Introduction

Abstract

In this paper, Morgan and Orloff survey the contemporary study of states in the social sciences. They begin by tracing the history of scholarship on the state. The authors identify six main clusters of research on states that emerged through the effort to “bring the state back into” history and the social sciences. These clusters include the institutionalist turn; state formation and building; states, culture, symbolic power, and violence; states, empires and the transnational/global turn; implementing states; and states and social stratification. Discussing the contributions, salience, and limitations of these different approaches, Morgan and Orloff offer guiding statements for theoretically conceptualizing the state. First, the authors argue that the state cannot be replaced by concepts such as “governmentality,” “governance” or “institution.” Second, they contend that scholars should consider the ways in which states concentrate and use material and symbolic powers. Third, they suggest that contemporary states work through complex modes of governance. Finally, Morgan and Orloff assert that the “many hands of the state” offers a useful metaphor for thinking through the complexity and multiplicity of actors and institutions within the state. Morgan and Orloff conclude by reviewing the contents of their forthcoming edited volume. Author Bios Kimberly J. Morgan is professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University. She is the author of Working Mothers and the Welfare State: Religion and the Politics of Work-Family Policies in Western Europe and the United States (Stanford 2006), co-author of The Delegated Welfare State: Medicare, Markets, and the Governance of Social Policy (Oxford 2011), and a co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Social Policy (Oxford 2014). Ann Shola Orloff is professor of sociology and political science and Board of Lady Managers of the Columbian Exposition Chair at Northwestern University. A founding editor of the journal Social Politics: International Studies in Gender, State and Society, Orloff is the co-editor of Remaking Modernity: Politics, History and Sociology (with Julia Adams and Elisabeth Clemens; Duke 2005) and the author of States, Markets, Families: Gender, Liberalism and Social Policy in Australia, Canada, Great Britain and the United States (with Julia O'Connor and Sheila Shaver; Cambridge 1999), among other works. She is currently working on a manuscript, Farewell to Maternalism, Toward a Gender-Open Future? Transformations in Gendered Labor Policies and Feminist Politics.