Abstract
Abstract This paper attempts a selective and critical survey of recent writings on the liberal‐democratic state in capitalist societies. It focuses mainly on works which attempt to unite theoretical and empirical analyses, thus excluding essentially philosophical works on the one hand, and purely descriptive accounts of particular societies on the other hand. The survey proceeds by addressing four substantive questions, to which particular writings are related. These are: Why has the public sector expanded so greatly in the twentieth century? Is the ‘welfare state’ a conservative or a progressive phenomenon? How independent is the state from the interests of capital? How can theoretical frameworks and historical case‐studies be adequately integrated in explaining state/civil society relations in contemporary Western societies? Running through all these issues is the problem of bridging the gap between the Marxist and Weberian traditions of social and political analysis.
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