movement: return of power to the
community, in neighbourhood councils or their equivalent;
strengthening of the powers of local states; and
devolution/regional nationalism, which he terms 'the least
expected' (1979: 40) of modern movements. The last is the
area of interest here; the local state is considered in the next
chapter.
The extent of nationalist activity at the present time is
portrayed by Kidron and Segal (1981), who have mapped
active and dormant separatist (sub-state nationalism),

regionalist (devolution), and irredentist movements. For the
late 1970s they have identified only four such movements in
the American continent, but eighteen in Africa, and twenty-
seven each in Asia (including the Middle East but excluding
the USSR) and Europe; for the USSR they identify fourteen
active national movements. And their maps are far from
complete: within the United Kingdom, for example, they
exclude the Cornish regionalist movement, which was
represented by a political party - Mebynon Kernow - in the
1979 general election, and the (successful) movement for a
separate canton conducted by the Jura Francophones in
Switzerland is also omitted.
Nationalism in Western Europe
Within Europe (plus the Quebec case in Canada) virtually

every one of these movements has an ethnic base, and in
most cases this is reflected in linguistic, religious and cultural
differences. Williams (1980) claims that language is more
generally considered a divisive issue than is either religion or
race, although in most of the peripheral regions with
nationalist movements the ethnic minority is dominantly
functionally bilingual, so that
ethnic membership does not necessarily serve as a barrier

to . . . full participation in the political system of the
ethnic majority. In such circumstances it is more
profitable to treat language as a variable which can be used
as a grievance factor to mobilize mass support for political
movements.
(Williams, 1980: 147)
Certainly language is an issue in most of the 'major

separatist movements in the western world' identified by
Williams. But this does not explain why certain nationalist
movements have developed and others have not; nor does it
account for the growth of nationalism in Europe during the
1970s.
Nationalist protest movements are not peculiar to the late

twentieth century, of course. The Irish issue was a thorn in
the side of nearly every British government for more than a
century before the 1922 treaty was signed, and the Irish
politicians at Westminster were sometimes able to use their
strength to push for concessions, as in 1910 when they helped
Asquith and Lloyd George counter the problems of getting
their budget through Parliament. Plaid Cymru (the Welsh
Nationalist party) was formed in 1925, replacing an earlier
movement (Cymru Fydd- Young Wales) established in 1886
(Ragin, 1979). And in Scotland, the National Association for
the Vindication of Scottish Rights was established in 1853,
followed by the Highland League (or Crofters' Party) in
1882 - which won five parliamentary seats in 1885-6
(Agnew, 1978).
A number of 'explanations' for the recent upsurge of
Western European nationalist movements have been put
forward. Ragin (1979) groups these into three types:
(1) The developmental. This builds on Rokkan's ideas
regarding electoral cleavages, arguing that nationalist
movements are relics of a core-periphery cleavage in areas
which have not been homogenised into an industrial society
with its strong class cleavages:
Thus, the cultural traditionalisms which may serve as a

basis for ethnic mobilization will survive only to the extent
that the peripheral area remains outside the sphere of the
national economy.
(Ragin, 1979: 620)
(2) Reactive ethnicity. This is diametrically opposed to the

previous type; it argues that incorporation of the periphery
into the wider economy enhances the salience of the ethnic
differences rather than homogenises the minority with the
majority culture. This is the basis of Hechter's (1975) case,
for example, which argues for the estrangement of the
exploited peripheral working class in the United Kingdom
from the majority English working class.
(3) Ethnic competition. In some societies, it is argued,
there is a cultural division of labour in which each ethnic
group has its own ecological niche, and as a consequence

inter-ethnic relations are stable. With modernisation,
however, society becomes much more centralised and these
niches are eroded away. As a consequence, the groups come
into conflict, and the existence of a clear cultural base
provides a focal point for certain groups to claim
discrimination.
Ragin has attempted to evaluate these three perspectives
with regard to Welsh nationalist sentiment, using voting data
as his indices of ethnic support. With Liberal voting as the
dependent variable, he concludes that the developmental
perspective is valid; Liberal strength has always been greatest
in the parts of Wales not affected directly by
industrialisation (see above, p. 139). Using voting for Plaid
Cymru as the dependent variable, however, he comes down
in favour of the ethnic competition perspective:
[Plaid Cymru] is not the party of a threatened cultural

minority, nor . . . is it the party of an ethnic-class
conscious industrial proletariat. Rather, the Plaid Cymru
attempts to be the truly Welsh party of modern Wales,
combining a cultural appeal and a Welsh-national
economic appeal.
(Ragin, 1979: 633)
Its electoral strength is in constituencies which are neither

heavily industrial nor agricultural, and 'the intelligentsia;
broadly defined, is grossly overrepresented in the
membership' (Ragin, 1979: 633).
Ragin's analyses account for the continued support for the
Liberals in traditional Wales, but cannot suggest why Plaid
Cymru support has increased when it has (although it can
suggest reasons for where it has). Agnew's (1978) analysis of
the ethnically distinct area of North-west Scotland casts
further doubts on the generality of Ragin's findings. There,
SNP candidates polled 28.1 per cent in one constituency in
1935 and 37.2 per cent in another in 1940, but only 2.7 and
1. 7 per cent respectively in 1950, hardly evidence of
permanent nationalist commitment in the periphery. Indeed,
since 1945 the electoral records of all parties in the area show
The State, its Territory and its People l4S
considerable volatility, which Agnew relates to the

importance of individual candidates, whatever their party,
especially if they are local men. The rise of the SNP in the
1970s is thus related to
identification with an organization whose representative

may be preferred and which offers a channel for protest,
rather than strong attachment to a set of beliefs about a
Scottish past and a Scottish future largely created during
the nineteenth century by certain writers and intellectuals.
(Agnew, 1978)
Webb (1978) tends to agree, arguing that the SNP was well
placed to pick up protest votes in the 1970s that might
otherwise have gone to the Liberals:
Into this dreary scene the SNP burst, enthusiastic, voluble,

ambitious and positive. They might well be lunatics but at
least they knew what they wanted. And slowly, partly
because of the quality of some of their personnel, they
gained a more favourable image and achieved a few good
results.
(Webb, 1978: 131)
The leaders were crucial, if not all-important, in the ability

of the SNP to capture the votes of a disillisioned electorate.
(That the votes were more protests than committed
nationalist statements is suggested by the results of the 1979
devolution referenda. In Scotland, a small majority of the
votes cast were in favour of the proposals, but Parliament
had set the threshold for success as 50 per cent of the
electorate voting yes. In Wales, a large majority of the votes
cast was against the proposals.)
But what has stimulated these protest votes at the present
time. To several writers (e.g. Nairn, 1977) a crucial issue is
the failure of the state to satisfy the proletariat, with ethnic
nationalism being a convenient flag for at least some voters
to rally around. Increasingly centralised and distant from the
average voter, the state appears to have failed during the
present economic crisis. Voters are becoming less satisfied
with the political system. Low turnout at elections indicates

legitimation problems for the state as a whole (Crewe, Fox
and Alt, 1977); the growth of protest voting and the increase
of partisan de-alignment (Johnston, 1982b) away from the
major parties indicates growing disillusion with the present
operation of that system.
This dissatisfaction has provided a niche for the
nationalist parties, using the cultural base and the underlying
feeling of relative deprivation in an internal colonial
situation to generate voter support (and using issues, such as
the royalties on North Sea oil, to illustrate that deprivation).
Thus according to Williams (1980: 156):
if the state fails to satisfy the aspirations of mal-integrated

minorities then a period of conflict between state
nationalism and ethnic nationalism will often ensue. Much
of the explanation for nationalist resurgence rests then,
not so much on the internal dynamics of core-periphery
relations, but on the capacity of the declining state to meet
the needs of territorially concentrated ethnic groups.
Sharpe (1979) takes this argument further, claiming that
democratisation and the associated egalitarian trends linked
to universal suffrage have stimulated nationalism (albeit in
some cases several decades after universal suffrage has been
granted), because 'it raises the political visibility of regional
economic disparities, especially the cultural hegemony of the
dominant core' (Sharpe, 1979: 61).
Decentralist and nationalist movements are one reaction to
the 'break-up of the state'. As Kolinsky (1978) points out,
however, it is somewhat paradoxical that these movements
have been gaining strength in Western Europe at the same
time that movements for international integration have been
accelerating. Smith (1978) points out that both are responses
by the state to its over-extension and inadequacy (a third
response is corporatism; see above, p. 122). The inadequate
state is one no longer able to make 'three leading claims: the
state was the prime unit of physical security, the guarantor of
economic autonomy, and the expression of national
solidarity'; whereas the over-extended state is unable 'to
The State, its territory and its People 147
satisfy demands emanating from society ... not because it

has been unwilling to entertain the wide variety of claims
made upon it, but simply because it could be overwhelmed
by them' (Smith, 1978: 174, 175). The reaction to inadequacy
is to seek to prove oneself again in a supranational
organisation; the reaction to over-extension is to diffuse
power. The impetus for the two solutions comes from
different directions, however. As Kolinsky (1978: 8)
expresses it:
The ideology of European integration, in one variation or

another, is most strongly held among economic,
administrative and political elites, few of whom are
enthusiastic about sub-state nationalism The
differences to a certain extent sum up in a contrast
between bureaucratic elitism and emotional populism.
Thus the moves for European integration and a federal state

(see p. 115) are creating a further electoral cleavage within
Britain. The core-periphery dimension is affected not only in
the Westminster Parliament but also in the European
Parliament where some British members have fought against
the shift of power to this new centre; within Europe,
therefore, there are national (advancing British vested
interests), ideological (pro and anti the EEC), and regional
cleavages underlying both voting behaviour at elections and
the political actions of MEPs.
These last arguments to some extent place the issue of
resurgent nationalism within the nature of the state itself and
the continued tension between its roles of capitalist ally and
maintainer of proletarian legitimation. They still do not
account for the when and where of the resurgences, however.
Birch (1977) suggests that the nearest one can get to an
answer to these questions involves invoking a set of necessary
but insufficient conditions. This set would include the
following: an ethnic base, representing the failure of
homogenisation policies during internal colonialism; a
political rationale; a time reference (either past - a
recollection of deprivation; or future - a goal); and an
eruptive factor to mobilise support (such as the 1916 Easter
rising in Dublin and the discovery of oil off Scotland).

Although the movements may have common features,
therefore, they also have many unique elements.
Most nationalist movements at some time or another
involve violence - more in some than others. Again,
accounting for the existence, nature, and degree of violence
involves invoking particular circumstances. There is little
evidence that violence is a last resort - when all other efforts
at achieving the desired change have failed - nor that it is
more prevalent in non-democratic states. As with nationalist
movements in general, its appearance can only be accounted
for by the contingent relations which influence the particular
circumstances surrounding the general desire for national
self-determination.
Nationalism in the periphery of the world-economy
Outside Western Europe, many of the nationalist movements

are reactions to the imposition of a new set of states by
outside rulers. During the period of anti-colonial
nationalism, attempts at creating a new nation-state
movement tend to override inter-nation disputes, although
sometimes with difficulty. After independence has been
gained, and the various nations are seeking to dominate the
new state, internal friction frequently develops. In
Zimbabwe, for example, the various anti-colonial nationalist
movements were uneasily united in a Patriotic Front, whose
two main wings - Zanu and Zapu - represented the two main
tribal groupings in the country - Shona and Ndebele
respectively. In the newly independent country's first
elections (in February-March 1980) there was a clear
partisan split between these two tribes. The PF (the party of
Zapu leader Joshua Nkomo) won fifteen of the sixteen seats
in the two Matabeleland constituencies (the homelands of the
Ndebele tribes), whereas Zanu (PF), led by Robert Mugabe,
won forty-eight of the fifty-two seats in the Mashonaland,
Manicaland and Victoria constituencies. Only in the central
constituency - Midlands - which contained large numbers
from both tribal groupings did both parties win seats (eight
for Zanu (PF) and four for PF). The Shona party won an
absolute majority of seats. In an attempt to create a nation-
state, however, a coalition government was formed. There
has been much tension between the two tribal groupings,
however, and rioting in the Bulawayo area in the heart of
Matabeleland.
Similar inter-tribal tensions, occasionally erupting into
conflicts, have characterised most post-colonial African
countries. (Foltz, 1973, suggests that only Liberia has
escaped them in West Africa.) Several attempts to defuse
tribal nationalism and to build new nation-states have
included homogenisation policies with regard to language (as
with the colonial powers beforehand), but these have not
prevented tribal conflicts, as in both Kenya and Uganda in
East Africa (Mazrui, 1973).
As the most populous country in Africa, Nigeria is not
surprisingly one that has been subjected to much strain in the
tensions and occasional conflicts involving the various ethnic
groups. Himmelstrand (1973: 430) argues that:
For many commentators on the Nigerian crisis of 1965-

1967 an enumeration of Nigerian tribes and their social
and cultural differences was sufficient proof of Nigeria's
inability to stay together ... Contemporary tensions ...
were seen as a continuation of tribal wars . . . This
approach not only reflected a condescending Western
attitude ... but it was also shallow and inaccurate.
Nevertheless, the tribal divisions are relevant because
we cannot understand the internal strains in Nigeria that

have been both created and exploited by previous political
regimes (including the colonial one) unless we take into
account the interplay between tradition and modern
development in Nigeria. The ethnic groups and their
geographical locations constitute the basic traditional
element.
(Himmelstrand, 1973: 431)
Nigeria has three main tribes - Hausa, lbo, and Yoruba-

each of which was dominant in one of the three regions of

the federal state that came into existence in 1960. Half of the
population were in minority groups, dependent on one of the
large tribes in each region; in 1964, several of the largest
minority groups were provided with a fourth region. Many
members of the three main tribes lived outside their relevant
region, however, creating the foundation for irredentist
feelings, and migration had created more mixture as the
basis for further inter-group tensions.
According to Himmelstrand (1973: 432) the problem in
Nigeria has not been ethnicity as such but 'the interplay
among ethnic affiliation, size of ethnic groups, and
administrative boundaries', which meant that many groups
had no effective power at the regional level within the federal
state. As a result, it is the intersection of the groups, with
their cultural differences, which has created the tensions,
rather than the existence of the groups per se. As a result, he
identified five possible options open to the Nigerian
population after independence:
1. Nigerian nationalism, creating a new, strong nation-state,
2. Inter-regional power struggles, with two of the main
tribes in coalition against the other at any one time,
3. Ethnic nationalism within the regions with small states
for the various groups,
4. Ethnic irredentism, transcending regional boundaries,
5. Regional secession.
Among the three main tribes, the political elites of all three
favoured secession at some stage and one - the Ibo -
attempted it in the Biafran conflict. Their main goal,
however, has been centred on the second option.
Himmelstrand identified no secessionist trends among the
minority groups, however, although many have sought to
pursue option 3. For these groups, he argues (1973: 451), the
first option is the most viable, in a Nigerian nationalism that
springs from strong loyalties to one's own ethnic group,

and from the desire to use the national center as a means
of improving the lot of one's own people. While ethnic
loyalties and a broader nationalism may seem somewhat
contradictory principles among large and dominant ethnic

groups, they are supplementary and reciprocally
facilitating among smaller ethnic groups.
In 1967, a new twelve-state federation was created, which

Himmelstrand believes will lead to an advancement of
Nigerian nationalism:
the creation of more states with the multistate federal

structure of Nigeria implies the complete removal of the
options of regionalist struggles for power and 'security',
and of secession. States ... are more interdependent, and
no longer strong and viable enough to choose these
options. Instead there is a new option . . . of multiple-
state coalition-making to win developmental advantages
. . . these coalitions will no longer consistently follow
territorially contiguous clusters of states coinciding with
the old regions.
(Himmelstrand, 1973: 464-5)
'Divide and maintain' thus appears as a variant of 'divide

and rule': today Nigeria has nineteen states.
Another African country that has experienced recent
internal conflict is Chad, which according to one author
'faces today, as at independence, . . . the twin tasks of
building a nation and a state' (Decalo, 1980: 23). It is a large
country (there are only four larger in Africa) including a
major tract of desert. Ethnically it comprises over 100
different language groups, and there are two major religions
(Muslim and animist); about one-fifth of the population live
in nomadic groups. Sixty years of French colonial rule failed
to unite the country: instead, they created a strong core-
periphery pattern with the French being acceptable to the
tribes around the capital but not to their enemies in the
Sahel. After independence (in 1957), the PPT political party
- based in the south-western core of the country and on the
support of the non-Muslim elite - quickly gained control,
and by 1962 had established a one-party state, although the
security of the holders of power was weak and there were
several attempted coups and purges. In 1965, opposition to
the hegemony of the core erupted through several rebellions

in the country's north and east: their causes, according to
Decato (1980: 40), were 'crass maladministration, and
especially ... the illegal trebling of local taxes by corrupt
officials who pocketed the difference'. The conflict that
ensued lasted until the fall of the French-supported
government in 1975, when there was a military coup. The
military was unable to integrate the northern and eastern
peripheries with the core, however, and in 1979 another coup
was engineered by the Libyan-backed northern tribes. But
the lack of integration of the victors - a consequence of the
failure of French colonial policy - meant that conflict
continued between the ruling tribes and within the coalition,
while experienced administrators from the southern tribes
were excluded from participation in the faltering state
apparatus.
One consequence of many of these nationalist movements
is the creation of a large number of stateless persons, as a
result of refugee migrations and the inability of the countries
in which they seek refuge to provide for them (indeed some,
as on the Thai-Kampuchea frontier in 1980, turn refugees
back). One area in which such a problem has been very acute
in recent years has been the Horn of Africa, where the
conflicts within Ethiopia and that between Ethiopia and
Somalia over the Ogaden region have uprooted more than a
million people. In Somalia, the population of about four
million was increased by about 750 000 refugees in less than
two years at the end of the 1970s - and these were only the
registered residents of refugee camps, with as many again
elsewhere in the country. In 1981, it was estimated that
Somalia housed 1.54m. refugees (Times Higher Education
Supplement, 3 July 1981).
Such large-scale refugee movements place intolerable
burdens on the governments of the recipient states in the
periphery. Many, despite considerable sympathy for the
refugees, are unable to cope with the demands and refuse to
accept further residents. This occurs not only with large-scale
movements following a war but also with the flow of
political refugees from neighbouring countries. Hong Kong,
for example, returns refugees from the Chinese mainland to
their home country, and Malaysia refused to accept the 'boat

people' who fled from South Vietnam in large numbers in
the late 1970s. Core countries have sometimes been prepared
to take such refugees, out of a feeling of moral responsibility
(as with East Africa Indians to Britain) sometimes coupled
with home economic needs - the flood of East Europeans to
the New World - but neither their willingness to accept
refugees nor their provision of aid has been sufficient to
mitigate many of the hardships engendered by the remnants
of colonial policies.
Just as with the various regional movements in Western
Europe, therefore, no simple, single answer can be provided
for the questions when, where and why with regard to
nationalist conflicts within post-colonial states. In the
former, it has been suggested, the inability of the nation-
state to provide for the demands of impoverished peripheries
has created a cause around which ethnic groups may focus
movements, but this is a very broad generalisation only.
Similarly for the latter it could be suggested that the existence
of national differences within a state provides a rallying
point for articulating economic demands (just as it could be
claimed that poor blacks have had such a focus in the United
States and poor whites have not), but the existence of a
stimulus is insufficient for the prediction of a reaction. Many
other influences are involved including, in many post-
colonial states, the interests of multinational capital and its
core-state backers. The importance of outside assistance has
already been stressed in the Zaire case (p. 101); it was also
true in the Biafran secession attempt.
For some at least of the post-colonial states, it has been
suggested, the nationalist movements discussed here are
examples of a transitional stage in the development of a
nation-state. Mazrui (1973) claims that legitimation operates
at two levels. At the level of a secondary consensus, there is
agreement on a particular policy or leader; this is
legitimation for a government. At the level of a primary
consensus, there is agreement on the right of a properly
constituted government to rule and on the institutions of
rule, including a loyal opposition; this is legitimation of the
state. According to Mazrui, secondary consensus has been
quite common - around Kenyatta in Kenya, for example,

and Nyerere in Tanzania - but primary consensus has not.
(Thus violence on policy issues is secondary; on tribal
differences it is primary.) Nation-building involves creating
primary consensus through an accepted institutional
structure. Whether it will occur in most post-colonial states
(outside the settler ex-colonies which lack international
nations) remains to be seen.
The state and the economic core-periphery structure
The existence of a core-periphery economic spatial structure

within a state - assuming no related cultural structure -
provides a potential base for social unrest, especially in
situations where local solidarity in protest is feasible and
coercion is largely ruled out. (Governments in the United
Kingdom have used force to put down strikes, of course, but
this has been extremely rare and localised.) Such potential
protest can create a legitimation problem, for governments if
not for the state itself.
In the early state (as noted in Chapter 3) the ruling class
was able to exploit the proletariat without their ideology
necessarily being accepted by (even introduced to) the
working class. This was because the spatial division of
labour and the difficulties of communication, plus the
generally impoverished condition of the working class,
militated strongly against large-scale proletarian solidarity.
Local disturbances could be quelled relatively easily, and
their likelihood of developing into mass movements was
relatively slight (seep. 55).
The industrial revolution changed several aspects of the
situation of the working class. They are now concentrated
into large cities, and large workplaces; increasingly, with the
extension of late capitalism, they are controlled by a
relatively small number of large employers. These factors are
associated with, though not necessarily causal of, increased
working-class solidarity, which in most countries is
expressed through trade unions (where they are allowed and
are independent of the state: see Kidron and Segal, 1981).
Initially unions were small and local in their operations, with

perhaps loose links with others in some regional or national
federation. Today they are large and national, and work
closely together. The number of unions varies considerably,
from a few in West Germany to a large number in the United
Kingdom, and they have expanded more in some countries
than others (they are relatively weak in the United States, for
example).
In most capitalist countries they are now one of the most
important pressure groups in the corporatist structure (seep.
122), with greater power, some claim, in determining
government policy than Parliament. (See, however, Coates'
1980: 82, argument regarding the unions and the 1974-9
Labour governments in the United Kingdom that there was a
'gap between the public image of trade union power and the
private reality of waning trade union influence over public
policy'.) Unions do not always speak with one voice to
government, and their major function in pay-bargaining sets
them against each other to some extent, but their importance
in the corporate state is undoubted. They can rapidly
mobilise large numbers to protest against government
actions and they have been instrumental in the fall of
governments (both Conservative in 1974, and Labour in
1979, in the United Kingdom).
Because of the spatial division of labour in industrial
capitalist societies and the specialised economic base of many
peripheral regions, many parts of a country are liable to
suffer relatively extreme economic deprivation at times of
general depression (especially as many of the industries that
characterise those peripheral areas are more sensitive to
general economic depression than are those typical of the
core area: Thirlwall, 1966). Large numbers are unemployed
in the peripheral areas under such circumstances, creating an
obvious problem for a government - which may be
dependent on those areas for much of its electoral support -
and a focus for the trade union movement.
As pointed out earlier in this chapter, the nature of
industrial change under capitalism means that many of the
peripheral regions have only an ephemeral economic base.
Rather than the unemployment characteristic of most
business cycles discussed in the previous paragraphs, which

is usually short term - although having greater impact in the
periphery than in the core - and not a substantial threat to
the state, this absolute decline of industries in the periphery
creates long-term structural unemployment associated with
the permanent loss of jobs. This is a much greater problem
for the state, because large numbers of unemployed in one
area for a long period provide a clear base for social unrest
(and, in many cases, political unrest - extremist parties, of
both right and left, often recruit best in depressed areas).
Faced by these problems of unemployment the state in
many countries during recent decades has found it necessary
to proclaim its adherence to economic policies that will
guarantee full employment; the deep recession of the 1920s-
1930s convinced many governments of this. Such policies
undoubtedly are based in part on altruistic motives, but they
also illustrate the situation of the state within capitalist
economies. On the one hand, inability to provide work for
the proletariat stimulates grievances which can lead to
legitimation crises. These in turn make it more difficult for
the state to attract investment from multinational capital. On
the other hand, unemployed labour has only a small amount
of purchasing power, and capitalist profits are hard to realise
from them. A healthy industrial system requires consumers,
so the capitalist side of the equation wants action from the
government to protect its interests.
To meet these demands on it, the state pursues two types
of policy in most countries. The first is a general welfare
policy (social consumption expenditure in O'Connor's (1973)
trilogy: seep. 23), involving the payment of unemployment
benefits, plus other payments to aid the unemployed to
support their dependents. These, it has been argued by
several analysts, are rarely generous. Usually, it is claimed,
they are only agreed to by governments under pressure from
the proletariat (often through unions), and the gains are
usually eroded once the pressure is relieved. Regarding the
introduction of such benefits in the United States, under the
Social Security Act of 1934, Piven and Cloward (1972: 45)
argue that
it would be wrong to assume that this unprecedented

volume of relief-giving was a response to widespread
economic distress, for millions had been unemployed for
several years before obtaining aid. What led government
to proffer aid ... was the rising surge of political unrest
that accompanied this economic catastrophe. Moreover,
once the relief-giving had expanded, unrest rapidly
subsided, and then aid was cut back.
The same argument is applied to the Civil Rights movement

of the 1950s and 1960s; the American government only
yielded under considerable pressure - which threatened its
legitimation - and there is substantial evidence that the
concessions delivered have not created significant structural
alterations in American society.
With regard to structural unemployment, the state in
many countries seeks to assist those affected by providing
retraining programmes. Such programmes may be seen as
social consumption expenses - aiding the working class - but
they are also important social investment expenses, since
they are intended to provide the needed labour - with the
right skills - for changing capitalist circumstances. Thus, as
Leonard (1979) argues, industrial training schemes in Britain
have been aimed at the 'deserving' unemployed, those who,
according to their interviewing, are likely to be 'good
employees'. As a result of this, most of London's skill
centres (for industrial retraining) in the late 1970s were not in
the areas of greatest unemployment, which have a
predominance of unskilled workers, but in areas where they
are accessible to more skilled workers; in this way,
inequalities within society are maintained. The retraining
programmes are largely of assistance to employers rather
than to employees; the operation of Job Centres, as
information disseminators on employment opportunities and
as filters for screening applicants, similarly promotes the
interests of employers over those of employees. (In these
situations, the managerialist theory of the state is clearly
relevant, within the constraints of the general functions set
out in the structuralist position. The same theory is relevant
to state attitudes to higher education, which also promote
courses and subjects useful for employers, and therefore for

capitalism - and thus society, according to the ideology - as
a whole.)
Although they may have spatial elements, and
undoubtedly have varying spatial impacts, these general
welfare policies are not aimed specifically at the major
concentrations of unemployment which appear in the
periphery. Most governments now recognise the need for
policies aimed at the peripheral areas and the problems of
providing work there. In the United Kingdom, for example,
the development of what are now known as 'regional
policies' began with the Special Areas Act of 1934 (although
earlier, in 1928, an Industrial Transference Board was
established to help the unemployed to move to areas where
work was available: Law, 1980). Industrial estates were built
in the designated Special Areas (those with large numbers of
unemployed) and factories were directed to them. During the
Second World War, several commissions reported on aspects
of social and economic conditions and one recommended (on
strategic as well as other grounds) the large-scale
decentralisation of industry from the main cities. Under the
1945 Distribution of Industry Act, Development Areas were
defined - again they were mainly peripheral regions with
high structural unemployment - to which industry was to be
directed, and controls on development were instituted
elsewhere. Since then, the extent of the 'assisted areas' has
varied with the condition of the economy and the electoral
base of the government in power, and for a period covered
services as well as manufacturing industry (Manners et a/.,
1980). Thus by the end of 1978 the Labour government -
with a strong electoral base in the periphery - had defined
'assisted areas' containing some 45 per cent of the country's
population; the Conservative government that followed cut
this back to 25 per cent. There have also been area policies
aimed at the economic and social problems of inner city
areas (Thrift, 1979).
The incentives offered to firms prepared to provide
employment in the designated areas (or, in some cases, not to
reduce employment) have been largely financial. In addition,
however, much social investment has gone into providing an
infrastructure for these areas, especially a transport

network. The state has also become directly involved
through its ownership of industries, largely as a consequence
of the nationalisation programmes of Labour governments.
Several of the main declining industries of the periphery -
coal-mining, steel manufacture, and ship-building, but not
textiles - have been nationalised. As a result, the economic
fortunes of several peripheral areas are very much in the
hands of the state via its nationalised industries, which can
create legitimation problems for governments that do not
wish to be branded as creators of unemployment.
Most industrialised capitalist countries, and some others,
now have regional development policies. They differ in their
details, as suggested by Clout (1975: 315) for Western
Europe: 'well-established regional-planning systems in
France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom stand in
contrast with programmes that are still in their infancy in the
Alpine states, Denmark and Iberia'. The differences include
the nature of state involvement. West Germany and France,
for example, largely operate directive policies, with
designated areas, location in which entitles firms to receive
subsidies; the state acts as stimulant rather than participant.
In Italy, on the other hand, the state has been much more
active. To assist in the regeneration of agriculture in
depressed areas (mainly in the south) large holdings were
expropriated and redistributed, whereas for industry as well
as the incentives offered to private firms by the Cassa per if
Mezzogiorno, each state and semi-state agency (including
that operating the iron and steel industry) is required to
locate at least 60 per cent of its new investment in the south
(King, 1975).
In the United States, the nature of the regional policies
reflects the peculiarities of the political system there. In the
Federal Congress, parties are relatively weak (compared to
the situation in the United Kingdom) and individual
representatives and senators much more powerful, especially
in seeking benefits for their home States. To cater for the
depressed areas, an Area Redevelopment Administration
was established in 1960 to provide moneys to be used for
prescribed purposes by State agencies in the defined areas.
This was replaced by the better-financed Economic

Development Administration, which provided grants for
work in Redevelopment Areas, defined as those with median
family incomes 40 per cent or less of the national figure. In
addition, Regional Planning Commissions were created to
oversee work in five large inter-State areas, and Economic
Development Districts were defined as groups of
Redevelopment Areas with a large city that could act as a
growth pole and, with state investment, stimulate local
economic activity.
But nearly every Congressman wanted to get some of these
benefits for his or her constituency. As a result of political
bargaining, the criteria for the various forms of aid were
relaxed during the 1970s. By 1975, Economic Development
Districts incorporated 1250 of the country's 3042 counties,
and 262 growth poles had been identified. The criterion for a
Redevelopment Area was changed to a median family
income 50 per cent or less of the national figure, and the
peak number of such areas was 1818 with spending of EDA
moneys at only $4.50 per resident. Finally, the existing
Regional Planning Commissions were expanded and new
ones created, so that by 1975, 135 million of the country's
213 million inhabitants lived in one of the Commission's
territories (Estall, 1977); in 1979, several new Commissions
were announced, and the current twelve cover most of the
country (excluding much of California, Texas, southern
Michigan, southern Minnesota, southern Wisconsin and the
Appalachia Piedmont only: Estall, 1980). Thus much activity
is apparent, and congressmen can claim that they are doing
things for their constituents' problems (Johnston, 1980f),
although Estall (1980: 382-3) argues: 'The results of [the
EDA] are not universally regarded as impressive ... The
[Regional Planning] Commissions . . . have been somewhat
ineffective in their original role of regional growth
promotion.'
Most regional policies are directed at aiding declining and
depressed areas, especially those with considerable structural
unemployment. In addition, many governments are prepared
to invest in new developments in peripheral areas where the
resource base has previously been under-exploited. Such
investment may bring needed revenues to the state, to assist it

in staving off its fiscal crisis, as in the state-financed or
-assisted exploitation of North Sea oil and gas reserves.
Much of it involves the state providing a base for capitalist
expansion, and is common in countries with a 'pioneer
fringe'. Developments in the Amazon Basin of Brazil and the
north-western interior of Canada are typical of these. In the
Peace River region of north-western Alberta, for example,
state bodies spent some $Can 74 million in 1970 ($Can 62m.
from the provincial government bodies and the remainder
from the Federal government). Some $Can 17m. of this was
on capital works (Fairbairn and Ironside, 1972). This public
sector input to the local economy accounted for 16.4 per cent
of all income to the region, and it was second in size to the
returns from the mining, quarrying and oil well sector, which
earned 63.2 per cent of the total (Ironside and Fairbairn,
1977). The state's main contribution in capital expenditure
was on the infrastructure - public works, transport and
education; by far its largest expenditure on salaries and
wages (half of the total) was in the education sector. This
clearly illustrates its social investment role, providing
subsidies to capitalist expansion, to promote the continued
health of the system as a whole.
The geography of pluralism
Virtually all state expenditure is spatially specific, in that it is

either allocated directly to a place (or to people living in a
place) or it is spent on the purchase of goods and services
produced somewhere. Thus there is a geography of nearly
every element of a government's budget. The existence of
this geography may be entirely accidental, in that no explicit
or implicit locational issues were involved in determining the
expenditure, but it may have considerable local influence:
the level of payments of old age pensions in the United
Kingdom, for example, is not influenced by any locational
factors, but it has an important effect on the local economy
in some areas with concentrations of old people (the Costa
Geriatrica). Much defence spending, on the other hand, is

clearly spatially specific, in that it is targeted on either
specific bases or particular contractors who supply defence
goods. In the United Kingdom over the period 1974-8, for
example, defence expenditure averaged over 11.5 per cent of
annual GDP in the South-west region, but only 2. 7 per cent
in Yorkshire and Humberside (Short, 1981).
The economic and social geography of a country can be
considerably influenced by the geography of state
expenditure, and also of state revenue-raising. As indicated,
some of these latter geographies must be the result of explicit
locational decision-making, by either elected politicians or
state bureaucrats (or both). With regard to politicians, it is
suggested that at least some of their spending decisions - on
what, where, and how much reflect electoral
considerations, and because elections are fought in spatial
containers (constituencies) this means a link between
electoral geography and the geography of spending. (This
link is the major subject of Johnston 1979a.) It is not
suggested that this link dominates decision-making with
regard to spending, for governments are constrained in what
they can do. At the margins, however - which naval base
should be closed? where should a new university be sited? -it
is suggested that electoral considerations may be important,
thus creating a geography of pluralism.
In many countries elections are fought between parties -
through individual candidates, who may have little personal
influence on the result. These parties build their support
within the country's main electoral cleavages, and because
different groups within those cleavages tend to be spatially
separated (both at an inter-regional and at an intra-urban
scale) the various constituencies vary in the support that any
one party might expect. In a plurality electoral system such
as the British, with single-member constituencies and victory
going to the candidate/party with most votes irrespective of
whether these form a majority of those cast, constituencies
can be classified into three main types: safe - the party is
virtually certain to win there; hopeless - the party is virtually
certain to lose there; and marginal - neither victory nor
defeat is assured. It is in the marginal constituencies that the
battles between parties to form governments are won and

lost.
Two strategies might suggest themselves to a party in
power. The first is 'reward the faithful'. The government
would direct its spending (i.e. those parts of the budget that
can be manipulated spatially) towards its safe constituencies,
relatively ignoring the rest of the country. The perils of this
strategy are that the residents of the deprived areas (the
hopeless seats) may challenge the government's credibility.
Over the long term, this could create a legitimation problem
for the state as a whole; over the short term, it could lead to
voters not firmly committed to the party in power deserting it
at the next election, which could mean the loss of key
marginals and thus the loss of the power to form a
government. Only a party with a majority of the
constituencies safe for it, and with little fear of a legitimation
problem could pursue such a strategy. (It has been charged
that such a policy was followed by the Northern Ireland
governments at Stormont based on the Protestant majority
there, and that this in part led to the legitimation problem of
the 1970s which resulted in direct rule from Westminster.)
The alternative strategy is for the party in power to
concentrate spending in the marginal constituencies,
assuming that the safe constituencies will remain safe and the
hopeless ones are not worth bothering about. Again, taken
to excess this could lead to legitimation problems in the
hopeless constituencies; in the safe ones, it could lead to the
party's hegemony being challenged, perhaps by a new party.
Excesses in the geography of state spending for electoral
reasons are unlikely, therefore, but it is possible for a party
in power to operate at the margins of the budget to favour
both its safe and the marginal constituencies, so as to try and
ensure that it is returned at the next election (or to thank its
supporters for returning it at one just held). Evidence of the
use of both of the above strategies is available, indicating
that parties do operate in these ways. In Canada, for
example, Blake (1976) has analysed the distribution of
spending under the Federal Local Initiatives Program,
introduced in 1971 to fund projects which would provide
winter work for the unemployed. He found that, relative to
their level of unemployment, there was a clear relationship

between spending on this programme and the electoral
support given to the governing Liberal Party; in addition,
'extra' expenditure was allocated to Liberal constituencies
held with small majorities, especially those held by Cabinet
ministers. And in British Columbia, Munro (1975) has
reached similar conclusions with regard to the distribution of
expenditure on highways. In general, the greater the area of a
district, the greater the cost of providing roads there, and the
larger the number of vehicles registered, the greater was the
expenditure. In addition, districts represented by Cabinet
ministers tended to get greater expenditures - ceteris paribus
- as did marginal districts in the contests between the
incumbent Social Credit Party and its opponents.
In the United Kingdom, the election of May 1979
produced a Conservative government with a very strong
geographical base (more so in constituencies won than in
votes obtained) in the south of England. This pattern was
replicated in the consequences of one of its first actions. In
its first budget (in June 1979), the government: reduced the
basic rate of income tax by 9 per cent; reduced the top rate of
income tax, for the highest earners, by 28 per cent; changed
the income tax thresholds, reducing the numbers paying tax,
at all levels; and increased the level of value added tax to 15
per cent. The main beneficiaries of these changes were the
high-income earners, whose reduced income tax bills more
than compensated for the increases in VAT; low-income
earners, many of whom paid no income tax, suffered a net
loss of purchasing power (Johnston, 1979c). Because of the
geography of incomes in the country, this meant that the
regions with most high-income earners - those which
retained Conservative members at the election - received
much larger boosts to their economies; the additional annual
income per capita was estimated at between 29-31 for the
south-east, East Anglia and the West Midlands, but at less
than 22 for the North-west, the North, Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland.
Other British policies illustrate operation of the marginal
seats strategy. In the closure of teacher training colleges, and
the loss of jobs and incomes for perhaps a few hundred
voters, the Labour government of 1974-9 clearly avoided

any impact on marginal constituencies, for example (see
Johnston, 1982c), and there is much anecdotal evidence of
similar decisions with regard to the closure of defence bases
and the wooing of voters at crucial by-elections (Johnston,
1979a).
In the United States, operation of the marginal seats
strategy is illustrated by analyses of the geography of
spending under Roosevelt's New Deal programmes of the
1930s. Expenditure and loans by agencies set up to aid
agriculture varied by State, per farm, from $3257 (over the
period 1933-9) in Nevada to $72 in West Virginia. The
fourteen States receiving the largest per farm grants were all
in the west (with the exception of Iowa, which ranked tenth:
Arrington, 1970), although Roosevelt had claimed that the
south-east represented the nation's number one economic
problem (Arrington, 1969). Statistical analysis shows no
relationship between apparent need for aid and expenditure;
there is, however, a strong relationship between the amount
of aid and certain political variables, suggesting that aid was
distributed in favour of small States (with a high ratio of
Electoral College seats to voters) and of States that were
marginal in the 1932 Presidential election (Wright, 1974),
providing a clear example of the marginal seats strategy
(which Wright shows was also applicable to the distribution
of work relief provided by the Works Progress
Administration).
Because of the nature of the American political and
electoral systems, the safe seat strategy is much more
relevant to the study of public expenditure there. The key
unit is not the party but the individual; although most
members of the Congress are elected on party labels, and
power in the House and Senate is largely centred in the
majority party and distributed by its leaders, the individual
representatives and senators are relatively free of party
discipline and seek to promote their electoral interests by
advancing those of their constituents (Mayhew, 1974).
Within Congress, much of the power over spending and
revenue-raising - on what and where - lies in the standing
committees of the two houses. There are individual
committees and subcommittees with oversight of particular

sectors of Federal activity (defence, public works, NASA,
etc.) and- in each house- a key Appropriations Committee
whose subcommittees handle the various segments of the
Federal budget; revenue-raising is the concern of the Ways
and Means Committee of the House of Representatives.
To meet the demands of both their constituents and their
sponsors (those who provide the large donations to finance
the increasingly expensive re-election campaigns - every two
years for a representative), congressmen seek to represent
them on relevant committees. Thus, for example, members
from the south will seek positions on committees related to
agriculture whereas those from the Rocky Mountain States -
where much of the land is owned by the Federal Government
- will seek places on committees concerned with the
Department of the Interior; others may seek places on
defence, NASA or atomic energy committees, depending on
the economic base of their home districts or States. There is
plenty of evidence of a geography of committee membership
reflecting the geography of constituency interests (Rundquist
and Ferejohn, 1976; Johnston, 1980f).
Having achieved committee representation, the aim of
congressmen, especially members of the majority party and
those with considerable seniority on the committees, is to use
this representation to bring benefits for their home States.
Thus, it is argued, for example, congressmen from West
Texas will always seek places on the Armed Forces
Committee where they will push for a standing army; a large
army means a demand for uniforms, which means prosperity
for the producers of alpaca - the farmers of West Texas.
There is much anecdotal evidence of such political activity -
widely known as pork barrel politics - and for some entire
programmes, such as the public works of the US Corps of
Engineers (Ferejohn, 1974), in which individual congressmen
use their committee positions to direct large sums of Federal
money to their home States and districts.
Despite this wealth of anecdotal evidence, most detailed
analyses fail to show any clear pattern of spatial bias in the
geography of Federal expenditure in the United States
towards those areas over-represented in the decision-making
committees (Johnston, 1980f); similarly, there is little

evidence of a link between spending and electoral success
(Archer, 1980; Ray, 1980). This does not claim that pork-
barrel politicking does not take place, only that it is not
substantial enough to influence the overall geography of
expenditure, and incumbents can claim success in obtaining
money for their constituents without either having to
produce evidence that it was their personal activity which
was crucial or that they have been more successful than
others.
Although the evidence does not favour the pork-barrel
hypothesis - and thus the safe seats strategy - as a major
determinant of spending patterns, nevertheless the impact of
this strategy is very clear in certain areas. Some of the most
powerful members of both houses of Congress are the senior
Democrats representing the southern States, many of whom
have extremely safe seats (some have never had to fight a
serious election against a Republican opponent). In the
United States over the last two decades or so, the south has
been a boom region, based, some claim, on very large
amounts of Federal expenditure on defence and space - both
of which have favoured southern contractors and bases -
and of Federal subsidies to southern agriculture. The
state, through the power system of Congress, has subsidised
the economic boom of the Sunbelt, while depriving the less
healthy areas of the Frostbelt, such as the southern Great
Lakes area (Murphy, 1971). Evidence of this is provided by
Sale (1975), who shows how large contributions to party
funds and individual candidates' campaign expenses by
southern business interests have been 'repaid' by Federal
politicians in the form of grants and subsidies. Thus the
electoral geography of pluralism is translated into the
geography of public spending, which in turn is reflected in
the economic and social geography of the country (in this
case leading to a reversal of traditional core-periphery
differences in the United States).
The state and the environment
In the corporatist model of the state, the main influences on

government are pressure groups and not the elected members
of Parliament. Over the entire spectrum of government
policies, the dominant pressure groups are those representing
capital and labour, although their relative influence varies
according to the social basis of the governing party and the
constraints to action imposed by the world-economy. On
more restricted areas of policy, some of the most effective
pressure groups - as Richardson and Jordan (1979) make
clear - are those related to environmental issues. Many of
these are specific to particular locations; some get involved
with the pluralist processes. They are of importance not only
because of their intrinsic geographical interest but also
because: (i) the state itself is a major owner and user of land,
and thus a generator of environmental issues; (ii) in most
countries, the state has taken on the role of controlling land
use - for the 'general good' and thereby allowing it to
override the freedom of individuals to use their land as they
wish; and (iii) the state is widely perceived as the only body
able to enforce environmental controls.
While power and land ownership were concentrated in a
few hands, in the early state, and the majority of the
population was living at Malthusian or near-Malthusian
subsistence levels, there was little concern over
environmental issues and few challenges to the rights of
landowners. Thus, for example, landlords in the Scottish
Highlands were able to clear their lands, dispossessing many
tenants and others of both land and livelihood, in order to
change the land use. (The same is happening today in
Andalusia, in Spain, where 1.5 per cent of the farmers own
half of the land. In order to reduce costs, they have recently
been shifting from labour-intensive crops - sugar beet,
cotton, tobacco, and olives - to wheat and sunflower seeds,
which can be harvested mechanically. About 20 million per
annum has been saved in wage bills, and unemployment
among local labourers has risen to 20 per cent.) Similarly, in
the industrial areas, landlowners were allowed to pollute air
and water and to dump waste with no controls.
With industrialisation, and especially the growth of a

middle class, the consequences of uncontrolled use and abuse
of land resources have been realised and movements have
developed to try and get controls imposed. At the same time,
technological developments have increased the potential
hazards, not only at places of manufacture but as a result of
the movement of hazardous materials. Large environmental
disasters, such as the oil spills associated with the Torrey
Canyon and the Amoco Cadiz and the explosions of a road
tanker at San Carlos, Spain and of a train at Mississauga,
Ontario, have highlighted the problems of such materials
(Macgill, 1981, lists fourteen cases of fire and/ or explosion
associated with the movement of flammable gases and
vapour). Such events put the regulation of land use and other
activities with potential environmental consequences on the
agenda for public debate, at least for a short time - as do
events such as the radiation leakage at Three Mile Island
and the landslide at Aberfan. In order for them to stay
on the agenda, and for the state to take action, pressure is
needed.
The basis for this pressure is that only the state, with its
sovereign powers, can control a situation in which no one
individual can afford to take an action independently,
although he or she knows that if every relevant individual
acted similarly, all would benefit. An example of such a
situation has been presented by Hardin (1968) as 'the tragedy
of the commons'. A number of herdsmen graze their
livestock on a common, with each out to maximise his own
returns. The carrying capacity of the common has been
reached. Each herdsman who adds an additional animal
from then on obtains extra returns for himself, but reduces
the average return on each animal. If the additional benefit is
greater than the sum of the average losses, however, the
herdsman will expand his herd, even though he realises that
one result is overgrazing on the common, with the ultimate
consequence of destroying that resource. The individual
takes this course because unless he does he is worse off:
it is in every individual's interest not to restrain himself

. . . but the result of everyone acting without restraint is a
state of affairs in which every individual is less well off

than he would be if everybody restrained themselves.
(Taylor, 1976: 2)
Indeed the individual has to increase his herd size to maintain

his return, as the average yield per animal declines.
Voluntary, unilateral restraint is not in the herdsman's self-
interest, therefore. Nor is voluntary multilateral restraint,
since the herdsman who decides not to join is better off than
those who do, since the latter's restraint increases the
former's returns without him doing anything. Only imposed
restraint - by the state - can solve the tragedy of the
commons. (For elaborations, see Taylor, 1975, and Laver,
1981.)
In order for the state to introduce a solution to a tragedy
of the commons (i.e. to any situation where imposed
restraint is needed) it must be brought onto the agenda and
the state must be convinced that action is sensible. It is
unlikely, in a late capitalist economy, that any such tragedy
will be brought forward in which the entire population will
benefit from state action. There are bound to be some losers
as well as gainers, and the government/bureaucracy must
weigh up the relative gains and losses and determine whether
imposing losses on some to confer benefits to others is
politically viable, given the position of the state at the
capital-labour intersection. If it does decide on restraint, it
may then seek to argue that benefits accrue to all (i.e. they
are in the 'public good') and it may subsidise those who are
restrained. In part its argument may be correct, since some
people may be losers and gainers. An example of this is
provided by the British Clean Air Act of 1956, whose
introduction followed much campaigning by the Smoke
Abatement Society formed in 1929 (Richardson and Jordon,
1979: 85-6). The losers as a result of this Act were the
polluters, many of them industrialists whose production
costs were increased. At the same time, those industrialists as
individuals had their environmental situations improved
and, it could be argued, as employers they were getting a
healthier labour force.
As suggested in the previous paragraph, bringing an issue
onto the agenda is very frequently the task of a pressure

group. There is a great variety of such groups, which use a
wide range of tactics. Many are concerned with
environmental issues, and two types of group have been
identified. Muir and Paddison (1981) - following Allison
(1975)- distinguish between:
(1) Principle pressure groups, which argue on grounds of
general principles regarding the public interest as a whole, as
they interpret it, and which may become involved in
particular protests which reflect that interpretation
(O'Riordan, 1979, calls these the 'public interest groups';
they include such organisations as the Sierra Club, Friends of
the Earth, and the Council for the Preservation of Rural
England).
(2) Interest groups, which argue about a specific issue
only (hence O'Riordan's term 'the private interest lobby')
not on general grounds but on those of personal concerns.
These are invariably local groups, contesting some activity
in, or proposal for, a district affecting some aspect of their
perceived quality of life (including indices of this, such as
property values). Such groups may not be against the
activities in principle but only against the specific location of
them. Thus whereas a principle pressure group may oppose
the construction of a nuclear reactor in a particular site as
part of a general protest against nuclear power, an interest
group will be protecting the residents of the area around that
site only, and may be totally unconcerned about nuclear
reactors elsewhere.
Having identified their issue and targets, each group must
then seek to achieve its ends. For interest groups, these are
well defined. For principle groups there are both specific
ends - related to particular projects - and general ends,
which incorporate aspirations that all policy-making in the
future will take account of their general stance. Two types of
strategy are available; one involves working through the
pluralist mode, and the other through the corporatist.
Pluralist strategies
These strategies, which involve use of the electoral system,

are better suited to the aims of principle groups than of
interest groups, since elections are relatively infrequent
events and invariably are conducted on a wide range of
issues; it would be a rare election - above the level of a small
local government - in which an issue raised by an interest
group would be salient for a majority of the voters (although
it could be salient for sufficient voters to determine the result
in a relatively close contest). The exceptions to this
generalisation relate to referenda, which are a particular use
of the electoral process, and to a few elections in which
environmental issues have become salient; the issue of
nuclear power was important in the Swedish general election
of 1979, for example.
The prime examples of principle group usage of the
electoral system are provided by ecologist candidates
standing in certain elections - Barry Commoner for United
States President in 1980; Brice Lalonde for President of
France in 1981 - and by the formation of ecology parties.
Among the latter, considerable visibility, though no real
electoral gains, has been achieved by ecological parties in
West Germany. In 1978, the 'Green Lists' entered candidates
in local elections in two Schleswig-Holstein municipalities,
winning 6.6 per cent of the votes and three seats in Steinburg,
site of a controversial nuclear power station (The Times, 1
June 1978). They then entered the Lander elections in the
same area, winning 3.9 per cent of the votes in Lower Saxony
and 4.5 per cent in Hamburg; these percentages were
insufficient, under the German electoral system (Taylor and
Johnston, 1979), to win them any seats. 'Green' parties were
then established in other Lander, with similar results in the
elections to the regional parliaments; the main success was in
Bremen in October 1979- 5.14 per cent of the votes and four
seats in the Land Legislature. In the elections for the Federal
Bundestag in 1980, however, they won only 1.5 per cent of
the votes (The Times, 7 October 1980).
Most elections are fought on economic issues, and it may
be that German voters were unprepared to indicate support
for the general principles of the Green Party, given the other
issues facing them. In part, this could reflect the nature of
the German electoral system. In France, on the other hand,
the system encourages such expression of support for general
principles. French parliamentary elections involve two
rounds of voting, for single-member constituencies. If no
candidate receives more than 50 per cent of the votes in the
first round, a second round is held a week later, from which
all candidates receiving the support of less than 12.5 per cent
of the voters are excluded, and others may withdraw (Taylor
and Johnston, 1979: 54). Thus at the first round, voters may
vote on principle without destroying their chance to select a
party on self-interest (probably economic) at the second
round. The strength of voting for, say, an ecology party
candidate at the first round may be used as an indication of
voter attitudes by the parties contesting the second round.
Further, the excluded parties can influence the voting at the
second round; their leaders can suggest to their supporters
how they should vote at the second round, or they may enter
policy agreements with leaders of a party contesting the
second round (in a few cases, this may involve a party
voluntarily withdrawing from the contest).
The 'green parties' in France predated those in West
Germany, contesting many of the municipality elections in
1977 and scoring several notable successes, including over 10
per cent of the poll in Paris (Pilat, 1980). In the first round of
the parliamentary elections, on 12 March 1978, ecology
party candidates stood in 207 of the 474 constituencies in
metropolitan France: the seats that they chose indicated that
the ecology movement's greatest strengths were in the urban
areas (McDonald, 1980). In all, they won 559 398 votes (2.2
per cent of the national total; 4.8 per cent of those cast in the
seats contested), with their greatest success in the Manche 4
district, site of the Flamanville nuclear centre. (The
candidate in Manche 4 won 12.6 per cent of the votes and
thus qualified for the second round: he withdrew.) Their
main electoral support appeared to be drawn from middle-
class, urban, young voters. Their main successes were in
areas of proposed projects opposed by environmental
pressure groups - notably nuclear plants - and in the main
university towns. Having made their point the parties

declined to get involved in the second round; official policy
was not to make bargains with the other parties or to suggest
how their supporters might vote, thus maintaining an
apolitical image and requiring the other parties to make
public statements on environmental issues in order to woo
voter support.
The ecology candidate in the 1981 French Presidential
election won 3.88 per cent of the votes cast, coming fifth of
the ten candidates (behind the four main parties -
Giscardian, MRP, Socialist and Communist). M. Lalonde's
1 122 445 votes were crucial for the second round (between
Giscard and Mitterrand, the Socialist candidate): between
them the two main right-wing candidates (Giscard and
Chirac) won 13.3 million votes and the two representatives of
the left wing (Mitterrand and Marchais) 11.9m. (the other
2.5m. votes cast were for the five other candidates, three of
whom were left wing). M. Lalonde gave no directions to his
supporters regarding the second-round voting. Instead, after
the first round he published a list of twelve measures
(including an end to the nuclear industry, an end of arms
sales, and conservation of all usable land) that he wished the
next President to enact, and suggested that his supporters use
this, and the reactions to it from Giscard and Mitterrand, as
a guide to their voting at the run-off (The Times, 28 April
1981). Soon after, Giscard's government announced a policy
of ecological research, but in the run-off election Mitterand
was victorious.
In general, the electoral process is not a very promising
route for principle environmental pressure groups, although
the results achieved by ecology parties (and similar groups,
such as the Values Party in New Zealand, which won 2.0 per
cent of the votes in 1972 when it first stood, 5.2 per cent in
1975, and 2.4 per cent in 1978) have helped them to bring
environmental issues onto the political agenda and have
shown the strength of public feeling. More relevant to their
aims is the process of 'direct democracy' available in some
countries through the use of what are termed initiatives
which can demand referenda. The main case for these is
legitimation, and is stated by Butler and Ranney (1978: 24):
The first main argument for referendums consists of two

basic propositions: (1) all political decisions should be as
legitimate as possible, and (2) the highest degree of
legitimacy is achieved by decisions made by the direct,
unmediated vote of the people.
The arguments against include the weakening of elected

bodies, the difficulties that 'ordinary people' have in making
informed decisions on complex issues, and the problems of
protecting minorities. Where the initiative and referendum
are used, however, they are strongly defended as putting
politics where they should be, in the hands of the people (see
Johnston, 1982d, on the US Supreme Court).
The country making the greatest use of the initiative and
referendum, at all levels of government, is Switzerland,
where 297 national referenda were held between 1866 and
May 1978 (Aubert, 1978). For environmental pressure
groups, the main attractions of this direct democracy are the
popular initiative for changing the Federal Constitution and
the general propositions. If 100 000 people sign a petition
supporting an initiative regarding a proposed new clause to
the Constitution then it must be submitted to a referendum:
if the Federal Assembly does not accept a proposition made
to it, then the signatories can request that it go to a
referendum.
Several popular initiatives on environmental issues in
Switzerland were launched in the late 1970s. In September
1977, for example, a proposal regarding the control of air
pollution from cars was supported by only 30 per cent of
those voting (turnout was only 51.7 per cent, although this is
well above average for Swiss referenda) and in the following
May only 36.3 per cent (turnout 48.8 per cent) voted for a
proposal to have twelve Sundays per year on which the use of
motor vehicles was prohibited. In February 1979, a proposal
regarding nuclear power stations was voted on. It stated that
before being built any new power station would need the
approval of the local commune, the local canton, all
adjacent cantons, and any other canton within twenty miles
of the site. In addition, contractors would be required to
guarantee security, waste disposal, and insurance cover for
ninety years after any accident, and the proposal was to be

retrospective, and so covering the existing four stations (The
Guardian, 17 February 1979). The proposal just failed,
winning the support of 49 per cent of those voting, but in
May 1979 the voters were asked to approve a constitutional
change suggested by the Federal government. Designed to
counter the proposal, the new law placed decision-making
regarding new power stations in the Federal Parliament, but
it retained the safety proposals of the original, leading to the
opinion that this would impose a moratorium on new
construction until safety procedures were improved (The
Guardian, 21 May 1979): the proposal was passed, by 68.9
per cent of a 36.9 per cent turnout. And in Austria, 50.5 per
cent of those voting in a November 1978 referendum were in
favour of the country's first nuclear power station not being
activated; this was taken as a vote of no confidence by the
Chancellor (Pilat, 1980: 41).
A large number of States in the United States also have
provisions for popular initiatives, which have been used by
environmental pressure groups. In California, for example,
initiatives regarding air pollution control (1972- voted for:
35.3 per cent), coastal zone conservation (1972 - 55.1 per
cent), protection of wild and scenic rivers (1974- 47.1 per
cent), and nuclear power plant restrictions (1976- 33.0 per
cent) have been placed on the ballot, their organisers having
obtained the necessary signatures (equal to either 5 per cent
for a statute, or 8 per cent for a constitutional amendment,
of those voting at the last Gubernatorial election - about
500 000) within ninety days (Lee, 1978). Only the Coastal
Zone Regulation initiative succeeded; it required the
establishment of a commission to manage the coastal zone
and to operate a permit system for any development, or
proposed development, of land within 1000 yards of the
coastline (Wohlwill, 1979).
The failure of the nuclear power plant restrictions
referendum illustrates the problems of this form of direct
democracy for environmental groups. (In Montana, the vote
in a 1978 referendum proscribed the construction of nuclear
plants there: Pilat, 1980: 41.) They were opposed by a
vigorous campaign on behalf of industry, which pointed out
The State its Territory and its People 177
that the near-utopian safety standards demanded by the

proposers would lead to the closure of plants, a scarcity of all
energy, including gasoline, higher prices and fewer jobs (The
Times, 11 June 1976). As a result, the voting population split
into
an older, more conservative, and more affluent stratum of

society, more suburban, more concerned with maintaining
a high standard of living and national energy
independence, and less worried about the risks associated
with nuclear power, arrayed against a younger, more
liberal, less affluent stratum that was less favourably
inclined to the status quo, more oriented to conservation
policies, and less concerned with energy consumption in
relation to social well-being.
(Lee, 1978: 115)
Rather than go to the electorate - strongly influenced by

media and the state, both with pro-capital stances to
maintain - other strategies may be more viable. Thus non-
violent protest (as in the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament's marches and other protests and the 'green
bans' imposed by Australian trades unions regarding
certain construction projects), and violent protest (Tokyo's
Narita Airport) have been employed (for a chronology of
ecological protests, see Pilat, 1980). More common, and
probably more effective, are the corporatist strategies, used
by both principle and interest groups.
Corporatist strategies
The aim of these strategies is, first, to get environmental

issues (either general or specific) onto the political agenda,
and, second, to get a system of decision-making set up which
allows the pressure groups access to the relevant procedures.
The first of these tasks involves a process of 'political
education', as a prelude to the 'political action' of the
second.
The process of 'political education' involves the pressure
groups in several tasks. (In general, these are undertaken by

the principle groups. Once these have succeeded, the interest
groups can pursue their particular complaints through
established channels.) The first is to demonstrate that there is
a considerable weight of public opinion behind the group: if
this is absent politicians are unlikely to act, unless they can
be convinced that an action is justified, despite the lack of
public support. Alongside this, it must build up a dossier of
information to support its case, and then use this where it is
most valuable:
The objective is not only to be able to provide such
information, but to know to whom to present it for the
greatest effect. Hence the courting of the senior public
official and the minister both formally and informally.
(O'Riordan, 1979:421)
Sympathetic politicians must be wooed, to persuade them to
raise issues in Parliament and elsewhere, and the media and,
where necessary, the law must be used to advance the cause.
All of this activity involves working within the established
political and bureaucratic system. Politicians are in general
more favourably inclined to certain types of protest and
pressure than others. This is to the advantage of pressure
group members from similar backgrounds to those of the
politicians, and who prefer quiet, often behind-the-scenes,
political activity to strident public debate and protest. To a
considerable extent, this has been to the advantage of
environmental pressure groups, who in the United States,
according to Schnaiberg (1980: 336), are most strongly
supported in the 'white, educated, white-collar stratum',
although politicians are likely to be much more sympathetic
to reformists, who want relatively minor changes, than to
radicals, who preach a restructuring of the capitalist system.
Pressure groups working in this way have achieved some
apparent major successes. In 1969, for example, the United
States Congress passed the National Environmental Policy
Act, which requires all Federal agencies to submit an
'Environmental Impact Statement' for any policy likely to
have significant environmental consequences. It also
established a Council on Environmental Quality. In 1970,
Congress established an Environmental Protection Agency,

which took over all previous agencies concerned with aspects
of pollution, including oversight of the 1970 Clean Air Act
and the 1972 Pollution Control Act. Legislation such as this
allows pressure groups to start litigation if the declared
performance criteria are not being met. Other legislation -
such as the various Town and Country Planning Acts in
Britain - establishes procedures, such as public inquiries,
commissions, and inspections, by which proposals with
potential environmental consequences can be subject to
public debate and scrutiny.
An Environmental Impact Statement in the United States
has to contain information on five aspects of the proposed
Federal action (Sandbach, 1980: 92):
1. the environmental impact of the proposed action,
2. any unavoidable environmental effects,
3. alternatives to the proposed action,
4. relationships between short- and long-term benefits,
5. any irretrievable and irreversible commitments of
resources from implementation of the action.
This provides the basis for an appraisal of the environmental
costs and benefits of the proposed action. Once the final
statement (the EIS) is filed with the Council for
Environmental Quality, objectors are allowed thirty days to
ask a court to consider points of detail in the EIS, to decide
whether sufficient attention has been given to opposing
views, or to assess the analysis. However,
once an adequate EIS has been prepared it is up to the
federal agency to decide upon the course of action.
Judicial review of agency decisions can only ensure that
the proper legal procedures have been taken . . . The EIS
procedure can help to make federal agencies more sensitive
to environmental considerations. It forces agencies to
articulate their decisions and opens previously closed
administrative procedures to public comment. But in the
end the policy decision rests with the federal agency itself
and not the public, the courts or the CEQ.
(Sandbach, 1980:97)
Thus the EIS procedure does not provide for complete

oversight of environmental impacts, even of public sector
projects.
Criticism of the EIA procedures focuses on a number of
issues, but central is the argument that the comparison of
alternatives is not possible on financial grounds alone.
Quantification is assumed to be more scientific, and
judgements made on the basis of science are presumed to be
more objective. How such quantification is to be done, and
how certain environmental externalities of actions are to be
priced, raises many difficult issues:
Environmental impact analysis ... offers a technique for

attaching a price to environmental and social impacts that
have previously not been exchanged in the market. The
question of what price is attached to what consequences is
a matter of bargaining, but as with commodity goods,
capital owners and the ruling class are better able to ensure
that the process of evaluation, or the mechanisms of the
market operate in their interests.
(Sandbach, 1980: 105)
Certainly, some interests may be penalised by an

environmental policy. But, as Schnaiberg (1980: 223)
suggests, the loss is rarely capital's and the gain is not the
proletariat's - or at least the equation is not that simple.
Some segments of capital may lose as a result of, for
example, pollution control legislation. But their costs may
well be passed on to the consumers (see Johnston, 1976b),
and profits will be made by the manufacturers of the
pollution abatement equipment. Thus while pollution
control and similar policies may lead to improvement of the
environment for all, it does not necessarily involve the state
penalising capital; it favours some segments of capital over
others, and is in effect 'recycling capital'. (Even those
segments which might lose can often protect themselves,
through their ability to bring pressure on governments, by
negotiating tax benefits for meeting environmental
guidelines. In any case, because the costs of the
Environmental Protection Agency are socialised through the
tax system, capital is subsidised by the proletarian mass of

taxpayers.)
While making concessions to popular demands for
environmental control, therefore, the state in the United
States remains aware of its need to act as an ally of capital -
or at least certain sectors of it. If it appears to be making too
many concessions to non-capital pressure groups, it could
well seek to alter the terms of reference of the legislation
relating to environmental issues. This is illustrated by a
Californian case study, where after two and a half years the
Dow Chemical Company abandoned its plans to open a new
plant because by then it had obtained just four of the sixty-
five permits needed. Storper, Walker and Widess (1981)
suggest that Dow's failure occurred because they had not
prepared their case sufficiently, as a result of under-
estimating the likely strength of political opposition. A
consequence was a political backlash. The Californian
Chamber of Commerce argued that Dow's withdrawal
would create a crisis of business confidence in the State, and
that this could seriously harm development there: labour
unions joined in the criticism of the regulation process,
arguing that this could lead to a loss of jobs from California.
The State legislature passed a new bill limiting the scope of
EIA and setting a time limit on the process; the Governor
appointed an ombudsman to aid industry to get the required
permits; a proposal for a liquefied gas terminal was
exempted from all local and Coastal Commission regulations
by the legislature; the Governor's Office established a new
branch to help industry find viable sites; and other proposals
were allowed notwithstanding environmental legislation. All
of these actions were aimed to help capital rather than the
environmental pressure groups, leading Storper, Walker and
Widess (1981: 336) to the conclusion that
regulation tends not to be enforced beyond a degree

acceptable to industrial investors. The opposition victory
in the Dow case is the exception that proves the rule.
Transformed into a symbol of 'excessive' government
regulation of business, the short-run defeat of Dow
generated political capital for the opponents of
performance regulation in the long run; hence a process of

'reform' was set in motion that blunted the future impact
of regulatory laws.
Britain lacks a formal environmental impact procedure.

All land-use proposals (including land-use changes) are
subject to development control under the zoning provisions
of town and country planning legislation, however.
Objections to proposals or to planning decisions may be
directed to the Minister (for most proposals, this is the
Secretary of State for the Environment) who may establish a
public inquiry by an inspector to gather evidence and to
advise him; in certain situations, public inquiries are
obligatory (Sandbach, 1980: 115-16; Grove-White, 1975).
These procedures should - if they are open and democratic
as it is claimed they are - ensure a proper and full
investigation of every issue. But they are the focus of much
criticism, on a variety of grounds most of which argue that
the decision-making procedure is heavily biased in favour of
the developers. Grove-White (1975), for example, suggests
that the developer's situation is stronger than that of
protestors because: (i) he can time the announcement of his
proposals to his best advantage; (ii) only he knows the
detailed arguments favouring his proposal, and he need not
divulge these until the public inquiry; (iii) if the local
planners have objections, they must give twenty-eight days
notice of these to the developers prior to the inquiry (third-
party objectors are not similarly constrained, but Grove-
White suggests that they will not be sympathetically treated
unless they do disclose in advance); (iv) the developer has a
definite proposal, whereas objectors must both seek grounds
to attack this and provide a viable alternative; (v) costs of
professional expertise are high, and thus this is less likely to
be available to protestors (interest groups especially, rather
than the larger and better-organised principle groups); and
(vi) the quasi-legal nature of the proceedings favours the
developer. Not all proposals are supported after inquiries, of
course, but in general the protestors begin at a disadvantage,
and lose.
A second set of criticisms focuses on the role of the state in
agenda-setting. The Minister provides the brief for a public

inquiry, for example, and so constrains what it can discuss.
For proposals from state agencies, this is a very powerful
position. An example of the constraints that it puts on
protestors is provided by a series of public inquiries into the
alignment of motorways and other major road
improvements in the mid-1970s (Sandbach, 1980: 117-18).
These included: (i) the protestors were only allowed to
contest the proposed alignments, not the need for the road at
all or the general policy regarding road as against other
modes of transport; (ii) the protestors were not allowed to
contest the methods used in the proposals - such as those for
traffic forecasting and those for cost-benefit analysis; and
(iii) the inquiries were conducted by inspectors appointed by
the department which was making the proposals (it was thus
acting as judge in its own cause: see also Mullan, 1980).
Some of these criticisms were accepted by the departments
concerned, but in the new terms of reference they were not
prepared to let inquiries into specific proposals become
debates on policies as a whole. Thus
[it] has repeatedly been said by Ministers, that the only

appropriate forum for a challenge to government policy is
Parliament. If the policy . . . is to be changed, it is
Parliament that should change it ... nevertheless it seems
likely that the public inquiry, with its ready accessibility to
the public at large, will increasingly provide a forum for
the expression of views on policy matters which
Parliament will find it difficult to ignore.
(Grove-White, 1975: 20)
Grove-White's conclusion puts the onus on principle

groups - in concert with interest groups in particular cases -
both to bring issues into the public arena and to educate
politicians towards change. But this is an expensive task, and
the state is unwilling in general to meet objectors' costs
(unless they are successful: Sandbach, 1980: 119). This
means that in the majority of cases, certain objectors - the
rich and the powerful- are likely to be advantaged.
Sandbach (1980: 132-3) illustrates this with the proposals
to extend the runway at Edinburgh Airport. Two

communities were affected, one a council (public housing)
estate and the other 'a highly articulate community of owner-
occupiers'. The former was the more seriously threatened-
the flight path at the end of the runway was directly above it
- but there was no organised pressure from the area at all.
All of the protest came from the other community, who were
to be affected by noise. Their objections influenced the
inspector, showing that the middle class are better organised
and better able to mount effective opposition. In this case,
the inspector's decision that the runway not be extended
benefited both communities (the public housing tenants were
able to free-ride on the middle-class backs), but in situations
where two communities are in conflict, it is the poor who
often lose - in some cases because the quantitative
techniques used to assess environmental impact employ
financial indices so that, for example, if noise leads to a
reduction in property values, then rich householders will
suffer more than their less affluent contemporaries.
(Interestingly, in the Edinburgh airport case the Secretary of
State for Scotland disregarded the inspector's recom-
mendation and allowed the extension. Sandbach (1980:
133) concludes from this 'that although middle-class
pressure groups have been more able to influence planning in
their favour than have lower-class groups, the really decisive
factor is the interests of financial and industrial
development'.)
In summary
In environmental issues, as in all others, therefore, the state

acts in the interests of the capitalist system as a whole,
occasionally making concessions to one side or the other in
the capital-labour conflict. None of these concessions
permanently favours the proletariat, for - as the California
case shows - this could be taken as creating a crisis of
business confidence, which would harm the whole system;
such continued action would destroy the legitimacy of the
elected government, if not the state as a whole, as an ally of
capital. On the other hand, when environmental issues come

to the forefront of the public agenda, the state must be seen
to make some concessions, again to retain legitimacy. Some
of those concessions - notably regarding air and water
pollution - have been major, and have resulted in major
environmental changes. These have undoubtedly benefited
the labouring class, but in many respects (especially
financial) they have probably benefited capital by as much
also. (The state sector - especially the bureaucracy - has
benefited too, from policies such as environmental impact
analysis.)
The impact of environmental pressure groups has not
altered the general theory of the state outlined here,
therefore. It illustrates what is becoming a general theme
with regard to state action: that the managerial activities of
the state tend to favour the rich and the powerful in its
population over the poor and weak, who are less able to
challenge its legitimacy. Thus detailed analyses of pressure
group activity over environmental issues show that: (i) in the
long run, the interests of capital as a whole are not harmed
although the interests of a particular segment at a given time
and place may be; (ii) in reaching solutions to problems of
resource use - as exemplified by 'the tragedy of the
commons' - the state does not alter the class relationships
within capitalist society; and (iii) within the population,
certain groups are better able to influence the state and to
gain environmental concessions - often to the cost of other
groups, living elsewhere and less able to make an impact -
from the state.
The above conclusions apply especially to the corporatist
strategies regarding environmental issues, in which the state
plays a major role in agenda-setting and much of the
discussion and debate takes place in private (between
developers and planning officials, for example). But the state
is only a little less powerful in situations where direct
democracy can be employed by pressure groups. The state
controls the ideology, and the media which promote it are
either state-owned (and thus 'objective') or owned by
commercial firms (with strong links to capital and the status
quo). Thus the state and the allies of capital are able to
manipulate the debate and ensure that much of the voting

takes place in the realisation that tight controls on capital can
lead to unemployment and deprivation (see Chapter 3,
p. 99). Some causes are lost, but the system is rarely dented.
Conclusions
The theme of this book is that the geography of the state can
only be fully appreciated given an understanding of the
central role of the state in a capitalist society. Support from
both capital and labour is necessary if legitimacy is to be
maintained. If this support is not forthcoming, then
problems for the state (or at least for individual
governments) may arise. Such problems may be exacerbated
if they have spatial foundations, as illustrated here with
regard to economic regional issues and the larger one of
nationalist movements. In other situations, the state may be
faced with either general or localised protest about certain
policies. Examples of these have been provided with regard
to environmental issues. In seeking to resolve such conflicts,
the state must protect its legitimacy. Its managerial actions
are constrained by the necessity to maintain the economic
status quo.
6 The Local State
Very few countries have only a single central government. In

most there is at least one tier of local government below the
national state, plus state agencies organised within a
territorial framework. These subordinate bodies are the
administrative agencies for the central state, undertaking a
large number of tasks (Chapter 1). They are also the bodies
through which citizens have most of their direct dealings with
the state, forming what Taylor (1982) calls the 'level of
experience'. Thus the term 'local state' applies to any non-
sovereign body concerned with the government of a
constituent area of a sovereign state.
Many local state systems - in their territorial construction
particularly - reflect the organisational structure of an
earlier era, in some the early states which preceded the
current system. In some cases, the pattern of the earlier
organisation is fixed; this is especially so in federations in
which the local units (usually termed either 'States' or
'Provinces') are constitutionally defined. In others, the
pattern is merely a relict feature - as in the English shires -
but one which is not readily altered, even under programmes
of centrally imposed, local government reorganisation.
Outside federations, units of government subsidiary to the
state have no autonomous existence; they are there because
they are allowed to be - and therefore presumably because
they are believed to perform a useful function - and they can
be removed by central decision. An account of the existence
of a local state in such situations, therefore, must be set in
the context of the general theory of the state; the rationale
for a local state is part of the rationale for a state. Unless the
local state is simply an administrative agency of the central
state, however, some freedom of action will be allowed.
Accounting for the operation of this freedom requires
development - in the context of the functions of the local

state- of theories of state action.
Federations
In federations, one level of local state has a guaranteed

existence within the political system. In the Constitution of
the United States, for example, all functions not specified as
the preserve of the central state are reserved to the States, or
to the people (the State governments may devolve them to
local governments, which - like their counterparts in non-
federal states- have no autonomous existence): Article x of
the Amendments to the United States Constitution is:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the

Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are
reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
Thus the American Federal government cannot build

highways, pay social security and unemployment benefits,
and create a national health service, for example; since these
tasks are not enumerated in the Constitution, they are
reserved to the States. If it wishes to see a national highway
network introduced or a system of unemployment payments
instituted, it can create a programme which offers grants to
State governments operating such systems that meet Federal
guidelines, but the decisions to enact them, and the further
decisions on the level of spending above the minimum for
Federal grants, rest solely with the State governments.
Alternatively, the Federal government can seek to alter the
Constitution to give it new powers. The States are jealous of
their rights, however, and are unlikely to yield them. For a
constitutional amendment to be enacted, it must be passed
by two-thirds majorities of both houses of Congress and
ratified by the legislatures of three-quarters of the States; this
requirement makes it very difficult for the Federal
government to take away States' rights. (Article v of the
Constitution also allows for the State legislatures to propose
The Local State 189
amendments. With most Congress-generated amendments, a

time limit is imposed for ratification.)
It would seem, therefore, that the autonomy of State
governments is well protected in the United States. However,
following Wheare (1953), Reagan (1972) has argued that the
federal nature of that country is more apparent than real.
The formal attributes of a federation are, they suggest: (i) a
constitutional division of powers, with each level
autonomous in at least one policy area; (ii) each government
is final and supreme arbiter within its defined powers; (iii)
both levels of the federation can communicate directly with
the population (in a confederation, the central government
can communicate only with the State governments); (iv) both
levels derive their powers from the sovereign (i.e. the people
and the Constitution) rather than from each other; (v)
neither level can alter the federal relationship unilaterally;
and (vi) the States therefore exist in their own right. The
powers of the two levels are laid down in the Constitution,
and there are areas of legislation - such as marriage,
property and contracts - in which the Federal state has never
intervened. Nevertheless, Reagan has concluded (see also
Clark, 1981) that the Federal state - largely through the
'Commerce Clause', which is Article I, Section 8(3) of the
Constitution - has the power to intervene in most areas of
business law. Thus: 'It would appear that the only aspect of
state government that is beyond the reach of Washington is
the very existence of the states with their present boundaries'
(Reagan, 1972: 11).
Although the existence of the States is guaranteed, the
need for a unitary business environment, in which capitalism
can flourish, has meant that the powers of the Federal state
have increasingly overridden those of the States themselves.
This has led to the development of what Reagan terms
'permissive federalism', in which the Federal government
defines social and economic policy and provides the financial
ability and stimulus for State and local governments to
operate that policy.
A problem in many federations has been the issue of how
constitutional amendments are carried; it is particularly
severe in federations with either a small number of
States/Provinces or a concentration of the majority of the

population into only a few States/Provinces. The
Commonwealth of Australia, for example, has a population
of about 13.5 million, 60 per cent of whom live in the States
of New South Wales and Victoria. Constitutional
amendments are voted on by referendum (voting is
compulsory), and - to protect the interests of the smaller
States - must be approved by a majority of the States as well
as a majority of the population. The same is true in
Switzerland, where the cantons vary in population from less
than 15 000 to about one million; to avoid giving them undue
weight (i.e. almost veto power), the six smallest cantons have
only half a vote each. Population disparities between
Provinces are great in Canada, too- ranging from c. 120 000
in Prince Edward Island to 8.3m; in Ontario. (The
populations of the Yukon and the North-western Territories
are c. 22 000 and 42 000 respectively.) The Provincial
governments have never been able to agree on an amending
formula that would not give a virtual veto either to the two
largest Provinces or to a group of a few small ones (probably
the four on the Atlantic Coast). Hence the Constitution
remained in Britain - as the British North America Act of
1867 - and there was much Provincial disquiet over the
Federal government's desire to repatriate it in 1981.
Within federations, each State/Province invariably has
constituted a set of local governments. As in non-federal
states, these have no independent existence; they exist and
act because the State government allows them to. Thus local
governments occupy the same general situation in all
countries; in federations the link between central and local is
indirect, however.
The nature of local government
Why have local governments - where they are not

constitutionally necessary, as in federations? A British case
made for devolution is relevant to most situations. Sharpe
(1976) has suggested that a system of local states is superior
to a single, centralised state for three reasons. First, he
The Local State 191
argues, there is the liberty issue. A strong local state ensures

that power is not overcentralised and provides an element of
'checks and balances' within the system: Judd (1979: 177)
quotes Calvin Coolidge's 1925 State of the Union message,
in which he said that
Local self-government is one of our most precious

possessions. It is the great contributing factor to the
stability, strength, liberty, and progress of the nation.
Secondly, there is the issue of participation. Local

government allows citizens to be involved in the organisation
of local affairs, thus countering alienation, and it also
provides a useful training ground for those with aspirations
in national politics. Finally there is the issue of the optimum
spatial scale for the efficient provision of services (see
Bennett, 1980). The demand for state services may vary from
place to place, according to the peculiarities of local needs,
and local government ensures as close a match as possible
between demand and response. Sharpe considers this last
issue the most important, as does Bennett, thereby
sidestepping various theoretical issues concerning the local
state.
Sharpe's argument makes certain assumptions about the
nature of the local state. Regarding liberty, for example, he
implicitly assumes that local states have an autonomous
existence. But this is rarely the case. Local governments -
their functions and their territories - can be created,
manipulated, and dissolved by central government decree,
with no local influence over the decision (greater than that of
any other pressure group within a corporatist state).
Dissolution is unlikely with elements of the local state having
close contact with the population, because of legitimation
issues; it is more likely with ad hoc, special purpose local
states, such as district health authorities. Manipulation may
draw much adverse comment (Johnston, 1979a), and thus
may also raise legitimation problems, but a determined
central government may insist on major manipulations,
using its influence over the flow of information to aid its
case; the 1979 Conservative government in Britain illustrates
such determination by its increased restrictions on local

governments in order to advance its own monetary policies.
Legitimation issues are also relevant to the participation
function of the local state. A system of local governments
provides the potential for popular participation, within
allowed constraints. Such participation indicates an
acceptance of the state apparatus, and gives it legitimacy, so
that - once granted - removal or reduction of that
participation threatens legitimation. Participation in the
local state is frequently very low. Turnout at elections is
often small, and positions may go uncontested. This does not
necessarily indicate a lack of legitimation. It is more likely to
indicate apathy, because the electorate realises that the
powers of the local state are few, because it believes that the
constraints are such that who is elected will make little
difference to the actions taken, and because it recognises
that, as a result of the geography, the result of the election is
a foregone conclusion. In Britain, for example, voting at
local state elections is commonly used - by a pattern of
differential abstentions - to protest against the policies of the
central government.
Finally, the efficiency of service provision argument
avoids questions regarding why the state is involved in
providing such services, why the balance of services is as it is,
and why provision is devolved to the local state. The
discussion is theoretically agnostic, acting on a series of
externally defined criteria, whose very relevance is assumed.
Such assumptions, most of them implicit, provide a
general 'theory' of the local state. The role of the local state,
it is stressed, is providing needed public services, so that
Public finance in general and in its geographical

components in particular, is aimed at eliminating, or at
least reducing the unequal treatment of individuals in
society. In so doing it seeks to redistribute economic and
social benefits not personal attributes.
(Bennett, 1980: 57)
In a capitalist society, this is a very partial view of the role of

the state - and of that section of it called the local state. It is
The Local State 193
true only to the extent that public finance must be spent on
social consumption to ensure legitimation of the capitalist
system by the proletariat. Expenditure on social investment
and on social control is that part of public finance which
stimulates capital, not advances the interests of those who
are exploited by capital.
Why does the state - and the capitalist system of which it is
a part - use a system of local states to handle much of its
expenditure (in many countries, the annual budgets of local
states, as a whole, exceed those of the central state, especially
when national defence and servicing the national debt are
excluded from the latter)? In part, the local state is an
element of the ideological divide-and-rule procedure
described in Chapter 3. It defuses conflict by distributing it
over many separate debating chambers, and to some extent it
puts groups into competition for resources (for 'their' local
state) when otherwise they might combine to make a single,
more pressing demand. Thus Taylor (1982) identifies three
scales of analysis in political geography: international,
national, and local. He calls these, respectively, the 'scale of
reality', the 'scale of ideology', and the 'scale of experience',
indicating that the last two serve to confuse the real forces
operating within a capitalist world-economy by attributing
autonomous status to, for example, the local state.
Given that the cases argued by Sharpe, Bennett and others
are insufficient, it is necessary to develop a more
comprehensive approach to the local state. As discussed in
Chapter 2, any such approach involves two elements, the
second subsidiary to the first. Initially it is necessary to
develop a theory of existence and functions; in this context,
such a theory asks: why have a local state? and why has it
been allocated certain tasks? The answers to these questions
then lead to the theory of action: why do local governments
(those who operate the local state) choose to act in particular
ways?
The existence and functions of the local state
The local state has no independent existence. It is part of the

state apparatus, and it exists to further the aims of that

apparatus. These, as argued in Chapters 2 and 3, are to
advance and protect the mode of production. In most
societies, the mode is capitalist, and so the role of the local
state is to advance capitalism; to ensure the conditions which
will allow capitalist accumulation and exploitation of its
workforce to continue. It does not define its particular
functions within this role, however: these are defined for it
by the central state. (Exactly the same situation applies in
non-capitalist societies: the local state exists to protect the
mode of production, with constraints set for it.)
Many of the functions of the state can be interpreted in a
variety of ways and are in no sense deterministic; capital
does not need a particular environment in order to survive,
and although only one environment may provide for optimal
accumulation, many are satisfactory (but only a few are
chosen!): thus
Although any state must clearly maintain conditions under

which production can take place, neither the form of the
state, nor the content of its policies, can necessarily be
explained with reference to the relations of production.
(Saunders, 1980: 188)
The functions that the central state requires the local state to
perform in Britain, according to Saunders (1980: 147-8), are
three:
(1) Providing sustenance for private production and
capital accumulation. This includes: the necessary
infrastructure - a network of local roads and a system of
public utilities; the organisation of land use; the creation of
demand, especially for public works; and investment in
human capital via public education systems.
(2) Providing circumstances for reproduction of labour
power via collective consumption. Labour - or at least
certain segments of it, usually the poorest paid - is unable to
obtain certain of its needs. (Alternatively, capital is not
prepared to meet those needs, at the price labour can afford.)
To ensure a healthy and satisfied labour force, the state must
subsidise capital by providing both material (i.e. housing)
The Local State 195
and cultural (parks, libraries, recreation facilities, etc.)
conditions for existence. These conditions are rarely
absolutes. They are socially defined norms which capital -
reluctantly - is prepared to accept and allow to be
propagated through privately owned channels of
information.
(3) Ensuring the maintenance of social order and
coherence, which involves police activities, social welfare
functions (especially for those unable to provide for
themselves), and legitimation (via public participation).
Of the many support-for-capitalism functions undertaken
by the state, therefore, the local state is less involved with
those directly related to the needs of capital and more with
those related to the demands of labour. Regarding the
former, it provides the local environment and certain basic
facilities, but it is not involved in the manipulation of
demand - via fiscal policies. Regarding the latter, its role is
more crucial - as Taylor's (1982) arguments suggest- even
though increasingly it is dependent on the central state for
finance and is subject to close constraints.
Several reasons can be suggested for the central state
allocating these three sets of functions to a local state system.
(In federal states, the central state is the intermediate tier of
government- the State in the United States and the Province
in Canada, for example.) The first reason is convenience.
Several of the functions, such as providing a transport and
utilities infrastructure and policy, are concerned with local
needs, as is the provision of many items of collective
consumption. By having the details of provision decided and
implemented at the local scale, with the central state keeping
overall control of standards and finance, conflict within the
capitalist system is being deflected. Those with complaints
direct them against the local state rather than the central
state which, if it were the focus of all conflicts, could be in an
embattled situation. Spreading the responsibility for
decision-making diffuses conflict and, at the same time, by
involving the local population as decision-makers, aids
legitimation.
Further, by putting local states in competition with each
other - in providing the infrastructure that will attract
employers, for example- it is possible to increase the subsidy

provided for capital (and therefore improve its efficiency)
without this being apparent in national fiscal operations. At
the same time, expenditure on collective consumption can be
held down. Capital must pay local taxes and if these are high
in one place, then employers may move to cheaper areas,
creating unemployment in the expensive places. To create
favourable local conditions, the local state - like the central
state at another scale - has to balance its payments to labour
for collective consumption against its demands on capital for
contributions to these. By putting the financial responsibility
on the local state, and creating the element of competition
('divide and rule'), the central state is able to create
conditions which favour capital accumulation but which are
concealed somewhat in their fragmentation.
In recent decades, the central state in many countries has
found it necessary to remove certain areas of decision-
making and control from the local state. This is usually
because the spatial scale of the local state is too fine-grained
relative to the nature of the facilities involved. Economies of
scale require larger units, so that, for example, control of the
various components of the British health service has been
taken away from the local state and given to appointed ad
hoc territorial bodies. (This is a good example of the
corporatist state replacing the pluralist.) Planning a network
of highways is not a task to be split between local
communities, so this too has been centralised - although
maintenance and policing of the highways may remain with
the local state. Despite these changes, the local state remains
a crucial element in the state apparatus, and understanding
its role, functions and actions is a necessary component of
political geography.
Local state action
Given that the local state has been allocated certain

functions, attention must focus on how it fulfils them.
Unless the local state apparatus- both elected politicians and
appointed bureaucrats - is merely an administrative arm of
The Local State 197
the central state, with no degrees of freedom in its action

whatsoever, this requires the development of theories to
account for local decision-making within the parameters set
by central policy. The argument presented here is that the
theories of state action presented in Chapter 2 - and forming
the background to Chapters 4 and 5 - are as relevant to local
states as they are to central states.
The literature on the local state and on local politics -
especially local politics in urban areas - is large and
theoretically diffuse. Dunleavy (1980), for example,
identifies eight different theoretical approaches, although
these are readily grouped into the classification presented by
Saunders and used as the framework here.
Local instrumentalist. The instrumentalist view of the state
presents it as acting in the interests either of capital as a
whole or of some sectors of capital, and illustrates them with
reference to the links between the membership of the state
apparatus and the capitalist class. This does not mean that
the former is dominated by one link alone, because this
would create problems of legitimation: thus
In order to do its work of organising the dominant classes

and politically disorganising the working class, the state
keeps a certain distance from any one bourgeois fraction.
(Cockburn, 1977: 47)
At the level of the local state, the instrumentalist position

argues that the state apparatus is 'captured' by, and operated
in favour of, a particular local interest group. This may be
one segment of capital, or it may be a portion of the
capitalist class. But it can be a segment of the working class -
probably a relatively affluent and powerful one (generally
known as the middle class)- seeking to establish hegemony
over some aspect of collective consumption.
Local pluralist. According to this perspective the state reacts

to demands from capital and labour, both those expressed
through the ballot box and those put forward through the
corporatist system. The demands are diverse and issues rise
and fall in importance, so that no one group dominates the

state decision-making for long.
Pluralist analysis has a considerable literature relative to
the local state (see Dunleavy, 1980). Such work reflects the
general capitalist ideology of democracy, and argues that the
actions of the state apparatus reflect the desires of a majority
of the local population, at least with respect to the key issues
that influence the legitimation of local governments. Thus
approaches to the study of local action using this perspective
can be characterised as believing that 'the state does what the
voters/pressure groups want it to do'.
Local managerialism. This perspective (developed, like that

of pluralism, very largely at the scale of the local state) sees
decisions taken by the state apparatus as determined very
largely by bureaucratically defined statements of the
national interest. At the local level, this involves the
bureaucracy identifying what they believe are the local
interests, and acting accordingly.
As with the study of the national state, it should be

stressed here that these three perspectives are presented as
approaches to the study of local state action, not of local
state existence and functions. They are presented as
complementary rather than competing perspectives; each is
relevant for particular situations including the
instrumentalist, which has largely been dismissed from
studies of the central state under late capitalism (although a
version of the instrumentalist perspective is clearly relevant
for studies of pre-state and early state situations).
An issue of considerable interest to students of the local
state is that of autonomy. Because the local state is a creation
of the central state, and has its actions closely constrained by
the superior body, and because the state apparatus as a
whole is very much limited in its actions by the world-
economy and the relative health of local capital, some
authors argue that the local state has no separate existence
and cannot be considered a valid topic for study; Taylor
(1980: 344) for example, argues that 'all the evidence points
towards general lack of autonomy of local vs central
The Local State 199
government and state vs capital', and Dear and Clark (1981:

1291) conclude from their study of the local state of
Cambridge, Massachusetts, that its administrative practice
consolidates 'the grip of the central state'. Such authors
place strong reliance on the structural perspective. Ranged
against them are those who find that insufficient. Thus
Dunleavy (1980: 54) writes:
I remain highly sceptical of any attempt to deduce

explanations of urban politics from the structural features
of the capitalist mode of production . . . I think it
inherently unlikely that structural explanations alone can
produce causally adequate or determinant accounts of
social processes.
Saunders (1980: 146) writes:
the fact remains that the ecological, political and economic

constraints on urban managers serve only to narrow the
scope of decision-making; they do not determine it.
and Pahl (1979: 124), defending his managerialist

perspective, writes:
I am arguing that resources are allocated in all advanced

societies through a system of managerial bargaining . . .
The allocations are made by agents in organizations.
In any case, not all local state decision-making involves

making financial commitments that must fit into some
central state dictat. There is considerable scope for local
autonomy in certain spheres, and within financial constraints
the questions of 'what, where?' remain crucial. These
provide the raw material of the political geography of the
local state (most of which literature refers to urban areas)
and also illustrate how political decision-making involves the
manipulation of space and so is creating local economic and
social geographies. The remainder of this chapter adopts that
viewpoint, and uses the three perspectives outlined above to
illustrate the nature and impact of local state action.
Pluralism and the local state
Sharpe's (1976) outline of the functions of the local state

stresses the importance of local participation and
accountability. This implies: (i) that the actions of the local
state at a particular time reflect the beliefs and attitudes of
those who elected the government currently running it; and
(ii) that the local state is called upon to react to the demands
of local pressure groups. Thus, as with the central state,
electoral and corporatist perspectives on local state action
can be advanced.
Elected local governments and local state action

Most local states in democratic capitalist countries are
elected on a universal franchise. In some countries, the
electoral process for the local state has long been
'nationalised', in that candidates for local government
positions seek election not so much on the basis of personal
characteristics as on the foundation of party membership
and party politics. In other countries, this phenomenon is
more recent but now almost complete. Increasingly, the same
party organisations are involved in fighting both types of
election.
The slow penetration of some local states by national
partisan politics reflects the ideology underlying the beliefs
stressed by Sharpe. The local state exists to meet local needs,
it is argued, and so local government should comprise local
people who are sympathetic to those needs rather than
adherents to a centrally defined policy manifesto. In Britain,
support for this argument has remained strongest in rural
areas, relatively remote from the issues of national politics
and the class conflicts on which they are based. Until 1981,
for example, Cornwall County Council had a majority of
independent members, as did many rural districts. (The
independents were generally patriarchal landowners and
their allies, and their policies usually very similar to those of
the Conservative Party.) In parts of the United States, this
'national politics is not for the local state' argument is
The Local State 201
enshrined in State Constitutions and city charters. The State

legislatures of Minnesota and Nebraska, for example, are
elected on non-partisan ballots, and many city and county
governments influenced by the 'reform' movement (see p.
217) have outlawed partisan participation in local politics.
(Such bans do not necessarily guarantee either that a
candidate will not make his adherence to the views of a
certain party known during a campaign or that groups of
like-minded legislators will not combine into the equivalent
of a party once elected.)
The decline of non-partisan local politics in many countries
reflects a number of factors, most of them linked to the
greater dependence of local on central governments,
especially in financial matters. Although, as discussed
above, certain functions have been removed from local states
and either centralised or passed to non-elected ad hoc bodies,
increased local state spending - especially with regard to
collective consumption - has made local government much
more than 'parish pump politics'. Because it has to fulfil
more functions, the local state has become larger and more
professional and it has become a more important recipient of
political demands, especially those made on behalf of the
relatively poor. Parties have been introduced to articulate
these demands, and to counter them other groups (who are
likely to have to meet much of the cost of providing
expanded services) organise themselves too. The national-
isation of such political parties means that in Britain
now voting at local state elections very largely reflects
op1mon regarding the performance of the central
government, almost invariably with regard to management
of the economy - a function not shared with the local state:
usually the party in power nationally suffers at local
elections because of diffrrential rates of abstention between
its supporters and those of its opponents. (Note that whereas
local politics in Britain are becoming more nationalised, in
the United States partisan dealignment is increasing, with
voters being more concerned with candidates' stances on
particular issues than with party labels: Johnston, 1982b.)
If the above argument is correct, and the local state is now
a focus of class conflict - basically between working and
middle class - over the relative merits of collective and

private consumption, then the policies of local states should
reflect the dominant view of their inhabitants, as expressed
in the ballot box. In Britain, for example, one would expect
local governments with Labour Party majorities to spend
more than those with Conservative majorities (relative to
needs) on social services and education, whereas those with
Conservative majorities would spend more on the protection
of private property (e.g. on police and fire services). In
general - as the literature cited in Chapter 1 shows - this
hypothesis is upheld (see also Johnston, 1979a). That the
findings are not altogether clear reflects a number of issues.
First, the areas with the greatest need for certain services are
also likely to be those that elect Labour councils, so that
unravelling the separate effects of needs and partisanship
may not be easy. Additionally, areas with the greatest needs
tend to be those with the smallest resources (i.e. tax base)
with which those needs may be tackled; the desire to meet
certain needs may not be translatable into action. Second,
some needs are not readily measured (see Bennett, 1980).
Third, there may be particular local circumstances which
override the more general. In most places, Conservative
councils may spend relatively little on public parks, but in
seaside resorts - where such spending is in the interests of
local capital - the reverse may be the case. Finally, if the
central state imposes strict controls on certain aspects of
local policy and spending only a few local governments may
be prepared to stand against those controls, as Kirklees
Metropolitan District did regarding comprehensive schooling
and South Yorkshire County Council did on subsidised
public transport.
In Denmark, as in Britain, the partisan composition of a
local government significantly influences its action in certain
policy areas (Bruun and Skovsgaard, 1980). Local
governments are required to make payments to the elderly,
and to provide services for them, for example, so that they
can remain outside institutions and in their own homes for as
long as possible. The national average expenditure per old
person in 1972-3 was 814 Kroner; in local states whose
council was less than 30 per cent left wing (Social Democrat
The Local State 203
plus Socialist plus Communist) the average was 691 Kroner

whereas in those with moe than 45 per cent left wing it was
948 Kroner. Regarding expenditure on roads, on the other
hand, the former group of councils spent 241 Kroner per
capita whereas the latter group (who in general prefer public
to private transport) spent 171 Kroner.
The examples discussed so far in this section are of local
state apparatuses captured by parties which have also won
power in the central state. In countries such as the United
Kingdom central and local politics are very closely linked
and it is rare for a local government to be dominated by a
party with virtually no chance of having a majority in the
House of Commons. (Such rare occurrences are usually
consequences of protest voting, as in the late 1970s successes
of Plaid Cymru in Merthyr Tydfil and Liberal in Liverpool.)
In some countries, however, there are parties which regularly
win power locally but never centrally.
A major example of such local party success is given by the
Communist Party in both France and Italy. The Italian
Communist Party has controlled the municipal councils of
several important cities (e.g. Bologna) ever since liberation
after the Second World War. It has not been particularly
radical in its actions, however, in part because of constraints
imposed by the central governments (always dominated by
the Christian Democrats) and in part because of legitimation
issues relating to re-election campaigns. Policies have in
general favoured the working class and patronage has been
used in the allocation of jobs, but the councils have found it
necessary to work with the capitalist interests in order to
secure local employment. Thus Zariski (1972: 125) claims
that:
when in power at the local level the Communists have

frequently been quite conservative . . . the Communist
party in Bologna has been trying very hard to obtain the
support of the lower middle class - the small shopkeepers
and artisans who feel they can survive economically only
by fighting the twentieth century . . . whenever the Italian
Communist party is able to gain control of a local
government, it ceases to be a party of protest but rather
tries to reflect an orderly and moderate image of a realistic

party with limited goals. It seeks to establish closer ties
with the business community and with non-Communist
intellectuals. In short, it appears in the guise of a middle-
of-the-road movement.
The constraints of operating within a capitalist world-

economy, of the central government's policies, and of
electoral legitimation also ensure that the party in power
prefers reform to revolution; in opting for the former it
undoubtedly delays the latter.
The Communist Party has been successful in French local
government elections too. In 1974 it was involved in the
government of 64 per cent of the largest cities (300 000 + )
and it provided the mayor in one-third of those cities. Its
policies have emphasised those aspects of collective
consumption spending on which favours the working class.
Cities with Communist-involved governments spend above
average sums on schools and associated facilities (gymnasia,
pools, day-care centres, etc.) but less on road repairs, street
lighting and cleaning (in relative terms; many spend above
average absolute sums). They are also more dependent than
others on local taxes, and rely less on links with the central
state (through social networks) and more on bargaining
power in obtaining resources. The party candidates present
themselves to the electorate 'on their ability to get things
done' (Schain, 1980: 257), hoping to advance the cause of
socialisation from inside rather than outside the political
system.
In the United States, the party system is institutionalised
and between them the Democrat and Republican parties
dominate political life at all levels (even in non-partisan
situations). There are no national parties, however, but
rather a series of weakly linked State parties, each of which is
pragmatic in defining its policy stances, relative to its local
social and economic environment. Thus in the manu-
facturing-belt cities of the north-east, for example, the
Democrat Party is associated with relatively liberal stances
towards civil rights and the black population, whereas in the
south it is the party of white supremacy. (Despite this,
The Local State 205
southern blacks often vote in a bloc for the Democrat

candidate in a Presidential election, because the Republican
is even more 'conservative'!) Thus the local actions by
parties reflect local political culture (Sharkansky, 1970),
which in the south- where the Democrats have dominated
political life for more than a century - means racist policies,
especially with regard to such issues as social welfare
(Cowart, 1969; Johnston, 1982c).
Racism is only one aspect of southern politics, however, as
illustrated by the operation there of the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children (AFDC) programme, aimed at one-
parent families; the main recipients are blacks. Within the
guidelines laid down by the Federal Congress, State
governments have freedom to determine how much is
received from this programme, and by who. (The Federal
exchequer funds part of the expenditure, according to a
sliding-scale formula grant. The larger the monthly payment
to a recipient, the greater the proportion of the cost that
comes from State funds.) Eligibility standards vary
considerably, being based on assessments of income and
property ownership. Seven of the nine most restrictive States
are in the south (the area of the former Confederacy),
whereas the most lenient are in New England and parts of the
Midwest/Great Plains (W ohlenberg, 1976a). Operation of
these various standards meant that, for example, the upper
limit of monthly income from other sources allowed to
beneficiaries in 1972 was $97 in Alabama but $363 in Indiana
(each for a family of four). Payments to recipients varied
considerably, too, with only one southern State (Virginia)
paying more than $160 per month, whereas most States in
the north and west paid more than $265 monthly. Thus the
majority of southern States could be classified as having low
acceptance rates (as a percentage of applicants), low income
thresholds, and low payment levels (Wohlenberg, 1976b).
The consequence was that, as a result of inter-State
variations in operating this Federally subsidised programme,
there was considerable variation in the percentage of families
lifted above the defined poverty line by AFDC payments; in
none of the southern States was more than 19 per cent of
poor families so aided, compared to over 35 per cent in
California and Massachusetts. Although southern States

may reflect racist sentiments in their actions, however, most
of them are relatively poor and few fall into the lowest third
for fiscal effort (defined as the expenditure on public
assistance programmes per $1000 of taxable income); their
attitudes and actions with regard to AFDC cannot be readily
accounted for by a single variable (Wohlenberg, 1976c).
The AFDC programme provides only one example of the
many substantial variations between States in the United
States in their expenditure on social and economic policies. A
number of authors have sought to relate such variations to
the electoral context, in particular to levels of electoral
safety. In several States (notably those in the south, governed
by the Democrats, and those in northern New England and
the northern Great Plains, governed by the Republicans) one
party is so entrenched in power that there is virtually no
chance of it losing control of the State legislature, although
in recent years the Governorship has occasionally been lost.
In other States, the electoral margin is much closer and it is
in these, it is argued, that State governments have to make
large social welfare and related payments in order to win the
votes of the relatively poor. A number of analyses have
provided evidence in support of the proposition that
electorally marginal states have more liberal public
expenditure programmes (see the review in Johnston, 1979a).
Others dispute this, arguing that once the relative affluence
of States has been taken into account (i.e. their fiscal ability
to support high levels of spending), relationships with
political variables tend to become very weak (Johnston,
1980f). Thus although electoral considerations may
stimulate some government actions, variations between
States largely reflect their ability to support welfare
programmes. The geographies of needs, resources and
political dispositions tend to be closely correlated, and all are
relevant to accounting for the geography of response.
This conclusion does not indicate that political and
electoral issues are irrelevant in determining local actions.
Indeed, the quoted British examples indicate that at least
some local governments will promote particular policies or
refuse to promote others, and in doing this may challenge the
The Local State 207
directives and constraints of the central government. The

same is true in the United States, except that the Federal
government is unable to direct State governments. Thus in
some States there have been decisions not to implement
Federally financed programmes. A good example of this was
provided in the later 1960s by the Medicaid programme, by
which the Federal government makes grants to States to
contribute towards the medical expenses of those on public
welfare. In 1968, thirteen States plus the District of
Columbia were not operating the programme; seven of these
were in the south (Johnston, 1982c). This backs up Cowart's
(1969: 235) statement that
Perhaps the explosive political nature of welfare spending

in the South, coupled with a perception that Negroes are
the principal beneficiaries, influences political leaders to
respond with similar caution to new, functionally similar
programs. The perception by Southern whites that AFDC
is a federal welfare program which substantially benefits
Negroes and increases illegitimacy rates among them may
caution restraint in the acceptance of new federal
programs directed towards similar clientele groups.
This discussion of electoral influences on government

action has links to general theories of voting, which are that
most electors vote - for candidates, parties, and issues - in
terms of personal definitions of self-interest. Welfare
programmes benefit the poor, whereas the costs are largely
met by the affluent, those who pay the higher taxes.
Similarly, many public facilities- health care centres, parks,
zoos, public transport systems- bring greater benefits to the
poor, who tend to use them more than the affluent and to
contribute less to the subsidies provided by the public
exchequer. Thus, one would expect the strongest voting in
favour of public spending to come from the relatively poor,
who would contribute little to the cost and gain considerably
from the benefits, whereas the strongest opposition would
come from the affluent. (There may be some voting by the
latter which is against private interests and is in favour of
expenditure which will bring greatest benefits to others. Such
'private-regarding' voting is relatively rare: Banfield and

Wilson, 1963.) This suggests that voting for high levels of
public spending will be greatest in places least able to raise
much money in that way; fiscal desires will be thwarted by
fiscal inability.
In some local states - notably in the United States - either
or both of the raising of expenditure levels above a certain
threshold and the raising of taxes and/ or loans can only take
place if approved by the population of the relevant territory
at a referendum. Thus a local government wishing to run a
particular programme that will benefit a certain sector of its
population may be thwarted by private-regarding voting
among the non-affected majority. Voter resistance to
increased taxation and debt has hampered many attempts by
city governments to tackle local social and economic
problems in recent decades. To try and circumvent these
difficulties, the City of St Louis put forward eleven
propositions to its electorate in 1974, and campaigned for
them so that
The persistent themes were that the package was

geographically balanced with something for all parts of
the city and that the individual taxpayer's cost of the
package would be a small investment to make to preserve
the value of his home and neighbourhood.
(Archer and Reynolds, 1976: 25)
The hope was that this explicit locational strategy would win
general support for the package as a whole. It failed, in that
only one of the proposals ($3.5m. for the fire department)
achieved the needed two-thirds support, but all but two got
majority support, which was much better than in previous
years.
In a number of elections - again notably in the United
States but not exclusively so - principle pressure groups may
participate not by presenting candidates but by offering to
endorse candidates of established parties who are prepared
to support certain policies that the group favours.
Occasionally, such a group may decide to enter the electoral
fray itself. An example of this is provided by The Electors
The Local State 209
Action Movement (TEAM) in Vancouver (Ley, 1980).

Supported very largely by the relatively young and affluent
middle class of this 'post-industrial city', TEAM was formed
in 1968 to fight the pro-business ideology of the city
government, especially over environmental issues, including
various pollution sources and a freeway plan. (A parallel,
working-class movement - the Committee of Progressive
Electors - formed in 1968 also was much less successful.)
TEAM candidates won a majority of the city council seats in
1972, plus the mayoralty, and they succeeded in 1974 and
1976 also. The policies enacted were aimed at creating a
'livable city' but several major projects, according to Ley
(1980: 256), 'disfavored a vulnerable income group and
favored the more privileged'. Support dwindled in 1978,
however, as a consequence of several factors - TEAM's
elitism, its inability to meet the policy demands of more
'liberal' members, and economic crisis - and Vancouver
returned to more traditional local politics.
Protesting in a pluralist system
Elected governments at both local and central state level

frequently claim that their ballot-box success has given them
a mandate to rule, on the basis of the proposed policies that
they laid before the electorate. They will not be diverted
from their goals, they claim, and will await the judgement of
the voters at the next election. Nevertheless, such a mandate
is not operated in a vacuum and their actions are subject to
continued scrutiny, not least by the local media who both
reflect the concern of groups within the population and can
stimulate such concern.
In most governments elected on a constituency basis,
individual members are expected to act not only as members
of party groups but also as representatives of all of their
constituents. Indeed, as Newton (1976) has shown in his
study of members of the former Birmingham City Council,
many local government councillors in England put
representing the residents of their wards as their major role
(to some it is their predominant role); as well as serving the
general interests of their wards, many also spend much time

on the problems of individual constituents, particularly with
regard to relationships with the local state bureaucracy.
Newton calls such an elected councillor 'a parochial' whose
actions are typified as:
the political world of the parochial consists primarily of

his own ward and of the individuals who bring their
problems to him. He sees himself as a special sort of
unpaid social worker or ombudsman ... at the disposal of
any constituent with a problem which comes within the
orbit of the local authority.
(Newton, 1976: 138)
Fifteen per cent of Newton's sample were so categorised.

Most of them were junior council members, but not very
young; they were people who had taken up local government
work in late middle age rather than young political activists.
Other councillors emphasised other roles, giving lower
priority to the details of local representation.
In part, therefore, the local state is required to react to the
demands of individuals and local groups. Such demands are
usually small, in terms of the overall activities of the local
governments, and have no major impact. Occasionally,
however, particular demands will be more widely articulated
and involve considerable pressure - from organised groups
rather than from individuals - on all of the elected members
rather than on particular ones. Such pressure may take place
outside the electoral machinery - as discussed below - but it
may have electoral impacts, as illustrated by TEAM in
Vancouver.
Two means of protesting via the pluralist system are either
to become involved in the partisan politics of local elections
or, if available, to use the initiative/referendum. The former
can comprise setting up a separate party group to fight
elections, as sometimes happens in British cities when
protests against the level of local rates (property taxes) lead
to the formation of ratepayers' associations; these
occasionally win council seats, but very rarely a council
majority. Or a relatively moribund party may be revived on
The Local State 211
the basis of local political issues, as happened with the

Liberal Party in Liverpool in the 1970s. In both of these
cases, the role of individual leaders is crucial. Finally,
members of the pressure group can seek to change the policy
of the incumbent local government, operating through the
majority party. This is exemplified by political events in
Sheffield in 1967-8, when tenants' associations from council
housing estates sought, within the Labour Party, to reverse a
(Labour) council decision on a new rent rebate scheme for
council houses (for details, see Hampton, 1970). As a result,
the Labour Party was divided and lost several normally safe
seats in the 1967 elections; the Conservative Party supported
the rate rebate scheme too, so most Labour supporters in
these wards either abstained or voted Communist. Labour
kept its council majority in 1967, by one seat, but in 1968 the
Conservative Party gained control - although only for a
year. (Hampton points out that the Conservative victories
reflected other factors as well as the rent rebate scheme, but
there is no doubt that this policy, and the local opposition to
it, lost Labour its safe seats in 'council estate' wards.)
As outlined in the previous chapter, in some countries the
initiative procedure can be used to influence policy, at both
local and central state levels. One of the main examples of
this in the United States was Proposition 13, approved by the
Californian voters in June 1978 by 65 to 35 per cent. The
Proposition included provisions limiting the annual tax on
real estate to 1 per cent of its market value, limiting the
increase in assessed market values to 2 per cent per annum
(unless properties were sold, when they would be revalued at
market price}, and requiring a two-thirds vote of all members
of the State legislature to approve new taxes, no new taxes on
property to be introduced, and a two-thirds majority of all
registered voters before any local government could adopt a
new tax (Jones, 1981). The main losers from the approval of
this Proposition were local governments very dependent on
property taxes for their revenue, which brought budget and
manpower cuts in many places. The initial impact was
mitigated by the allocation of State government reserves; in
the longer term, a new system of local government financing
reducing their independence of the State was introduced. To
many Californians, it seems, this was sufficient. Proposition

9 in June 1980 proposed a halving of State income taxes, but
it was defeated by 61 to 39 per cent.
Referenda may also be held by local governments. As
outlined above, some of these are obligatory, in that State
law does not allow taxes to be raised for particular projects
or bonds issued (i.e. loans raised) without prior voter
approval: Section 18 of Article XVI of the California
Constitution, for example, includes the provision that
No county, city, town, township, board of education, or

school district, shall incur any indebtedness or any liability
in any manner or for any purpose exceeding in any year
the income and revenue provided for such year, without
the assent of two-thirds of the qualified electors thereof.
Given such provisions, pressure groups can clearly seek to

influence policy through the electoral process, which was the
intention of the 'reform' movement in American local
government (see below).
They can also use the initiative. In one case, this was
employed to get a mandatory referendum requirement
before local governments could act in a particular policy
arena. As a result of an initiative, Article XXXIV was added
to the California State Constitution in November 1950
requiring that
No low rent housing project shall hereafter be developed,

constructed, or acquired in any manner by any state public
body until, a majority of the qualified electors of the city,
town or county ... voting upon such issue approve such
project by voting in favor thereof ...
In this way, residents of individual local states can act col-

lectively, through the ballot box, to exclude 'undesirable'
low-income residents. (This requirement was the subject of a
Supreme Court decision in 1971, James v. Valtierra, when its
legality was upheld: see Johnston, 1982d, 1982e.) Many
attempts at using the initiative fail at its various steps,
however. Bone and Benedict (1975) illustrate this with data
The Local State 213
for Washington State where 8 per cent of those voting in the

previous Gubernatorial election may either request a
referendum or request that the legislature either act on a
petition or put it to the electorate, and 4 per cent may request
a referendum on a bill passed by the legislature that they
dislike. Between 1941 and 1973, 364 such initiatives were
filed (282, 46 and 36 respectively among the three types) but
only 106 (67, 11, 28) reached the ballot stage. A high
proportion, 64 (32, 6, 26), passed.
Protest using the electoral process is only a small
proportion of that expressed against the local state in most
places. Much more common is protest- usually over issues,
especially local ones, which are unlikely to be foci of
elections -directed at the state apparatus in other ways, in
what was termed the corporatist model in the preceding
chapter. Before looking at such protest, it is necessary to
outline the sorts of models of state action which generate
popular dissent.
Local instrumentalism
At the level of the local state, the instrumentalist perspective

has much more value than it does for study of the central
state. As presented here, however, the perspective has been
slightly redefined. The instrumentalist position was defined
in Chapter 2 as claiming that the state apparatus - both
bureaucracy and, where relevant, elected government - is an
instrument of the ruling class, and is now dominated by that
class; class is used there in the traditional Marxist sense for a
capitalist society, with a simple dichotomy into bourgeoisie
and proletariat. For the local state, the unity of classes on
certain issues is broken down, and the instrumentalist
perspective relates to segments within either class. The
argument is that, in some places in particular, certain groups
within society can capture elements of the local state and
manipulate them to their own advantage.
Suburban fragmentation and instrumentalism in North

America
Some of the clearest examples of local instrumentalism come

from North America, especially the United States, where the
nature of the local state system allows instrumentalist aims
to be pursued; unless otherwise specified, the discussion here
relates only to the United States. Nearly every State (the
exceptions are Hawaii and in New England) is exhaustively
divided into a set of counties, which provide the basic
infrastructure of local administration and government.
These counties were designed to provide public goods and
services for relatively low-density rural areas. Within them,
more densely settled areas required different local
arrangements - in both degree and range - and so State laws
were enacted allowing the incorporation of municipal
governments (variously termed cities, towns, villages, and
municipalities). Details of the incorporation procedure vary
from State to State. Basically, to obtain an incorporation,
the residents of a defined area petition the State legislature to
create a municipality for that territory. As long as the area
meets certain criteria (including minimum population,
extent, and property values, these criteria have been
tightened in recent years: Hallman, 1977), the State
legislature will then hold a referendum there. If a majority of
those voting approve of the proposed incorporation, the
municipality is created and given the powers laid down in the
State law. Municipalities may then expand if the population
of the area to be incorporated agree, and the residents of a
municipality may agree that their separate territory be
annexed into that of a neighbour.
Many municipalities have been incorporated, and the 1977
Census of Governments showed a total of 18 862. A large
number of these municipalities (6444) are in the suburban
rings of the country's Census-defined Standard Metropolitan
Statistical Areas: most are small, with 1979 having
populations of less than 1000 and 3241 less than 2500.
Chicago SMSA alone had 315 in 1977, 222 with populations
less than 3000 (Johnston, 1981d).
The incorporation of separate suburban municipalities
The Local State 215
was common in the nineteenth century. Many of them were

short-lived, however, their residents soon voting for
annexation with larger neighbours; the most common
argument for annexation was that the large cities could
provide much better and cheaper services (e.g. a water
supply) than the small, independent municipalities (Teaford,
1979). Since the late nineteenth century, however, resistance
to annexation has increased and suburban residents have
defended the independence of their separate municipalities.
Many of the central cities of SMSAs, especially those in the
north-east, are now entirely surrounded by a belt of
incorporated municipalities which effectively prevents
further annexations. The reasons for this change on behalf
of suburban residents reflects an appreciation of the benefits
that the separate identity can bring. Most of those living in
such areas are relatively affluent, having escaped from the
various negative externalities of inner city areas (Walker,
1978; Johnston, 1982d), and use the incorporation laws to
create a fragmented mosaic of separately governed islands.
The benefits that such a system brings can be grouped under
four headings.
(1) Local states are separately financed. In the United
States, the main source of revenue for local governments is
the tax on property values within their territories. They are
not required to share this income with other governments
(although others may raise revenue on the same basis), so
that each municipality is, with respect to local state actions, a
separate tax authority. (Residents do contribute to other
levels of government, of course, usually through other taxes.
The Federal government depends largely on income taxes,
for example, whereas State governments use sales taxes
extensively. Some of these revenues may be redistributed to
local governments.) Thus separate incorporation allows the
residents of a segment of suburbia to opt out of making any
contributions through their taxes to the costs of servicing
other parts of the metropolitan area via that form of
government. Since the inner city areas are usually more
expensive to service, because of their concentrations of
commercial and industrial areas plus the majority of the low-
income residents, this means that by moving to suburbia the
affluent avoid paying taxes for services to benefit others,

leaving the poor, who cannot afford to move out, to pay
high taxes to service themselves. In addition, the rich are able
to 'free-ride' on the poor, as suburban residents are more
likely to make use of facilities financed by the central city
than vice versa (Johnston, 1979a).
(2) Local governments have control over land use. One of
the major powers of the municipality relates to land-use
planning. This can be used by the residents of a small
suburban incorporation to protect the characteristics of the
local environment and to exclude perceived undesirable land
uses and users. In the most affluent suburbs this invariably
means an almost complete absence of commercial and
industrial uses; the municipality is zoned residential only.
And within the residential category, the aim is to exclude the
low income. This is done by making property expensive,
usually by allowing low-density development only. Many
suburban municipalities zone for a minimum density of one
dwelling to every two/three acres, and, by imposing maxima
for the percentage of the lot covered by buildings and for
height, ensure that apartments cannot be constructed there.
Such restrictions ensure that only high-income families can
live in such areas; the middle- and low-income groups
(incorporating the blacks) are excluded (Johnston, 1982d).
Not all suburban municipalities house extremely wealthy
families who want to exclude all but their 'social and
economic equals'. Many are occupied by middle-income
residents. They, too, want to protect their environment and
maintain pleasant, low-density suburbia. But the costs of
servicing low-density areas with public utilities are not low,
and so many of these areas seek commercial and industrial
development to boost local property tax revenues and to
some extent subsidise the residents - as well as provide them
with local jobs. The development of large suburban
shopping centres and office parks illustrates this (Johnston,
1982a), as does the development of industrial parks,
carefully landscaped and controlled so that they do not
pollute the local environment.
(3) Local states can determine their form of local
government. The nature of the local government system
The Local State 217
introduced to North America reflected British origins. Each

county and municipality was governed by a council and
mayor, with the former elected as ward representatives. In
many places, and especially the large cities, the politics of
these councils become dominated by partisan elements, and
were taken over by what were termed 'political machines'.
As Judd (1979) points out, the machines achieved three
things: (i) they politicised the central city ethnic minorities,
whose support was bought by candidates in return for jobs
and other forms of patronage; (ii) they were organised in
favour of certain groups within the business community,
who were able to guarantee the patronage for the immigrant
populations in return for contracts, etc.; and (iii) they
created party structures in which loyalty was usually to a
leader with pragmatic policies rather than to some political
ideal:
machines overcame the fragmentation of authority

characteristic of the formal government structure . . .
machines were brokers among contending political
interests: they supplied material and symbolic rewards to
poor immigrants, and by centralizing political authority
they brought some semblance of social and political order
to the cities.
(Judd, 1979: 55)
By integrating immigrants into the political life of the

cities, and by fusing their interests with those of the business
community, the machines excluded certain groups, notably
the middle class and especially the professionals and
relatively well-paid white-collar workers. These received few
benefits from the machines, which they considered corrupt;
the cities in their views were run by the criminal classes. Thus
in the late nineteenth century a movement to reform
municipal government was initiated. The underlying
philosophy was that government was a necessary evil for the
provision of certain utilities but that it should affect as few
aspects of urban life as possible; partisan politics should not
be involved, and the local state should be run as a business,
as efficiently as possible, for the general good of the
residents rather than to benefit a certain group. The

movement was especially successful outside the big cities of
the north-east and it achieved a change in the nature of
municipal government in many States.
Among the main features of municipal government under
reform are:
1. The exclusion of political parties - elections are non-
partisan,
2. Elections conducted at large over the whole territory
rather than across a series of wards which allows spatially
concentrated minorities to achieve representation,
3. Use of the initiative and referendum to ensure direct
democracy and the participation of the electorate,
4. Statutory limitations on municipal borrowing and
spending, to limit the growth of 'big government',
5. An efficient administration, with either a strong mayor
ruling over a weak council or a city commission run on
business lines.
The bases of the reform movement lay in the class structure
of society, and electoral and administrative systems were
designed to undercut the power that lower-class groups had
obtained through machine politics. Reform's success was
widespread and rapid; by 1929, 57 per cent of the cities with
populations exceeding 30 000 used non-partisan elections
(Judd, 1979: 97), and by 1976 the places using both non-
partisan ballots and at-large contests included Boston,
Detroit and San Francisco. In the largest cities, the reform
measures produced relatively little political change, because
of the base built by the machines. The greatest gains were in
places where the reformers could outvote ethnic and
working-class populations and establish an hegemony; the
suburbs, especially the larger ones, have been the arenas for
such instrumental success.
The reform movement portrayed politics as evil, and
sought to outlaw them from the local state in the United
States. The aim was to make the state as a whole more
efficient in its proper task in a capitalist society: thus
the municipal reformers sought a system free of political

The Local State 219
conflict ... They assumed that their own conceptions of
the public interest were objectively true and beyond
challenge. The answer to class tensions was not a
redistribution of political and economic power. It was,
rather, a brand of social reform which would perpetuate
social, economic, and governmental institutions but make
them more efficient and therefore beneficial to all classes
... Reformers ... self-righteously viewed their attacks
on the machines, and their campaigns for 'better'
government, on activities which saved the poor from
themselves.
(Judd, 1979: 116)
Their movement spread to Canada; in 1973, 31.8 per cent of

all urban places there had 'reform' governments (i.e. a city-
manager form of administration) compared to 37.8 per cent
in the United States (Mercer, 1974). Analysis of
municipalities in the Montreal metropolitan area showed
that the better-educated, better-paid populations with the
larger percentages of professional employees and the smaller
percentages of French-only speakers were most likely to
adopt a reform type of government (Massam, 1973).
(4) Local states provide separate education facilities. In
most of the American States the local state provides a public
education system, although controls are set by the State
government and, in disbursing grants to school systems, the
Federal government also sets performance standards. Some
States, mainly in the south, devolve the function to county
governments; most allocate it to cities and to ad hoc school
districts. When the public education systems were
introduced, the cities were required to operate them. Outside
the cities, school districts were established in the counties to
provide educational facilities for the populations of rural
areas and small towns. With suburbanisation, the built-up
areas of the metropoli have spread into the latter districts. If
the territories were annexed into the central cities, then their
schools were integrated into the city systems. If separate
municipalities were created or built-up areas remained
unincorporated, however, the separate school districts were
retained.
These separate school districts bring two benefits to

suburban residents, benefits which have been allocated
increasing importance in recent decades and which have been
additional reasons for the maintenance of suburban political
independence. First, school districts, like municipalities, are
dependent on revenue from taxes on local property values
for the majority of their income; they, too, form a fiscal
archipelago. Thus residents of suburban school districts are
not required to contribute through their property taxes to the
costs of schooling children elsewhere in the metropolitan
area, especially the inner cities; the rich suburbs can provide
lavish facilities for their children at a relatively low cost
(indexed as the tax rate per dollar of property value) while
the poor of the inner cities pay relatively high taxes for
inferior facilities. Second, the separateness of the suburban
districts means that only local residents are qualified to
attend their schools. This allows white parents there to
ensure that their children do not have to share facilities with
blacks, who are prevented by their low incomes and the high
costs of suburban homes (accentuated by the exclusionary
zoning policies) from moving into the area. And they can
also avoid the integration plans involving the busing of
pupils since such plans do not involve cross-district boundary
movements (see below).
All four of these benefits do not accrue in every place. In
some States, for example, there are now tax equalisation
schemes which involve the affluent suburbanites con-
tributing, via State taxes, to the costs of education over
the State as a whole. Nevertheless, for those who can afford
it, residence in an independent suburban municipality and
school district brings with it a range of perceived economic,
social and political benefits. The ability of local groups to
use the local state for their own ends provides a powerful
example of the value of the instrumentalist perspective in this
situation.
It is not only the middle- and high-income residents of
suburbia who gain from this local state system. Industrialists
and other non-residential users can obtain similar benefits.
In a municipality zoned only for industrial use, for example,
factory owners are not required to contribute through their
The Local State 221
municipal property taxes to the costs of collective

consumption (public facilities and utilities) and social order
(policing, social welfare, etc.) for their employees and
dependants; these live in other municipalities, and put their
main tax burdens on themselves. Like the residents escaping
the central cities, the industrialists and office developers can
'opt out' of 'fiscal responsibilities', and a number of
metropolitan areas have municipalities zoned almost
exclusively for non-residential uses. (They include several
oddities, such as those in Los Angeles zoned for dairy
farming only and that in San Francisco for cemeteries, which
gains its needed revenue from a sales tax on flowers and
headstones.) Non-residential users moving to such
municipalities benefit considerably. So too do those moving
to many other suburbs, for their taxes will certainly be lower
there than in the central cities where the demands on the tax
base are much greater; such movement contributes to the
fiscal problems of the inner cities (Johnston, 1982a).
Local instrumentalism is not a predominant characteristic of

the local state in the United States but it is a powerful
influence in the political, and hence social and economic,
geography of most metropolitan areas. Elsewhere, its
importance depends on the degree to which the local state
system can be manipulated by groups for their own ends. In
Britain, for example, the local government reforms of 1963
in Greater London and 1974 elsewhere indicated a strong
central control over the structure of the local state and a
desire by political groups in the central state to manipulate
the local - including its boundaries - to their own ends
(Johnston, 1979a). They have prevented local interests from
manipulating space to their own benefit to anything like the
extent achieved in the United States; a few people can benefit
(by working in a metropolitan county, perhaps, but living
and paying much lower rates in an adjacent rural 'shire') but
these are rare. Whereas Americans believe that business
efficiency is related to independence, British governments
have accepted the argument that bigness brings efficiency
and also prevents local groups countering central policy
directives.
Local managerialism
Although it has been applied to all levels of the state, the

managerialist perspective, as developed by Pahl (e.g. Pahl,
1975), was devised for study of the local state. The 'urban
managers', as they are widely known (relatively little work
has been done on management of the local state in rural
areas), are the employees within the state apparatus. In some
local states they are under the direct political control of
elected members; in others they have greater autonomy - and
are subject to less accountability - because their overseers are
appointed rather than elected (and in some cases they have a
considerable influence on the appointments). Within the
constraints set, the managers develop and operate policies.
In theory, they are servants; in practice they are often rulers
since their knowledge and ability to manipulate it puts them
in powerful positions relative to their masters, who may be
technically ignorant and because they are at best only part-
time politicians, unable to gain control of the relevant
material.
According to Halsey (1970), there are four perspectives
which might be used to study the organisations operated by
urban managers. The first involves charisma - a leader is
followed because he is respected. The second involves
tradition - things are done in a certain way because that is
how they always have been. The third is bureaucratic routine
- a set of rules is formulated, and is then operated in a
routine manner. All of these are relevant to certain aspects of
the operation of the local state, but the fourth perspective is
increasing in importance. This involves professional
authority, under which
Decisions, characteristically in the form of 'advice', are

made by those who have been appointed to a 'sphere of
competence' on the basis of qualifications attested to by a
professional group of peers. (Halsey, 1970: 25)
And professionals, by calling on their technical expertise,
can claim charisma; they can lead because they have the
qualifications to lead, and these are not questioned.
The Local State 223
Some urban managers have long been professionals, such

as the lawyers who run town halls, the accountants who
supervise financial activity, and the engineers who devise
waterworks. To a considerable extent, their professional
activities fall within the bureaucratic routine. Their ability to
use certain knowledge within prescribed operating
procedures is accepted, and their decisions have both
authority and technical backing; a pipe will either deliver
sufficient water to an area, or it will not. Increasingly,
however, other managerial tasks are being professionalised,
and these have a much less secure basis. Planning is a major
activity of the local state, for example, and is now accepted
as a profession. But the technical problems that planners are
set - such as the design of new roads - involve other
decisions, such as the value of a new road compared with
that of the housing and community that it will destroy. To
such tasks, planners and other urban managers bring a set of
personal and professional values. What they do, and how
they do it, reflects their views of the world and what it should
look like. This has been illustrated in a survey of senior
planners in Great Britain (Knox and Cullen, 1981); they were
shown to be middle class in background and attitudes. Many
are 'unmitigatingly managerialist', operating set rules in a
predetermined way; some are active politically in seeking to
impose their own ideologies on the local state.
Within the local state, managers are responsible for a wide
range of functions. Attention here focuses on three of these
only, as examples of policy areas in which both the
professional and individual beliefs of managers, and the
social groups and attitudes that they represent, are
important influences on what is done where, and why. All
three have strong spatial components.
Housing policies
The size of the public housing sector varies considerably

from country to country, and also from local state to local
state within individual countries, reflecting differences in
both needs for this form of collective consumption and
political dispositions towards its provision. As indicated in

Chapter 1, for example, local governments in Britain that are
Labour controlled are more likely to provide a substantial
public housing stock than are those which are Conservative
controlled. In deciding about the provision of this stock -
how much, of what type, where- and about its management,
local politicians are very dependent on the advice and actions
of professional public servants.
A major managerial problem facing local states is whom
to allocate their public housing to, and in what order, given
that demand (as indexed by waiting lists) almost invariably
exceeds supply. In Britain, each local state has evolved its
own set of rules. These have many elements in common,
however (Niner, 1975). Most have a residence qualification
and favour families living in overcrowded and relatively
poor conditions. Once a household is deemed eligible and
reaches the top of the waiting list, the local government
housing managers must decide what type of property
(new/old; flat/house; etc.) to allocate it. Most authorities
have a system of assessing potential tenants and classifying
them according to the housing visitors' opinion as to
whether, (i) a tenant will look after a property, and (ii)
whether he/she will default in rent payments. Usually the
perceived better tenants are allocated to the better (i.e.
newer, more expensive) available properties.
Like managers in the private sector of the economy,
therefore, public housing managers in Britain act to maintain
the quality of their resource. This means that, often on the
basis of a subjective evaluation of a household as potential
tenants, there is spatial segregation within the public housing
sector, with the less desirable tenants concentrated into the
less desirable, older properties. This leads to the
identification of what many observers call 'problem estates',
areas of rundown property with high levels of crime,
delinquency, vandalism and rent and rate arrears. The
suggestion is that these problem estates are created by
managerial policies, by the categorisation of households as
likely 'problem tenants' who should be offered only poor
properties, grouped together in areas labelled undesirable.
Examples of such managerial policies have been
The Local State 225
documented, as for the area of Luke Street in the

pseudonymously named town of Crossley:
the housing department had (i) selected individual families
who were facing major difficulties, (ii) reversed the
perspective, saying that they were a problem to everybody
else rather than that they faced problems, (iii) grouped
them all together, and (iv) left them to it.
(Gill, 1977: 29)
Thus rather than try and solve the problems of those

households, the managers tried to hide the problems by
putting them in one area and minimising their contact with
others; the fear was presumably that the problems could be
contagious.
Not all concentrations of 'problem families' or 'problem
estates' simply represent managerial policies. As Baldwin
(1975) points out, once an area is labelled as a 'problem
estate' this can lead to an exaggeration of the effect. In most
local states, prospective tenants are offered a choice of
properties. But those who the managers think cannot meet
the high rents of the better properties will not be offered
them, so that their choice is constrained. Others with a wider
choice will tend to avoid the 'undesirable' areas and some
allocated to them will seek to move through the transfer
system. Thus
In the case of estates which acquire an unfavourable

reputation . . . the more aspiring and houseproud tenants
will try to leave for more respectable areas and only those
indifferent to the reputation of the estate will be prepared
to stay or, alternatively, to accept the offer of a house on
the estate ... it is quite inevitable that problem estates will
develop in time in large cities, regardless of specific
housing policy.
(Baldwin, 1975: 17)
Gill (1977) illustrates how this self-perpetuating process

operated in Luke Street, once the decision to locate problem
families there had been taken.
In some situations, the bureaucratic rules defined by the

housing managers create inter-estate variations as an
unanticipated consequence; Taylor (1979) has shown that in
one local state some tenants have more power over the
managers than others in securing allocations to the types of
property and areas that they define as desirable. The most
powerful are those living in homes scheduled for demolition
under slum clearance programmes; the managers are
required to rehouse all of these people (if they wish to be),
who can hold out for a desirable property and/ or estate
before they are prepared to move (if they are not offered
satisfactory properties, they stay put and the slum clearance
cannot proceed). Immediately below them in terms of power
are those with medical support for a transfer or a new
allocation. The least powerful are those on the waiting list
without special qualifications (many of these are families
with young children) and the homeless, who must take what
is offered. The result in the Killingworth area is that the most
powerful are able to obtain allocations to the new houses
(these are the slum clearance and medical cases) whereas the
least powerful - especially those on the waiting list and the
homeless - are only allocated to the tower blocks. And then,
for those without medical claims, the tower blocks are
almost impossible to transfer out of: 'Prospective tenants
know that if they accept tenancy in the Towers they will
likely be trapped there if they keep their health' (Taylor,
1979: 1315).
Housing managers in Britain handle other aspects of the
local housing market than the construction and allocation of
council homes. They are enabled to grant mortgages, for
example; under some central governments they have been
encouraged, and under others required to sell council houses
to sitting tenants who wish to purchase their homes; and they
are responsible for operation of various home and area
improvement grant schemes. All of these incorporate some
flexibility (Niner, 1975) and the sorts of managerial policies
adopted in general indicate that the managers favour some
groups (the 'deserving poor'). This is illustrated by Duncan's
(1974) study of the definition of General Improvement Areas
in Huddersfield. Within the areas where improvement would
The Local State 227
be beneficial, the managers first excluded those for which

slum clearance was proposed and then eliminated twenty-
eight of the remaining thirty-six areas in which major
problems were identified; these areas shared two
characteristics - above average percentages of old people and
of immigrant households.
The detailed policies of housing managers vary from
country to country (and also from time to time) according to
the constraints within which they must operate. The United
States, for example, has a much smaller public housing
sector than the United Kingdom, but its managerial policies
have been very similar; ability to pay the rent was an
important criterion for allocation at one time, for example
(Johnston, 1982a). Local states have been involved in the
decisions about the location of public housing projects. As a
result, in the City of Chicago the homes designed for
families, most of which are occupied by blacks, have been
located in perceived areas of need - in the blighted inner city
districts - whereas the developments for the elderly, most of
which are occupied by whites, are more widely dispersed
(Mercer and Hultquist, 1976). In Chicago's suburbs, few of
the independent municipalities have decided to participate in
the public housing programmes and most of the homes built
are in four industrial satellite towns. Legal actions (see
below) have been unable to require local states to participate
in such programmes (Regal, 1977).
Urban planning
Urban planning embraces a wide range of activities,

including the preparation of land-use zoning schemes and the
development of public transport and communications
systems. Town planning, according to Simmie (1974: 180),
'is a primarily ideological activity' with the main
beneficiaries of its professionalisation being the planners
themselves. The need for some planning is widely recognised
by society as a whole, as a consequence of urban growth and
sprawl and the increased levels of car ownership. The forms
and types of planning, however, have been strongly

influenced by the ideologies of the planners.
Regarding the preparation of zoning schemes, the
planners' ideology is based on notions of separation and
order. Separation is considered desirable because it
minimises negative externalities - the unpriced costs of
developments at a site on neighbouring locations. Some of
these costs are clearly undesirable, as in the pollution of the
environment by industrial processes. Others reflect the
ideological and practical concerns of the relatively affluent
within society. Certain types of development (low-income
housing in a high-income area; a hostel for ex-alcoholics in a
'desirable' street, etc.) in a district may reduce its
desirability, and therefore have a negative impact on
property values. A successful plan is one which minimises
such impacts, and so provides most protection to those with
most to lose. Most planners are not involved in the creation
of a settlement de novo. Instead they undertake
'development control', which involves reacting to proposals
from landowners and development companies. The planners
may have prepared an outline plan for development in an
area, whose outline reflects their personal views, but
frequently developers, especially those with large schemes,
will come up with proposals not in line with the plan. In such
cases, politicians must decide on the merits of the proposal,
being advised by the planners who have created the design
being attacked.
In activating development control, planners are in general
defenders of the status quo - their own plans - in providing
advice to elected members who make the final decisions
about individual proposals. Their power is considerable, but
much less so than in the stages of plan development in which
the outline is prepared and within which detailed policies are
worked out. Commonly, the detailed work is undertaken by
the professionals, who can determine which spatial strategies
consonant with the overall, and usually very generalised,
aims of the plan are presented to the elected members (and to
the public).
In the preparation of the Bedfordshire Structure Plan, for
example, a joint committee of elected members and
The Local State 229
professional planners drew up the brief for the plan, which

had four aims: (i) to ensure that housing needs were met; (ii)
to maintain the viability and effectiveness of local industry
and commerce; (iii) to improve the social and physical
environments; and (iv) to conserve natural resources
(Blowers, 1980: 141). Such vague aims can easily command
general support and they can be interpreted in a wide variety
of ways in the preparation of detailed plans. This task was
undertaken entirely by the professionals - a committee of
fourteen - who came up with seven separate strategies, five
of which were chosen by the elected members for detailed
consideration. This involved other bodies, including central
government departments and other local states, plus pressure
groups and interested members of the public. The result of
this process leads Blowers to the conclusions that power over
policy-making in planning is concentrated whereas that over
implementation is dispersed. The former occurs because the
professionals, in concert with a few elected members (usually
committee chairmen; see Saunders, 1980), define the terms
of reference for the plan (i.e. the aims) which con-
strain the range of choices offered to the decision-makers.
Implementation requires local political action, and in the
case of a county structure plan this involved winning the
support of a number of separate political bodies.
Blowers' work illustrates the crucial role of the planning
professionals in the task of agenda-setting, determining the
parameters of discussion. An astute manager, by careful
work defining his terms of reference and then sympathetic
manipulation of his political masters, can have a strong
influence on the nature of local state action because he limits
the choices available to the politicians. (Strong politicians
can challenge the manager, of course, but this is often a
demanding task since the manager probably has greater
control of the subject matter.)
An example of this agenda-setting role is provided by
Swindon's development in the 1950s and 1960s. At the
beginning of this period, Swindon was a one-industry
(railway engine construction) town in danger of imminent
decline. To prevent that, it needed to attract new jobs, to
expand its industrial and population base. A mechanism to
aid that was provided by the 1952 Town Development Act,

which allowed towns to enter agreements with London
boroughs to accept overspill population; this gave the town
some bargaining power with the Board of Trade to allow new
industries to be built there. Swindon's use of that Act was
very much the result of the actions of one man, the Town
Clerk, who pursued a single-minded growth policy for two
decades. In this, he maintained the support of the Labour
majority on the town council (most of them railwaymen or
ex-railwaymen); the respect councillors had for his ability
meant that 'the ready acceptance of his reports was almost a
foregone conclusion' (Harloe, 1975: 227). Such a large
expansion scheme is likely to generate much conflict, but by
careful control of the flow of information to the council and
its committees and to the public, the Town Clerk was able to
get the policies adopted quickly without much debate in
public. Thus, as Harloe (1975: viii) puts it: 'He more than
anyone else rescued the town from oblivion.' The future
nature of the town was very largely determined by this one
manager (who even managed to operate Town Development
Act agreements without signing any binding contracts).
The above example is of a manager who operated through
the elected council, but in such a way that he had very close
control over their decisions. In other political environments,
the managers can be much more public in their operations
and, to a considerable extent, overtly and explicitly more
powerful than their elected 'masters'. An example is
provided by Robert Moses, who, while holding a variety of
posts (including City Park Commissioner and City Planning
Commissioner), was responsible for developing the physical
infrastructure of New York over more than four decades (he
left office in 1968: Caro, 1974). Moses ran for political
office, including the mayoralty of New York in 1933, but his
influence was as a political appointee, as a manager.
According to his biographer, he 'shaped New York', being
involved in public works that, in 1968 values, cost $US 27
billion (Caro, 1974: 9). Parks, parkways, freeways and
bridges were his main contributions to the New York
landscape. His achievements were based on the building of a
personal empire within the state apparatus (which
The Local State 231
'theoretically ... only a creature of the city, ... had in fact

become an autonomous sovereign state': Caro, 1974: 13),
with an income in 1960 of $US 213 million, and by his power
over politicians and their backers:
For a twenty-year period ... Moses was given by the State

Department of Public Works a secret veto power over the
awarding of all state contracts for public works in the New
York metropolitan area. No engineer who had ever
forcefully and openly disagreed with a Moses opinion ever
received even one of the thousands of contracts involved.
(Caro, 1974: 15)
To achieve the power, Moses manipulated public opinion in

his favour and behind his many schemes, so that politicians
were not prepared to tackle him and his empire. Thus control
of much of New York passed to one manager, who was able
to manipulate the state apparatus as he wished:
He . . . used the power of money to undermine the

democratic processes of the largest city in the world, to
plan and build its parks, bridges, highways and housing
projects on the basis of his whim alone.
(Caro, 1974: 19)
The examples of Robert Caro and Swindon's Town Clerk,

David Murray John, are extremes; few managers achieve the
power of either to shape the fortunes of a town or city. But
they illustrate the role of the planner as an urban manager,
one who can - through his control over information, the
agenda, and the subjects of debate - influence what is done
where. Many planners are involved in detailed aspects of the
urban or rural landscape - the exact alignment of a road, the
location of a public facility, the landscaping of public
property - but all of these activities are part of the state's
operations. They also vary in their impact - positive and
negative - on the population of the local state in question,
and that impact often is a cause of public protest.
Public education
One of the largest services provided by the local state in

many countries is the public education system. Its nature
involves a variety of political, including managerial,
decisions; how much to spend on different types of school;
what pupil-teacher ratio to provide; what facilities to
provide; where new schools should be built, etc. All of these
decisions are taken within the context of an increasing range
of central controls - on the size of the budget, for example,
and on minimum levels of teacher and other provision - but
which nevertheless allow considerable autonomy to the local
state. This is exercised in most places by elected members of
a school board or similar body, which is very dependent on
its professional staff for guidance.
One of the clearest examples of the role of managers (in
co-operation with politicians) in producing school systems in
line with a certain ideology within society is provided by the
colour segregation issue in the United States. In concert with
the white populations, who had taken over the Democrat
Party in the south and established a new white supremacy
(and thus a form of instrumentalist control), through the
'Jim Crow' laws (Kennedy, 1959), the managers proceeded
to develop segregation, including a segregated school system.
To keep black and white children apart, a dual system was
established - termed 'separate but equal' - of one set of
schools exclusively for blacks and the other for whites (see
Johnston, 1981e): the system became more renowned for the
separation than for the equality. In the north and west, to
which blacks flocked in the twentieth century, almost
exclusively to the cities, there was no de jure school
segregation. However, the residential segregation of the
blacks in inner city ghettos plus the neighbourhood school
principle of pupils attending the nearest establishments to
their homes, produced de facto segregation; the great
majority of blacks attended schools in which more than 90
per cent of the pupils were black, and the great majority of
white children attended all-white schools. To make this de
facto segregation as all-inclusive as possible, school
catchment area boundaries were gerrymandered in many
The Local State 233
places and new schools were sited so as to maximise racial

separation.
As well as influencing the racial composition of schools
the education system managers manipulated the allocation of
resources so that white children were provided with much
better facilities and teaching than were blacks. (In the south,
this extended to the universities, where separate but equal
was also practised.) Thus within an individual school
district, especially one in a northern inner city, white
residential areas would get most of the new school buildings,
the more qualified teachers, the majority of the special
programmes, and much better pupil-teacher ratios. In
Washington DC, for example, there was variation between
elementary schools in their expenditure on classroom and
special subject teachers per pupil in 1971 from $405 to $846;
the average classroom teachers' salary in the twenty lowest-
spending schools was $10 989, whereas in the twenty highest-
spending schools it was $12 094 (teachers are paid largely on
qualifications and experience; all data are taken from
Baratz, 1975). Looking at the characteristics of these two
groups of schools, the low spenders averaged 834 pupils, the
median family income of their catchments was $8411, 97.7
per cent of the pupils were black, and the average reading
grade of pupils (5 =lowest; 1 =highest) was 3. By con-
trast, the high spenders averaged only 318 pupils, median
family income of $13 178, and reading scores of 2.6; 72.5
per cent of their pupils were black, but in part of the
District less than 30 per cent were. In general, there was
a clear bias in the allocation of resources towards schools
in the mainly all-white residential areas of DC, west of
Rock Creek Park, and away from the black ghetto in the
east.
All three of these examples of managerial action show that a

major task of urban managers is the manipulation of space
via the allocation of resources. A dominant characteristic of
late capitalist societies is the dependence of the population
on the public sector for a wide range of goods and services.
As outlined in Chapter 1, many of these are impure by their
very nature - they are in certain locations only, and of more
benefit to some than to others as a consequence; others are

impurely distributed.
Determining these distributions, within political
constraints, is a managerial function and involves the
creation of a variety of geographies. In so acting, managers
are distributing benefits and costs across the population
unequally, in many cases favouring the more affluent and
powerful (the group from which the managers are drawn)
and creating relative deprivation for the remainder. Such
distributions influence the life-chances of individuals,
especially of children, so that many managerial actions are
involved in the maintenance of inequalities within a class-
based capitalist society (Johnston, 1980c). Other of their
actions influence the quality of life of residents, especially in
urban areas; the environments of the rich and powerful tend
to be better protected than those of the poor and powerless.
And all of this benefits the capitalist system itself, because
the geography of urban environments is reflected in the
geography of property values. A common aim of managerial
actions is the protection of property values, and hence the
advancement of capitalist interests.
Combatting managers and local instrumentalism
Many aspects of local state actions and inactions, of

decisions and non-decisions, are contentious, at least to some
individuals, because of their varying impact, particularly on
the residents of certain areas. Such contention often develops
into protest and attempts to achieve policy changes. The
nature and intensity of protest varies considerably, and there
are many actions about which individuals and groups may
express private dissatisfaction but which generate no public
protest and attempts to have the decisions reversed.
A model of protest activity that has been widely applied
has been developed by Hirschman (1970; see also Orbell and
Uno, 1972). According to this, individuals and groups faced
with a particular state action that they dislike (the groups
may be formed as a result of the action) may have three
options open to them. The first is exit; they can decide to
The Local State 235
leave the institution concerned. Clearly this is not open in all

circumstances (see Chapter 1) and even in the context of the
local state it may not be a viable option for certain people,
notably the relatively poor, whose position in the housing
market is very much constrained (Johnston, 1980c). It is
available and used in certain circumstances, however, as in
reaction to instrumentalist or managerialist action in local
states, in which the individual decides to move from one to
another; this has occurred in the so-called 'white flight' from
central cities to suburbs in American metropolitan areas to
avoid court-imposed school desegregation (Johnston,
1981e).
The loyalty option may be the only one available, in that
the individual or group cannot move from the local state
whose actions are disliked. It may then be no option at all,
but one forced on a relatively powerless section of society. In
other circumstances, however, it may be the option taken
(again, perhaps, with no real choice) after the voice option -
involving attempts to get the action changed- has been tried
and failed. Thus the voice option involves protest. In most
countries it is available to all, though its potential efficacy
may be slight, especially if the protesters have few sanctions
with which to back up their arguments; it has been claimed,
for example, that the voice option is most effective when the
protesters also have exit available to them, and the local state
involved would suffer if exit were used. (Exit can be used in
one of two ways: (i) by moving to another local state, as for
example with an industrialist who moves his factory: and (ii)
by voting against the incumbent administration at the next
election. The viability of the latter depends on the electoral
context and the size of the protest group.)
The voice option is widely used in citizen responses to local
state actions. An attempt to place such protest in a
theoretical framework has been provided by Castells's (1977,
1978) work on urban social movements. Most of this focuses
on protests which have as their objective the achievement of
major changes in the social, economic and political structure
of society, however; they are examples of principle interest
groups. The protests against local state actions very rarely
have such broad aims; instead they usually focus on a
particular act which affects a small group of people only.

The protesters are members of vested interest pressure
groups; their aims are to get a policy change but not to
achieve major structural alterations.
Within the context of the local state, a variety of protest
types can be employed (Saunders, 1980), with individuals
and groups exercising the voice option within the
opportunities available to them and according to their
perception of which is likely to be the most successful
strategy. Such protest usually takes place on a local stage
only; occasionally, however, it can employ opportunities
offered at a larger scale, in which case the result of the
protest may have wider implications.
Local protest
Three types of local protest - almost invariably by interest

pressure groups - can be identified. The differences between
them reflect the opportunities available for protest.
The first type, probably the most widely used, involves
protests through the available channels. Many managerial
procedures include provisions for public scrutiny and debate
of proposals. This is the case with town planning decisions in
Britain, for example. For very local issues - i.e. those which
affect only a few people living close to the proposed change -
the planning authority is required to inform the potentially
affected parties, to allow them to scrutinise the plans and to
invite them to submit objections. The objections are then
considered by the local planning committee, guided by its
professional advisers, before a decision is made.
For larger issues, the scrutiny may be more extended, and
the decision of the local managers subject to consideration
by the relevant central government minister - the Secretary
of State for the Environment - who may decide to set up a
public inquiry into the proposal. Such an inquiry will be
conducted by one of the minister's inspectors. He submits a
report to the minister, whose decision is final. It is with
regard to these larger development proposals in particular
that the power of the professional managers to manipulate
The Local State 237
the procedures is very evident. As Robson (1982) points out,

the managers are able to manipulate the agenda of the
conflict so that sometimes the real issues remain hidden and
the protagonists argue against each other; this provides a
clear case of the 'divide-and-rule' strategy so frequently used
by managements.
In such inquiries, the professional manager is frequently
set against the public, and must defend plans which he
believes are in the 'public good'. To him, a new road or a
slum clearance scheme may seem very desirable; to the
people affected, the proposal may be viewed as entirely
destructive. The manager then seeks to justify the proposal
on technical grounds. Such a manager has been called an
'evangelist bureaucrat' by Davies (1972: 3), who defines him
as one who
legitimates his schemes not by reference to the actual

consumer, but either in terms of his own self-proclaimed
and self-induced charisma or by reference to a range of
putative consumers whose wishes and wants he himself
can, in impunity, define ... The discourse of democracy
is vitiated, and ... the citizens are forced to give up more
and more of the areas of decision-making to a group of
powerful, highly trained officials possessing, it would
appear, a range of quasi-magical potencies.
An example of such professional influence is given by a

slum clearance scheme in Sunderland, where
The intersts of the consumer . . . played . . . a minor part

... To some extent his interests were considered relevant
to the decision, but no attempt was made to ascertain what
those interests were: the decision was reached by using an
incorrect and outdated stereotype of the slum family,
eager and impatient to be granted improved accom-
modation.
(Dennis, 1970: 345)
The professional defines the agenda. In public debate, he

rests on his professional judgement. Those arguing against
him base their case on individual and group perceptions, but

the person hearing the case is usually a professional too; in
some cases, the professionals are virtually their own judge
and jury (see Mullan, 1980).
The nature of the official channels for public protest
undoubtedly influences both the nature of protest -
especially regarding very local issues - and its chances of
success. With regard to the geography of local protest, for
example, it is frequently the case that, (i) the more affluent
and powerful are more likely to feel threatened (socially and
economically) by a particular proposal and (ii) such people
are both better able to articulate the protest through the
channels and feel that such voice could be effective. In a
study of land-use conflicts in Vancouver during the years of
rule by TEAM (seep. 209), Ley and Mercer (1980) show that
residents, individually and in groups, were much more alert
in the higher-status western sector of the city than in the
lower-status eastern sector. There was no difference between
the two sectors in the relative frequency of success, but
greater activity in absolute terms in the west meant that the
residents there had 'a closer social control of space' (1980:
105). Such higher-status residents have many advantages
over their less powerful neighbours, of course. They are
equivalent to the professional managers in status and ability
to argue abstract and technical issues, they have the
resources to mount protests effectively, they have greater
access to the media, and, as Saunders (1980) demonstrates in
his case studies of Croydon, they have closer links with the
managers and the elected politicians, enabling them to
manipulate the agenda somewhat.
The second type of action involves generalised protest,
using a variety of styles including petitions, public meetings,
and demonstrations. Often this is stimulated where there are
no direct channels available, and groups feel that it is
necessary to take such action in order to gain public
recognition. They may hope to influence decision-making
directly through their action - as with picketing and
disrupting a council meeting - or they may aim only to get
their issue onto the public agenda. Thus, for example, a
neighbourhood group may seek greater police activity in its
The Local State 239
area- to stop prostitutes soliciting in the streets, for example

- by street activities which gain general public attention
through local media and put pressure on local politicians to
take action.
The potential for success varies from situation to
situation, but in general it seems that groups wanting minor
reforms, and especially groups from the more affluent
sectors of society, are most likely to succeed. With regard to
education in the United States, for example, research has
shown that lower-income residents are more apathetic, in
part because of frustration at their lack of frustration. Many
lower-income communities live in the jurisdiction of large
city school boards. Protest at the scale of the local school is
insufficient but, compared to more affluent groups, these
residents lack the social networks that will allow them to
contact similar organisations, to develop joint strategies, and
to present substantially backed counter-arguments to the
local state managers. The trend towards larger local state
units (see below) exacerbates this problem, whereas the
increased use of community organisations at the local level
by the local state has co-opted them into the bureaucratic
system and reduced their role on advocates of major change.
Somewhat similar findings are reported by a study of
community groups in Britain (Butcher et a/., 1980). Most
such groups are either established or revived, it seems, in
response to a provocative issue; in some cases, either an
external body or a community worker may act as a catalyst
to the organisation. Command of resources is essential to
success. Such resources include finance and manpower, an
effective organisation, access to influential persons,
information, knowledge and expertise, ideological and public
support. 'In general the more resources available ... the
greater appear its chances of success' (Butcher eta/., 1980:
254), with access to influential persons, a power base and
available information, knowledge and expertise most likely
to bring success with regard to policy changes.
As suggested by the work on the geography of land-use
conflict in Vancouver and by the studies of protest success
and/or failure, there are considerable differences between
groups within society in their use of the voice strategy.
Surveys in Columbus, Ohio (Cox and McCarthy, 1980, 1982)

identified individuals who had taken part in neighbourhood
activities aimed at solving perceived problems there. The
more active residents, not surprisingly, were those who
perceived problems in their local area. In addition, people of
higher socio-economic status, families with children, owner-
occupiers, and those with an investment orientation to their
homes were more likely to be active. In other words, those
with most to lose economically from neighbourhood
changes, and those most able to influence these changes,
were most likely to be active in the neighbourhood.
The final type of local protest is direct action, in which the
neighbourhood population decides to take steps to prevent
the managers' proposals being enacted. They may hope that
their action of itself will halt the proposal. More likely,
however, is the hope that the action will gain considerable
publicity and change the agenda of the debate.
Examples of direct action at more than a very local level -
e.g. an individual householder refusing to move from a home
in a slum clearance area - are relatively few, because of the
commitment of resources and time needed for such a protest
to be effective. One of the clearest cases was provided by the
erection in 1934 of the Cuttleslowe Walls (Collison, 1963).
Those were built by the residents of a middle-class area in
North Oxford to block access to the area along two roads
from an adjacent council (public) housing estate, whose
development the residents of the middle-class area had failed
to prevent. Such an action reflected the class antagonisms
often aroused by public housing schemes; particular criticism
was directed by the Oxford middle class against council
tenants being rehoused from slum areas in the town centre.
The walls remained in place until1959.
Other examples of such direction can be identified - see,
for example, Robson (1982) on the Bodley barricade. They
could be interpreted as indications of the relative
powerlessness of minority groups within a local state, and
therefore as most likely to arise where the local state system
allowed of no minority separation - as provided for by the
local instrumentalism in North America.
The Local State 241
Legal challenges
The protests discussed so far, virtually all of them against

managerial actions, took place on the local stage. Very few
receive much public attention for long - even in the local
media. There are other arenas for protest, however, more so
in some places than others. Only one is outlined here - the
courts.
In the United States, the existence of a Constitution which
incorporates a bill of rights plus several amendments
including such phrases as 'nor deny to any person within its
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws' (Amendment
XIV), allows managerial and instrumentalist actions to be
challenged through civil litigation. These challenges can be
of two types. The first questions a policy in general, and
requires a judicial ruling that is relevant to similar practices;
the second challenges a particular action within an agreed
policy. An example of the first is the ruling in 1926 that
zoning was a constitutionally valid procedure undertaken by
the local state for the public good, and the subsequent
rulings that zoning decisions had to be consistent with
(managerial) definitions of the public good and not 'arbitary
whims' (Johnston, 1982d). Once the Supreme Court had
made these decisions, the importance of precedent in judicial
procedures meant that the legality of zoning could no longer
be challenged. All that was open to doubt was the
constitutionality of particular zoning decisions (were they the
result of arbitrary whim?). Thus, by the ruling of the
Supreme Court on a particular case a general precedent is
set, and it is then over to the local courts to interpret it; as
Dolbeare (1969) illustrates, interpretations with regard to
zoning decisions are frequently required.
The judicial process in the United States makes the
Supreme Court the court of ultimate appeal - assuming that
it agrees to hear a case. Individual cases are expensive to take
that far, and usually only get there if they are supported by
principle pressure groups who see the potential for general
gains to be achieved if a particular decision is reached. (A
litigant must have standing in order to argue a case before
the Courts; he must be able to prove that he has suffered
actual injury as a result of the action contested: Johnston,
1982d.) With regard to the local state, an active principle
pressure group with relevance to issues outlined here has
been the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored Persons.
This voice strategy has been used to challenge a range of
local state instrumental and managerial decision-making
processes (Johnston, 1982e). Some challenges have been
successful. Racial zoning within cities and compensation for
the breaking of racial restrictive covenants have been found
unconstitutional, for example. One of the most substantial
successes was that involving school desegregation. De jure
segregation in the southern states was ruled against in 1954
and, despite considerable opposition, it was slowly removed.
Some success was achieved against de facto segregation in
northern cities, but the Court's rulings on resegregation
(creating segregated school catchment areas via manipula-
tion of the property market) and on the independence
of suburban school districts (thereby preventing
metropolitan-wide busing programmes) have hindered the
progress of integration (Johnston, 1981e).
Other challenges have been less successful. The fiscal
disparities between school districts have been ruled as
unconstitutional by some State courts, but not by the
Supreme Court (Johnston, 19810. Attempts to invalidate
exclusionary zoning and the use of the referendum to sustain
it have also failed in the Supreme Court (Johnston, 1982d),
though there has been slight success in some State courts
(Moskowitz, 1977). Almost all of the failures have been
because the constructionist majority on the Supreme Court
in the 1970s has refused to allow discrimination on the basis
of wealth to be used as either a basis for a claim of unequal
treatment under the protection of Amendment XIV or as a
surrogate for unequal treatment of blacks, who are protected
by that amendment. Only cases involving overt and explicit
acts of racial discrimination have been decided in favour of
the complainants. Thus, although the Court found in favour
of the black residents of the town of Shaw, Mississippi, who
claimed that their neighbourhoods were being discriminated
against in the provision of municipal services, this has not
The Local State 243
led to a great volume of litigation regarding service delivery

by local governments (Rossum, 1980).
It is possible to present the judges of American courts, and
especially the Supreme Court justices, as a group of super-
managers, making general decisions with regard to the
operations of the local state (Johnston, 1981 e). Like all other
managers, they bring to this task the attitudes and beliefs
into which they have been socialised. All Supreme Court
justices to date have held law degrees and almost all have
been drawn from the affluent sectors of white society. In
addition, they are appointed by Presidents who wish to see
the Court adopt a particular attitude towards certain issues.
Thus they are closely linked to the interests of the state and
are unlikely to make judgements that are interpreted as likely
to harm American society and its capitalist base. (If they do,
ways can be found either to change their attitudes - as
Franklin Roosevelt did in 1938-9, to alter the Court's
composition, or to change the Court's powers.)
Countering local protest
Local protest movements are a consequence of the widening

powers of the local state in recent decades, and, although
most of them are relatively mild in tone and are concerned
with very localised issues, their existence is something of a
threat to the legitimacy of the local state. (Cox and
McCarthy, 1982, argue that local conflicts are outcomes of
the basic conflict between capital and labour within society.
A conflict over a housing development, for example, may
involve capitalist developers seeking profits from using land
for residences and local inhabitants seeking to protect their
environments and property values. Because such conflicts
are localised, and are fought over side-issues rather than the
fundamental one of capitalist exploitation, the legitimacy of
the system remains unquestioned; instead the focus is on
where exploitation should occur, rather than on whether it
should occur at all, and the losers are usually those who are
politically weakest.) To counter this potential threat, the
local state organisation must be altered. Two alterations are
generally employed; neighbourhood participation and larger

local state units.
Neighbourhood participation involves incorporating
within the state apparatus those who might otherwise seek to
challenge it; it seeks to legitimate the local state by
encouraging membership. Certain specific policies and
programmes may require the participation of residents of the
affected areas, or, as in Italy (Dente and Regonini, 1980),
elected neighbourhood councils may be introduced to
provide for local participation and to administer certain of
the local state's programmes. Such councils or similar bodies
are widespread among Western 'advanced' countries
(Kjellberg, 1979), being introduced - according to Sharpe
(1979) - because of the administrative overload of a local
state involved in an increasing number of policy areas with
direct impacts on individuals' lives, because of the increased
levels of owner-occupancy of housing which make these
policies more relevant and important to residents, and
because of the greater demands for participation from an
educated population.
A major problem with the establishment of neighbour-
hood councils or similar 'area-management' programmes
(Hambleton, 1978) concerns the independence of such
bodies. If neighbourhood government is to be effective
and to achieve redistribution of wealth and more
equitable local conditions then, it is argued, it is unlikely to
achieve these objectives unless the neighbourhood councils
have some coercive powers. Voluntary organisations tend to
favour the more affluent in society, and only formally
constituted organisations with the authority to mobilise and
to commit public resources (i.e. a budgeting power) are likely
to make tangible gains for the poor (Rich, 1980).
But such organisations may come into conflict with the
parent body - the local state - in their interpretations of the
causes of various problems and of the means by which these
can be solved (Thrift, 1979). In her study of Lambeth, for
example, Cockburn (1977) noted that neighbourhood
councils which were prepared to work with the Lambeth
council and the established majority political parties were
welcomed, whereas those councils taken over by 'militants'
The Local State 245
who challenged the status quo were unacceptable. For

existing governments, the problem of decentralisation is that
some people take their new power seriously and insist on
making decisions. But delegating authorities want to retain
their power. Thus neighbourhood government is intended to
incorporate local protest within the state apparatus, thereby
absorbing such protest; where the government comes to
oppose the local state it is not performing its desired
function, and it is likely to lose whatever real powers it has
been granted.
At the larger scale, as noted in the previous chapter, there
is currently the paradoxical pair of trends arguing on the one
hand for decentralisation of power and on the other for the
creation of larger political units. Exactly the same is
occurring at the local state level, with the arguments for
neighbourhood government being countered by arguments
for regional government, especially for metropolitan areas.
The political bases for these arguments are the same, also;
those for decentralisation focus on the need for local
participation in the solution of local problems - and thus on
legitimacy issues - whereas those for centralisation focus on
economic efficiency and the need to provide a favourable
environment for capitalist activities.
The arguments for regional government have been made
most frequently with regard to metropolitan areas in many
of which - throughout the world - the city centre has been
separated administratively from its suburbs, let alone from
its immediate hinterland. The need to integrate city, suburb
and hinterland has been a continuing argument, notably but
not exclusively from academics and from certain
professional managers, especially planners, and it was a
major issue in the cases presented for the reorganisation of
local government in the United Kingdom in the 1960s
(Johnston, 1979a). Simply stated, the case is that the
metropolitan area plus its hinterland is a single economic and
social unit, and that planning - in its widest sense - for that
unit requires a scale of local government consonant with the
task. Alongside this has been the argument that the local
state must be efficient, and that advances in technology and
administrative practice require larger units. Small
municipalities and counties are outdated, it is claimed, and

should be replaced by larger governmental bodies able to
reap the economies of scale that size allows.
The force of these arguments has been appreciated by
relevant groups in a number of countries, and has led to
programmes of local government reform. The main element
of such programmes has been to promote larger, more
efficient units, and because of this they have encountered
considerable opposition. Where central or regional states
have imposed such solutions, this has often been counter to
the demands of local political groups with interests in their
own survival. (In Britain, these groups are part of the
national political organisations, creating intra-party
conflicts when the central state introduced compulsory local
government reforms: Johnston, 1979a.) Such local vested
interests may have led the superior government either to alter
its proposals considerably (as occurred in the plans for the
Toronto-centred region devised by the Ontario Provincial
government in Canada: Bordessa and Cameron, 1982) or to
impose its will even if that means removing the local state
with which it is in conflict (as in the dissolution of Melbourne
City Council by the Victoria State government in Australia:
Logan, 1982). In several cases, the solution to these conflicts
has involved the creation of a two-tier local state system,
which may merely formalise the conflict and produce a
legislative stalemate (Young and Kramer, 1977).
In the United States, no State government has been
prepared to impose local state reorganisation on its
metropolitan areas, if for no other reason than that this
would be likely to alienate the main base of electoral support
for State governments (in the suburbs). Thus ad hoc
solutions have been sought to pressing metropolitan-wide
problems. One of these involves the creation of special
districts, local states instituted for a single purpose only -
such as the operation of the metropolitan airport or the
preparation of a metropolitan drainage plan - and supported
by a separate property tax. To qualify for Federal aid in
certain policy areas, such as transport planning, some form
of metropolitan organisation is required, and co-operative
ventures - notably regional Councils of Governments
The Local State 247
(Hallman, 1977) - have been entered into to meet this

criterion. Such councils have relatively litle power, and are
subject to internal conflict between local interests.
Several types of metropolitan reorganisation scheme have
been suggested in the United States (Hallman, 1977), but
most of these have not overcome voter distrust of
centralisation of power and desire to protect local interests
above all else. Constitutional provisions in most States
require that local government reorganisation be first
approved by the affected voters in a referendum, and such
approval has been rare (Johnston, 1979a):
even quite limited metropolitanization of governmental

functions has been widely opposed by suburbs eager to
retain their fiscal and other advantages. In some cases,
black political interests have opposed amalgamation
because it meant losing the reality or opportunity for black
political control of the central city.
(Gorham and Glazer, 1976: 8)
Local protest involves conflict between individuals and

neighbourhood groups and the local state. To try and
counter such protest, and to co-opt the protesters within the
state apparatus, attempts have been made to decentralise
participation in recent years. This has not meant any real
decentralisation of power, however, for this might result in
actions contrary to the role of the state as a bulwark of
capitalism and a protector of the status quo: indeed,
neighbourhood government has been undertaken largely to
maintain that role and to defuse the bases of protest that
could develop from local to more general concerns. Such
decentralisation is not particularly favourable to the interests
of capital. This requires large and efficient local state units.
Thus, while promoting decentralisation the state must also
press for centralisation. As so often in the study of the state,
legitimation and the promotion of capital's interests pull in
different directions, and yet both are necessary for the
survival of the state and the mode of production. The result
is invariably compromise.
The local fiscal crisis
Reference has already been made to the increasing fiscal

crisis of the state under late capitalism: the demands for
public expenditure are increasing (from both bourgeoisie and
proletariat) but the ability of the state to meet these, in
relative terms at least, is declining. Governments are
unwilling to levy the taxes needed to raise sufficient money to
cover the demanded revenues, because of beliefs that this will
harm both capitalist interests and the legitimacy of the
system as a whole, as well as their own electoral prospects.
Some, too, are unwilling to borrow large sums on the money
markets in the belief that this is inflationary, and, again,
creates problems for capital (through the consequent
increases in interest rates). As discussed in Chapter 4, the
state must create a favourable fiscal environment for
capitalist accumulation, otherwise employment and
investment may be shifted elsewhere internationally. But it
must also satisfy the expectations of its workforce. As the
demands from both sides increase, so the state is placed in an
increasingly difficult position.
The origins of the fiscal crisis have been traced by
O'Connor (1973) to three aspects of late capitalism. First,
multinational companies have sought, usually successfully,
to socialise increasing proportions of their costs, notably
those concerned with the provision of an infrastructure and
with the training of the labour force. Second, there has been
an increasing trend of public sector wage increases - greater
than justified by changes in productivity - to keep pace with
increases in the (productive) private sector. Such a trend
reflects the growing strength of unions. It is accelerated (in
its overall effects) by the third element, which is the increased
range of services provided by the state and, in particular, the
increased proportion of the population which is dependent
on the state for all or a part of its income. Together these
three elements result in spiralling demands for public
expenditure, which must mean higher taxes. At the same
time, the greater internationalisation and mobility of capital
means that the fiscal base of the state can rapidly be eroded if
its demands are too great.
The Local State 249
A considerable part of this general fiscal crisis has been

devolved in some countries to the local state, which is
required to undertake many of the programmes of social
investment in infrastructure, social expenses and social
consumption. As Sharpe (1980) points out, most of the
functions of the local state are externally defined. But the
local state is constrained not only by demands but also in its
budgetary powers; the amount of money it can raise, and in
what ways, is also externally defined in many places, with the
central state retaining to itself the most buoyant taxes (those
on incomes).
The extent and intensity of local fiscal crisis of the state
varies according to the situation of the local state. As Sharpe
shows for Western Europe, the squeeze on local resources
has been much greater in recent decades in Denmark, West
Germany and the United Kingdom, where local states are
dependent on central grants and on income-regressive taxes,
than it has in Norway and Sweden. But the causes of the
crisis are general in nature, and can be related to two sets of
factors (Newton, 1980). The first relates to the causes of
rising expenditures, containing six components: (i) increases
in quantity of services provided because of increases in
population served (e.g. the elderly); (ii) increases in quality
of services; (iii) the introduction of new services; (iv) the
costs of replacing capital stock; (v) the increased costs of
provision; and (vi) the higher costs of servicing large cities.
Against these must be set the second group of four
components relating to the problems of raising income: (i)
the lack of buoyancy of local taxes (notably those which fail
to keep pace automatically with inflation); (ii) the visibility
of local taxes, notably those on property which are not - like
income taxes - deducted at source, that makes them a focus
of political debate; (iii) the political and electoral sensitivity
of local fiscal matters; and (iv) the resource-needs imbalance
which results from the concentration of capital and the tax
evasion strategies practised in the creation of residential
areas (especially in suburbs).
The supply-demand equation implied by these groups of
components must be set in its general context, however;
Newton (1980: 207) concludes:
higher levels of government . . . play such an enormously

important role in the political economy of local
government that it is not too much of an exaggeration to
suggest that a large part of the financial problems which
beset the localities are attributable not to their own policies
and actions but, on the contrary, to the laws enacted and
the policies pursued by central government . . . The local
fiscal crisis, where it exists, is not local at all; it is central-
local.
Whatever the origins of the local fiscal crisis, it clearly

influences the degrees of freedom within which local
governments can act. One case study suggests that the onset
of the crisis can lead to a marked change in the operation of
the local state apparatus, whose understanding requires a
change in the theoretical perspective. During the 1970s, the
City of New York several times came close to bankruptcy.
Prior to the onset of that crisis, as wealth continued to be
accumulated within the city so incremental changes in the
budget were possible without making major new demands on
local taxpayers. An expanding budget can involve
competition between interest groups for a slightly larger slice
of the cake, but all can achieve some success and political
activity is relatively muted.
As decline set in, however, the accumulation of wealth
slowed down, as capitalists transferred their operations to
either the suburbs or other metropolitan areas. The city
became dominated by low-income, high-demand interest
groups which were well organised. Growth of the budget was
constrained by the new economic situation, however, so that
conflict to maintain one's share of the allocation, let alone
increase it, intensified (David and Kantor, 1979). Those
successful in the conflict were likely to be those whose
support was crucial to the government currently in power, so
that electoral instability in this period of considerable
pluralist activism was correlated with budgetary instability;
the allocations to the city's three main departments - fire,
police, and education - fluctuated widely as city politicians
tried to accommodate the demands of major client groups
and unions. A consequence of this activity was a rapid rise in
The Local State 251
wage bills, especially in the later 1960s and early 1970s, as a

result of concerted action by the public employee unions
against the policies of the incumbent mayor, John Lindsay.
From the mid-1970s on there has been a massive decline in
New York City's fiscal base, as a result of the outmigration
of many major contributors to its tax take. The city's ability
to meet the demands made upon it has declined accordingly,
and this has led to a new political climate. Budgetary
controls have been imposed by the actions of the local
business elite and the constraints set by outside lenders (both
public and private) without whose support the city would
have been forced into bankruptcy. As with the IMF when it
has been asked to assist a country in balance-of-payments
difficulties, these new financial 'rulers' of New York have
argued that if they are to attract investment to the city, the
expenditure on social consumption and expenses must be
limited. Budgetary retrenchment and an austerity
programme have been deemed necessary to restore the city's
health, and the minority groups and unions which were the
major beneficiaries of expenditure growth in the earlier
period were now the losers. Over a relatively short period,
the correct perspective with which to interpret New York
City politics had shifted from managerialism, first to
pluralism and then to local instrumentalism.
The problems of New York in the 1960s and 1970s
represented, in a somewhat exaggerated form, the fiscal
problems not only of any local state in a period of economic
decline- when resources are declining and needs increasing-
but also any individual state occupying a segment of the late
capitalist world economy. In many ways, the problems of
New York discussed here are very similar to those of Jamaica
and Indonesia discussed earlier (Chapter 4), as were the
solutions - an instrumentalist takeover, at least in the short
term. The exaggeration of the situation in New York
reflected in part the extent to which the managerial and
pluralist policies of the previous periods had produced gains
for the working classes which both exceeded the city's ability
to pay and encouraged employers and other major
contributors to the tax base to shift elsewhere. This
illustrates yet again the difficult balance that the state must
achieve between its twin roles of ally and antagonist of late

capitalism. In part, too, it reflects on the particular structure
of the local state in the United States which allows mobile
individuals and firms to choose municipalities where tax
rates are relatively low and from which they can still gain
many of the advantages of the public expenditure of the
increasingly impoverished inner cities.
Relations between local states
Although each local state is a territorial island, and many

have independent decision-making powers, it is far from
independent either of its neighbours or of its superior central
or regional state. With regard to neighbours, many local
governments are in competition, and maintenance of their
roles in this requires the equivalent of a 'foreign policy'.
Competition and conflict may eventually lead to co-
operation and alliance, especially in areas with large
numbers of separate, sometimes overlapping, local states, as
in American suburbia.
Many aspects of the external relations of local
governments relate to their needs to bolster local income,
while at the same time holding down local expenditure. This
means attracting to the relevant territory land uses and users
that will contribute substantially to the local tax base, while
discouraging those which may make greater demands on
their contributions to the local budget. With regard to the
former, this involves attracting uses and users which
stimulate increases in land and property values, thereby
increasing the local fiscal base. Industry and commerce are
the main sources of increased property tax income, and so
local governments will offer inducements to them to locate
within their territories; such inducements - which include tax
rebates and loans - may be at some immediate cost to the
local state but will be considered worthwhile because of the
general stimulus that they provide to the local economy
through multiplier effects. Thus adjacent authorities may be
competing for a particular development, such as a large
shopping centre (Herr, 1982).
The Local State 253
In other situations, where municipal expansion via

annexation is possible, they may seek to increase their tax
base by annexing land outside their borders, perhaps doing
deals with developers in order to get their agreement to such
policies. This option is not open to local states already
surrounded by incorporated land, unless they can effect an
inter-municipal annexation, nor is it available where the
constraints on annexation are strict: in some places the
restrictions are few, however, as in Texas where 'spoke
annexations' along radial roads are allowed so that
municipalities can incorporate territory some distance away.
Growth is not always a blessing, however, for it may bring
more costs than benefits. One of the arguments for low-
density exclusionary zoning in American suburbs is that only
the affluent can afford the high costs of servicing such areas;
similarly, it is claimed that apartment dwellers make greater
demands on the local budget than their contributions. In
such circumstances, certain types of growth are discouraged
rather than encouraged. And in some places, virtually all
growth is strongly discouraged. A number of American
municipalities - from Petaluma in California to Ramapo in
New York - have instituted a variety of 'slow growth'
policies that limit the number of new homes built each year
either to a pre-determined ceiling or to one which can be
supported by the available public services (Danielson, 1976).
In this way, rapid growth does not place great burdens on the
resident taxpayers who must contribute large sums to pay for
the needed extenisions to services.
In Britain, many of the conflicts between local
governments and local states relate to their interests in land-
use planning, issues that transcend local unit boundaries
(Kirby, 1982). The underbounding of many urban areas, for
example, makes it difficult for local governments to expand
their housing stock, especially with respect to urban renewal
policies and a desire to reduce residential densities and
promote suburbanisation. The New Towns and Town
Development Acts were passed to cater for the dispersal of
population considered necessary in the 1940s and 1950s, but
the plans drawn up under these Acts often generated
considerable friction between the existing residents of the
reception areas and those who were seeking to decant

population (Harloe, 1975; Mullan, 1980). Similar conflicts
arise over the planning of new transport routes, which often
involve local-central as well as local-local antagonisms.
Many of the policies of local governments with regard to
growth-management and the local fiscal base involve the
local state dealing with capitalists and capitalist interest
groups. In doing this, they are seeking to advance the
interests of their local states as a whole and, as illustrated
above, they are balancing the claims of capital and labour.
As in most aspects of the balancing equation, however,
almost invariably it is capital which wins. Some gains for
capital are also gains for labour, but who pays? If a local
government offers tax inducements to offices in order to
attract them to its territory, it provides employment for the
local labour force. Capital and labour both gain. But the
costs of those inducements must be met. If the offices pay no
taxes, then the costs of inducing them must be met by the
other taxpayers, including the people who work in them (for
an extension of this argument, see Fincher, 1982). Labour's
gains must be set against the price that it pays. In some
situations, there may be a net gain to labour, but in most the
ultimate beneficiary is capital; if it were not, the state's -
including the local state's - legitimacy would soon be
challenged.
The local state and local autonomy
A crucial issue to many contemporary students of the local

state is that of autonomy, both of the local state itself and of
the local governments which administer it. To what extent is
the local state merely a decentralised arm of the central state
(or some intermediate level) with very few degrees of
freedom for local action. Is it a focus of local democracy or
an organ of central control?
The debate on these topics is both lively and unresolved.
There is little dispute that there are severe constraints to local
autonomy, provided by both the central state and capital,
and, as illustrated in the discussion above of the local fiscal
The Local State 255
crisis, considerable agreement also that these constraints are

becoming tighter. Nevertheless, there is much dispute over
the freedom of local action, the degree to which local
governments can react to local circumstances in particular
ways and interpret their roles of protecting the mode of
production, or at least those elements of it present within
their territories. Clearly there is no general answer to this
dispute: each time and place has its own constraints and
interpretations. The main conclusion to be drawn seems to
be that local states and governments have relatively few
degrees of freedom on major issues - notably those with
important budgetary implications - but that they are far
from impotent administrative arms of a higher-level
organisation.
A major argument which denies independence and
autonomy to the local state rests on the absence of local
sovereignty. Local states have no defined right to exist and
local governments no defined right to rule; they are there
because it is convenient to have them perform certain
functions and as long as these are performed satisfactorily -
which means no straying beyond the defined constraints -
they will be retained. In the United States, several Supreme
Court rulings have treated the local state as if it were
autonomous. But this reflects only the Court's
interpretations of the Constitution and the existing statutes,
plus the justices' own theories of the state (Johnston, 1982d).
The Court can interpret the situation in this way and identify
autonomous powers for the local state, because those powers
have been granted by the State constitutions and legislatures.
Such powers can be rescinded, reduced or extended at any
time. When and whether they will be depends largely on the
legislature, which must react to situations in the same ways
as all states. Meanwhile, local autonomy is being devalued
by State and Federal policies, in part as a reaction to the local
fiscal crisis. Many grant programmes have been devised by
Federal agencies to provide support for local states
(Johnston, 1980f). A large number of them require the
potential recipient to meet certain conditions, thereby
providing further central constraints to local freedom of
action. Some local states may be affluent enough to reject
these conditions, preferring high property taxes to Federal

grants with strings attached, but most find it necessary to
conform.
Whereas the local state has been allowed considerable
independence of action in the United States, at least until
very recently, in the United Kingdom it has been very much
subservient to the central state for at least a century. There
have been occasional 'revolts'. The most recent include:
council house rents in Clay Cross, Derbyshire; subsidies to
public transport in South Yorkshire; the introduction of
comprehensive education in Tameside, Greater Manchester;
and cuts in expenditure by the Lambeth and Southwark Area
Health Authority. Reaction has been varied; some of the
'revolts' have been ignored, some have led to financial
penalties (either on the local state as a whole or on the
individuals in its local government), and some have resulted
in the central state removing the local government (illegally,
it was later decided, in the last example cited). The last
course of action mentioned was used in the 1920s against a
much larger local state revolt - popularly known as
'Poplarism' after the area in East London where it began
(Branson, 1979). About 200 Boards of Guardians- elected
to administer the provisions of the Poor Law - refused to
obey central directions to reduce their spending. In
retaliation, the central state refused to sanction their debts,
suspended some boards and replaced them by their own
nominees, and introduced legislation allowing the suspension
of elected local councillors who acted against central policy.
Eventually, the locally elected boards were replaced by
centrally appointed committees accountable to a central
minister rather than to a local electorate. This, of course, is
the ultimate sanction and the clearest statement of the limits
to local autonomy; the local state can be expunged by central
decision. (See also Macintyre, 1980.)
As in the United States, local governments have become
increasingly reliant upon, and thus subservient to, the central
state as the fiscal crisis has deepened. The inability of the
British local state to tax on anything but (imputed) property
values has meant that it has long been dependent on the
central state and its more buoyant tax base for a substantial
The Local State 251
proportion of its revenue (Bennett, 1982). The ability of

central government to manipulate the size of its grant, not
only to all local states but to individual ones (or at least to
groups with similar characteristics), makes this allocation
process (the Rate Support Grant) a substantial political tool
that can be used both to penalise recalcitrants and to reward
supporters.
The use of the Rate Support Grant by central governments
as a political weapon against local governments has
increased markedly in recent years, most especially under the
Conservative government elected in May 1979. In 1980, it
indicated its intention to penalise profligate authorities that
spent more than it was calculated by the central state that
they should, by withholding payments and even by reducing
the size of the grant after it had been announced. (This
procedure was not reserved to local states; it was also
employed against other institutions dependent on central
finance, such as the universities.) Similarly, the central
government has passed legislation requiring local states to
allow tenants of public housing to purchase their homes on
set terms, and has threatened penalties against those that do
not comply and, through its control mechanisms, halted all
construction of new public housing for the rest of the fiscal
year 1980-1 in order to reduce public expenditure.
In response to these directions, local governments must
either capitulate (and thereby demonstrate their lack of
autonomy) or stand firm. Since they are so dependent on the
central exchequer for income, the latter course must involve
an increase in rates (local taxes)- not borrowing, since most
loans must be sanctioned centrally. This can cause voter
dissent and (the central government hoped) lead to the
removal of the offending local governments. In the May
1981 county council elections, however, the opposition
Labour Party scored a series of victories (as is usual mid-way
through the parliamentary term of a Conservative central
government), providing the impetus for a series of local-
central conflicts.
The invasion of local autonomy by the 1979 Conservative
government was a part of its ideology of the state in relation
to a crisis in late capitalism. Conservative diagnosis of the
causes of that crisis suggested that the major problem was

inflation and that this could only be controlled by a massive
reduction of public spending. This, in turn, would create a
favourable environment for investment and a capitalist
revival, while tax cuts would increase the incentives to invest
and to work. Its control of public spending included firmer
constraints on expenditure by the local state, especially on
social consumption. Thus, it proposed to replace the old
formula system of computing the Rate Support Grant -
which was very dependent on local interpretations of needs -
with a new block grant in which the central state decided how
much a local state needed to spend, and made its allocations
accordingly; over-spending would then be penalised. As
Lansley (1980: 511) expresses it, this is not new:
The relationship between local and central government has

always been a delicate balance between local and central
power. Town halls have neither been mere agents of
Whitehall, nor have they had complete freedom of action
to determine the range and quality of services they
provide. Governments (i.e. central) justify intervention
. . . on the grounds that their view of the national interest
should over-ride local preferences.
What is new is the strength of purpose and conviction

leading to the decisions to override local preferences more
extensively than before, in a programme that
strikes at the heart of democratic local government . . .

The Act gives the Environment Secretary sweeping
discretionary powers to bring councils into line on
spending and manpower cuts ... The foundations have
been laid for Whitehall to launch a major - and entirely
selective - assault on the role of local government in
meeting local needs and on local democracy itself.
(Lansley, 1980: 511)
Thus legislation was introduced by a party which,

throughout the period of major local government reform in
the 1960s and early 1970s, had insisted that 'local
The Local State 259
government should be local' (see Brand, 1974: 147;

Johnston, 1979a: ch. 7). Even when introducing the new
system, the relevant minister - the Secretary of State for the
Environment (quoted in Duncan and Goodwin, 1980: 6) -
stated in a speech in 1979 that
We will sweep away tiresome and expensive controls over

local government. Local councils are directly elected. They
are answerable to their electorate. They do not need, they
do not want, the fussy supervision of detail which now
exists. I am determined to clear the way for local action at
all levels.
But only a few paragraphs earlier he had indicated that this

local action was subject to strict central constraint:
Local government must be very clear about the

implications of deciding either deliberately to ignore or to
fight against measures which a democratically elected
government wants to see achieved for the longer term
interests of the nation ... if individual authorities choose
that path it must be open to me to take whatever action I
feel is necessary to secure our essential ends. This is not
intended as a threat. It is simply a reflection of the
importance of success.
And three days after the county council elections in 1981, a

front-page newspaper story was headlined 'Heseltine to curb
rates in attack on councils' (The Sunday Times, 10 May
1981). In other words, the central government of the United
Kingdom has decided on a particular course of action which,
it believes, will reinvigorate capitalism within the country.
This course is aimed at reducing inflation, and a substantial
element in it involves a major cut in public sector spending
and borrowing. The local state is a big spender and borrower
and if its activities are not curtailed, the central government's
policies will fail. Thus the local state must be constrained. If
it is not, the entire legitimation of the state might be in
danger - it is feared - if capitalism is not succoured and
weaned to renewed health.
The major conclusion to be drawn from this section is

that, at least in the present period of economic crisis within
late capitalism, the autonomy of the local state is closely
constrained by the central state (whose freedom of action
itself is constrained, by multinational late capitalism). What
local governments can and cannot do are increasingly closely
specified, and although some may stand against central
directives the power of the purse is such that few are able to
defy the constraints for long.
This conclusion does not invalidate the concept of the
local state, however, nor suggest that it is worthless
developing theoretical perspectives on the nature of the local
state and, in particular, the nature of local state action. As
Pahl (1979: 43-4) argues:
specific agents ultimately control and allocate resources.

States may attempt to centralise in the interests of equity
or efficiency, but discretion must still remain at all levels
. . . resources are allocated in all advanced societies
[including state socialist ones] through a system of
managerial bargaining.
The scope for bargaining may be limited, but until it is

removed altogether then some elements of social and
economic geography will remain subject to political and
bureaucratic action at the local state level. This chapter has
illustrated what these elements are, and how they are studied.
Conclusions
The local state is a significant subject for political

geographers. To date, some of their work on it has been set
in a more realistic framework than has that on the central
state. Nevertheless, theoretically much of the work has been
relatively naive, and it is necessary to extend it much further
in order to gain a fuller understanding of that part of the
state apparatus which is most immediately relevant and
apparent to individual citizens.
Postscript
Students are taught that an essay should have a clear

structure, with an introduction that sets out the thesis to be
developed and, after the main arguments, a conclusion that
reiterates the thesis and emphasises its major points. This
book was presented in the Preface as an essay, and so a
conclusion would seem desirable. None is provided,
however, for the basic thesis relating to the importance of
the study of the state in human geography does not
bear reiteration; if the point has not been driven home by
now ...
One point needs stressing again, however, and provides
the rationale for this postscript. At several places in the
book, especially in the early chapters, it has been emphasised
that the particular nature of the state is in no way determined
by the mode of production. The state has evolved in parallel
with, and closely linked to, the mode of production. Such
evolution has been necessary, for the capitalist mode of
production could not survive without a political
superstructure. Resolution of the contradictions between
accumulation and legitimation requires an institutional
framework that will advance both. But this requirement does
not extend as far as the particular form that the state will
take, let alone its detailed policies. A range of forms and of
policies (of unknown breadth) is available, as illustrated here
by the spatial variations between social formations within
the contemporary mode of production.
This point is reiterated here because it could easily be
implied from the historical sections of Chapter 2 and the
empirical material regarding the contemporary situation in
Chapters 4-6 that particular developments regarding the
state were inevitable. This is not so. What has evolved is only
one set of attempts to perform the necessary state functions,
and the discussion has charted the path of realised
262 Postcript
possibilities. There has been no inquiry into the might-have-

been, the decisions that might have been taken and the events
that might have occurred. These would not, of course, have
seriously altered the course of societal development although
they may have influenced its geography.
Four major topics have been considered in this book: the
evolution of the modern state alongside the evolution
of the capitalist mode of production; relationships between
the state and accumulation in the world-economy; the
legitimation functions of the state; and the role of the local
state in the management of accumulation and legitimation.
With regard to the first three, it can be argued that all, in
their general outline, are necessities: without a state, or some
comparable institution, the capitalist mode of production
could not have evolved to its present condition. Whether a
local state is necessary is slightly problematic, but it is
difficult to conceive of a situation without some devolution
of the state's management role (although there are attempts
in Britain at the present time to render the local state
obsolescent).
In some form, therefore, the state was an inevitable part of
the evolution of capitalist society. It has been necessary as a
means of providing the conditions for successful
accumulation by individuals, in part through its management
of legitimation. Hence theoretical studies of the state stress
its central role in the superstructure of capitalism. Empirical
details, as presented here, illustrate how these necessary
functions have been performed. None of these details was
necessary. Many other ways of achieving the same general
ends were possible, and indeed some were tried and either
failed or were abandoned. But those details have helped to
create the evolving geography of the capitalist mode. By
studying the details of that geography this book illustrates
how the state has acted; it highlights the fundamental role of
the state while emphasising that details of the performance
are contingent upon the actors, who can change the script but
not the plot.
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Index
Topics relating to the state are present throughout this book and have
been excluded from the index.
Afghanistan 104 consociationalism 129
aid 105-8 core 73-5, 90-100
Aid to Families with Dependent core-periphery 73-81, 123-40,
Children (AFDC) 205-6 154-61
Angola 2, 90 corporatism 121-3, 155, 168,
Argentina 77-8, 92 171, 177-84, 196
arms sales 89-90, 102-3 coups 88, 91
Asiatic mode of production 45-6 Cuba 79
Australia 58, 71, 77, 95, 111, Czechoslovakia 72, 79, 104
132, 177, 190, 246
Austria 176 debt 86-8
autarky 57, 72-3 decentralisation 46
autonomy of local state 198-9, decolonisation 71
254-60 Denmark 202-3, 249
detente 104-5
Bangladesh 106, 109 development control 228-9
Bantustans 2, 85 direct action 240
Belgium 72, 101, 128, 141 domino theory 103
Bophutatswana 85
Bornu 41-2 early state 32-50
Brazil 77, 78, 92, 161 ecology parties 172-3
Britain see United Kingdom Ecuador 110
Bulgaria 79 education 219-21, 232-4
El Salvador 90
Canada 71, 133, 140, 141, 161, elections 120, 128-9, 139-40,
163-4, 190, 209, 238, 246 144-5, 148-9, 162-7, 172-7,
capitalism 15-22, 28, 50-64 200-11
Central American Common environment 168-86
Market (CACM) 117 Environmental Impact
Chad 151-2 Statements 178-80
chiefdoms 29-40 Ethiopia 152
Chile 64-5, 90, 101, 110 European Economic Community
China 65, 72, 108, 152-3 (EEC)95,110,116-17,
cleavages 128-9, 162-3 146-7
colonialism 57-9, 69-73, 124-7, exit, voice and loyalty 234-5
131-3 export platform industries 84-5,
Communist parties 203-4 95
282 Index
federations 188-90 language 128, 139, 142

feudalism 46-50 late capitalism 59-64, 80
fiscal crisis 248-54 LawoftheSea 111-15
fishing 109-11 legal challenges 241-3
flags of convenience 82 legitimation 54, 61, 63-4, 84,
fragmentation 8, 214-21 96, 118, 120, 163, 259
France 41,43-4,49-50,58,69,73, Lesotho 85
104, 113, 116-17, 172-4, 204 Liberia 82
Libya 74
Germany 49, 56, 71-2, 73, 77, local government 190-9
92-3, 106, 112-13, 116, 155, London 8-9
172-3
Greece 82, 91, 93 Malaysia 117, 131, 153
guest-workers 94, 128-99 Malta 64, 109
Guyana 64 managerialism 24-6, 118-19,
121, 157-8, 198, 222-34, 251
Hong Kong 95, 152-3 marine resources 109-15
housing 223-7 Mexico 78, 85, 93, 94
Hungary 72, 79, 104 military government 88-93
Iceland 110 military role 191-4
ideology 36, 47, 54-5, 61, 118, Mongol Empire 42
Mozambique 2
193
India 44, 71, 108-9 nationalism 124-7, 141-54
Indonesia 81 , 131
nation-building 129-33
industrialisation 133-40
inner city 137-8, 158 neighbourhood participation
244-5
instrumentalism 19-20, 118, 197, neocolonialism 72-3, 81-100,
213-21, 251 101-8
integration 115-18, 146-7
internal colonialism 124-7 Netherlands 69, 73
New York 230-1, 250-2
International Monetary Fund
New Zealand 4, 32, 58, 69, 71,
(IMF) 86-9, 97, 105, 119, 76,82,92,95, 132,174
251
Nigeria 149-51
investment 74
Norway 112
Ireland 5, 83, 93, 126-7, 143,
146-7, 163
OPEC 78, 83, 100, 117
irredentism 141
Italy 5, 56, 72, 73, 159, 203-4
Panama 82
Jamaica 64-5, 88, 119 periphery 76-7, 84-91, 148-54
Japan 57, 71-2, 73, 74, 77, 79, Peru 97, 110
82, 110 planning 227-31
pluralism 24, 120, 161-7, 196,
Korea 103, 110 197-8, 200-13, 251
Kuwait 78 Poland 65, 72, 79, 105, 110
pollution 170, 179-81
land-use zoning 216, 241-3, pork barrel 160, 165-7
252-4 Portugal 69, 91, 93, 127
Index 283
pressure groups 171, 178, 208-9, super-states 115-18
210-11 Swaziland 85
pre-state 29-40 Sweden 5, 172
professionalism 222-3, 227-8, Swindon 229-30, 231
237-8
property taxes 211, 215-16, 220, tax havens 82-3
249-50, 251-2, 256-8 Tibet 72
protest 47-9, 62, 154-5, 177, tourism 84-5
209-13, 234-47 trade unions 122-3, 154-5
public goods 7 'tragedy of the commons' 169-
public inquiries 182-4, 236-8 70
transfer pricing 98-9
racism 205-7 Turkey 91
referenda 128-9, 145, 174-7,
190,208,211-13, 242 United Kingdom 5, 47-8, 49, 55,
'reform' movement 217-19 57, 58, 69, 73-4, 79, 82-3,
refugees 152-3 90, 95, 97, 102-3, 106-7,
regional aid 158-61 110, 112-13, 125-7, 135, 142,
regional government 245-7 143, 145-6, 154-5, 158-9,
religion 125, 128 161-2, 164-5, 179, 191-2,
Rumania 79, 104 200, 202, 209-11, 221, 224-6,
228-9,230-1,239,246,253-
Saudi Arabia 74, 78, 133 4, 256-7
school districts 219-21, 242 United States 3, 5, 7, 25-6, 55,
Scotland 126, 128, 139, 143-5, 64, 72, 73-4, 77-8, 79, 85,
147, 168, 183-4 90, 92-3, 94, 102-3, 107,
Seabed Authority 114-15 110, 132-3, 135-7, 153, 155,
secession 141-54 156-7, 159-60, 165-7, 176-7,
segregation in schools 232-3, 178-80, 188-9, 200-1, 204-7,
242 211-13, 214, 221, 227, 232-3,
semi-periphery 77-9, 91-4 239, 241-3, 246-7, 250-4,
Singapore 82, 109, 131 255-6
slavery 46 USSR 3, 64, 65, 72, 79, 90, 102-
social contract 37 3, 110, 129, 141' 142
Somalia 152
South Africa 2, 3, 71, 77, 85 Venezuela 74
sovereignty l-4, 22, 41, 53, 109- Vietnam 90, 103, 153
13, 117 voting see elections
Soviet Union see USSR
Spain 64, 69, 79, 91, 93, 127, Wales 126, 128, 138-9, 143, 144
141, 168, 169 world-economy 67-73
state-building 127-33
state derivation 21-2 Yugoslavia 72, 79, 104
structuralism 20-l
suburbia 214-21 Zaire 101-2, 153
Sunbelt (USA) 136-7, 167 Zimbabwe 148-9

Johnston - Geography and The State

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Geography and the State

Geography and the State

All rights reserved. For information, write:

First published in the United States of America in 1982

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data

Johnston, R. J. (Ronald John)

1. Geography and the State: an Introduction 1

2. The State: its Nature and Functions 11

5. The State, its Territory and its People 120

The state and the economic core-periphery structure 154

6. The Local State 187

There can be no distinctive political geographical theory

The origins of this book lie in a concern with the substance of

The basis to this contribution is aptly summarised by the

is to facilitate the process of methodical self-reflection and

The analyses of geography and the state presented here have

Academic books can be grouped into five main types. The

are developing their critiques of what has been handed down.

University of Sheffield R. J. JOHNSTON

Why study geography and the state? As pointed out in the

Virtually every resident of the earth is a subject of a

disputed, as in border conflicts between neighbouring states

sovereignty. In order for that to be done, for the general

residents have been welcomed, although the host generally

The geography of state activity

Modern urban man is born in a publicly financed hospital,

books, picnics in his public parks, is protected by his

The set of sovereign states which forms an almost exhaustive

maintain economic and social stability. Thus, for example,

provided at a particular location and which, because of

1978): similarly in provision of services for the elderly, the

The human geography of the world is often interpreted as the

It is necessary, however, to realise that at present in many

The preceding chapter has outlined the rationale for this

The functions of the state

category; it provides a brief positive outline of the nature of

the state, which therefore underwrites the economic

All of these 'functional theories' of the state are widely held,

all of which in a rather confused and often contradictory

truths remain partial truths . . . Their most serious

The role of the state

What brings about the state? Why is it necessary? For the

existence, and this is provided here by adoption of Marxist

There are two main features of this mode of production

In advanced stages of capitalism, polarisation into two

state. (The state existed before the introduction of the

serves the interests of the controlling class in society,

This involves it, according to Campbell, in three major tasks.

proletariat, as the possession of the former class. (See

an institution that is not immediately subject to market

This representation of the state is often presented as a

reality. According to the state derivation perspective, the

communist, feudal, capitalist, and communist - and it is

The preceding section has outlined, in the barest essentials, a

accounts for the existence of the state and the allocation of

Two theoretical approaches to the study of such decision-

the state is neutral in its functions and independent of any

The conflicts come to the state's attention because it is seen

All states are constrained by external economic and

This managerial control involves the agents reacting not only

Federal government is divided into three separate realms:

These two opening chapters have established the framework

countries, and this is followed in Chapter 5 by an analysis of