Reimagining the State

This book examines what value, if any, the state has for the pursuit of progressive politics; and how it might need to be reimagined and remade to deliver transformative change.

Is it possible to reimagine the state in ways that open up projects of political transformation? This interdisciplinary collection provides alternative perspectives to the ¿antistatism¿ of much critical writing and contemporary political movement activism. Contributors explore ways of reimagining the state that attend critically to the capitalist, neoliberal, gendered and racist conditions of contemporary polities, yet seek to hold onto the state in the process. Drawing on postcolonial, poststructuralist, feminist, queer, Marxist and anarchist thinking, they consider how states might be reread and reclaimed for radical politics. At the heart of this book is state plasticity ¿ the capacity of the state conceptually and materially to take different forms. This plasticity is central to transformational th