Citation

Hay C. Br. J. Sociol. 2014; 65(3): 459-480.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, London School of Economics and Political Science, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/1468-4446.12082

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

The state is one of series of concepts (capitalism, patriarchy and class being others) which pose a particular kind of ontological difficulty and provoke a particular kind of ontological controversy ? for it is far from self-evident that the object or entity to which they refer is in any obvious sense ?real?. In this paper I make the case for developing a distinct political ontology of the state which builds from such a reflection. In the process, I argue that the state is neither real nor fictitious, but ?as if real? ? a conceptual abstraction whose value is best seen as an open analytical question. Thus understood, the state possesses no agency per se though it serves to define and construct a series of contexts within which political agency is both authorized (in the name of the state) and enacted (by those thereby authorized). The state is thus revealed as a dynamic institutional complex whose unity is at best partial, the constantly evolving outcome of unifying tendencies and dis-unifying counter-tendencies.

Keywords

‘as if realism’; political ontology; realism; State