Poulantzas, Nicos

Poulantzas, Nicos (1936–79) Greek by origin, Poulantzas made his name in France, as (together with Louis Althusser) the leading representative of so-called structuralist Marxism. The first book of his to gain significant attention was his Political Power and Social Classes, which was published in the midst of the 1968 troubles in France. In it he outlined the concept with which his name is normally associated—the relative autonomy of the capitalist state. This concept, and the ‘regional theory’ of the political of which it was a part, were then applied to an analysis of the rise of fascism in the inter-war period (Fascism and Dictatorship, 1970).

In the years that followed, Poulantzas devoted himself to purely theoretical matters, and in 1974 published his Classes in Contemporary Capitalism, which was an extensive elaboration of the anti-humanist concept of class that he had first mooted in 1968. His last two books were a study of the collapses of the Iberian dictatorships (The Crisis of the Dictatorships, 1975), and an intervention into several then contemporary disputes in sociological theory (State, Power, Socialism, 1978). The latter is noteworthy for its trenchant critique of Michel Foucault's conception of power in capitalist societies.

Poulantzas made a significant contribution to the reconstruction of Marxism and (some have argued) to sociology generally, although it has also been suggested that the latter has yet to be fully appreciated, thanks to the combination of his own early death and changes in academic fashion (see R. Jessop 's Nicos Poulantzas: Marxist Theory and Political Strategy, 1985
). For a more sceptical assessment see David Lockwood 's discussion of ‘The Problem of Class Action’ in his Solidarity and Schism (1992)
.