The Place and Role of the State in a Capitalist Society: The Miliband – Poulanzas Debate

The article is devoted to an analysis of the pivotal 1970s polemic between R. Miliband and N. Poulantzas concerning the nature of the state in capitalist society. The author meticulously examines Miliband’s instrumentalist approach, which emphasizes the role of elites and institutional linkages in securing bourgeois dominance, alongside Poulantzas’s structural approach, which highlights the state’s relative autonomy as a “condenser” of class forces and underscores the paramount influence of structures in class relations. The debate, unfolded in the journal New Left Review (articles from 1969–1976), is presented across four “rounds”: from Poulantzas’s critique of Miliband’s empiricism to mutual accusations of abstraction and reductionism. The analysis draws on primary sources and secondary literature (Jessop, Barrow, Wright), which underscore that the exchanges, notwithstanding the parties’ limited efforts to engage with opponents’ arguments, constitute a significant milestone in intellectual history and have made a substantial contribution to the advancement of Marxist state theory. The conclusions emphasize the debate’s ongoing relevance for comprehending contemporary capitalism, wherein the state still mediates class contradictions.