The Elusive State: International and Comparative Perspectives

In The Elusive State the idea of the state serves as an umbrella concept, as a way of focusing otherwise disparate subject matters. The literature on comparative and international politics are as far apart as ever, despite the purported breakdown of the traditional dividing lines between domestic and international politics (a view which some of the papers in this volume explicitly reject). Some of the topics included for discussion are the contradictory ways in which the state is viewed (omnicompetent or impotent), states most likely to develop the institutions and political culture of police states, and the historical perspective of sovereignty.