New formations of power, the oligarchic-corporate state, and anthropological ideological discourse

Abstract

The article presents a broad claim that the political environment of the nation-state is complicated by the emergence to dominance of state and state-like oligarchiccorporate state formations. These are considered as a relatively new kind of political departure that constitutes a reconfiguration of the relation of controlling interests to social realities. The argument develops the suggestion that some recent anthropological orientations to the state are relatively unreflective as to their own ideological positioning. Key Words class • corporation • ideology • imperialism • oligarchy • nationalism • stateCurrent configurations of global, imperial and state power relate to formations of oligarchic control. A major feature of this is the command of political organizations and institutions by close-knit social groups (families or familial dynasties, groups of kin, closed associations or tightly controlled interlinked networks of persons) for the purpose of the relatively exclusive control of economic resources and their distribution, these resources being vital to the existence of larger populations. For many theorists the state, throughout history and in its numerous manifestations, was born in such processes and continues to be so. Moreover, the oppressive power of state systems (e.g. the denial or constraining of human freedoms, the production of poverty and class inequalities) and the expansion of these in imperial form is a consequence of oligarchic forces. A diversity of political theorists of different persuasions (from anarchists and Marxists to liberals) have developed such themes. This article continues their argument but is concerned to at SIMON FRASER LIBRARY on June 1, 2015 ant.sagepub.com Downloaded from

Negotiating Statehood: Dynamics of Power and Domination in Africa

“…One could also argue that the popularity of state failure concepts not only indicates a malaise with the post‐colonial African state, but, more fundamentally, reflects a growing dissatisfaction with what are increasingly criticized as stereotypical Weberian state conceptions (Kapferer, 2005: 286). The heuristic limitations of mainstream Western political science have encouraged researchers to resort to either more empirically grounded or more conceptually innovative approaches to public and state authority in Africa.…”

Comment: Interrogating the new-pluralist orthodoxy in American Anthropology

“…They might acknowledge shifts away from such pragmatic, ordering or social contract visions and realities of the state as imagined, for instance, in the works of a Machiavelli, Hobbes or a Rousseau. In place they seem to overcelebrate a liberated more negotiated practical order that I (Kapferer 2004(Kapferer , 2005 would contend is consistent with a new shaping of the state, a corporate/oligarchic form different from the past and perhaps even potentially more menacing and oppressive with which their new analyses may be consistent.…”

Stategraphy: Toward a Relational Anthropology of the State

“…: 3; see also Bierschenk and Olivier de Sardan 2014a: 52-54). Kapferer (2005) and contend that this approach takes a pluralist concept of the state for granted, which in and of itself is an ideology that must be questioned. While non-state actors have undeniably taken over former state responsibilities in many places around the globe, this approach might underestimate the degree to which these processes not only weaken or even deconstruct the state but also contribute to its continuity and strength as both a representation and a political formation (Kapferer 2005: 286-287).…”