State Autonomy and Societal Pressure

Abstract

This article assesses the validity of the statist approach in explaining U.S. import policy for steel in the mid-1980s. It focuses on a body of theoretical literature, exemplified in the works of Eric Nordlinger, Stephen Krasner, Theda Skocpol, and others, and evaluates the contention that policy formation can be best understood in terms of the state's autonomy from "politically weighty " social forces. It argues that despite some theoretical and methodological limitations, a statist approach offers a better explanation of policy development in this case than do society-centered models. State actors successfully resisted the disparate parochial demands of the steel industry, even though other countervailing societal pressures were weak. Of central significance was the fact that steel import policy had widespread political and economic implications that went well beyond the steel sector in both domestic and international affairs. The principal state actors felt compelled to locate steel policy within this broader context and to restrain the steel industry's actions accordingly. To do this, it was necessary for the state to maintain a substantial degree of autonomy from organized societal pressure.