Transcended power of the state: the role of actors in Pierre Bourdieu's sociology of the state

Abstract

Pierre Bourdieu's writings on the state consist of a series of more or less coherent investigations approaching the state from different angles. His writings on the state may seem to contain internal ambiguities. On the one hand, they argue for an actor-centered approach to the state while, on the other hand, elaborating the power of the state as an institution transcending these actors. The purpose of this article is to reconstruct Bourdieu's understanding of the state in order to examine if the opposition between these two apparently opposite approaches are in as sharp contention as they first appear. The article starts out by discussing how Bourdieu has approached the state through his broader sociological approach and concepts. Afterwards it outlines the state formation processes lying at the foundation of the state's power. Next it focuses on his special emphasis on the actor strategies that lie behind the emergence of the bureaucratic field. It moreover discusses Bourdieu's analysis of the abdication of the state in contemporary France. Having discussed the analytical potential of Bourdieusian studies of the state by focusing on the case of the European Union, the article concludes by arguing that Bourdieu's analysis is aimed at embracing the opposition between a focus on the state and on actors. The transcended power of the state is established in the conflict between the interests of actors, but gradually acquires an autonomy that goes beyond these interests.

Keywords:

• bureaucratic field
• EU
• field of power
• Pierre Bourdieu
• state agents
• state institutions
• the state

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Corrigendum

Acknowledgments

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected. Please see Corrigendum (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1600910X.2012.742370) for further information.

Notes

Lahire questions both the internal homogeneity and the homogeneity between individuals (of for instance similar class or nationality). We only focus on the latter issue. On the former see Steinmetz (2011).

The focus on the logical instead of the moral is one of the aspects that distinguish Bourdieu from Durkheim (see Bourdieu 1967).

He also mentions the integration of the marriage market, which entails that shared assessment criteria are brought into play in the evaluation of local bachelors' marital value, which reduce them to ‘peasant’ with little marital potential (Bourdieu 2008).

In relation to the economy Bourdieu expressed it this way: `unification of the economic field tends, in particular through monetary unification and the generalization of monetary exchanges that ensue, to pitch all social agents into an economic game for which they are not equally prepared and equipped, culturally and economically. It tends by the same token to subject them to the norm objectively imposed by competition from more efficient productive forces and modes of production, as can clearly be seen with small producers from the countryside, who are increasingly wrenched from a state of autarky. In short, unification benefits the dominant, whose difference is turned into capital by the mere fact of their being brought into relation'. (Bourdieu 2003, 82–3)

In general, the educational system becomes one of the most important elements of the dissemination of the state's ideas. Considerations of space prevent us from delving deeper into Bourdieu's analyses of the school system; in this connection it must suffice to note that the school, for Bourdieu, very much is the state's school, contributing to the incorporation of state modes of thought in the entire population residing within its territory.

John Torpey's (1998) analysis of the state's monopolization of the legitimate ‘means of movement' could, for instance, easily be integrated into Bourdieu's understanding of the state, as it puts emphasis on the state's (symbolic) power to assign ‘identities’ and the material basis for this power (registration and other forms of codifying populations).

While recognizing Bourdieu's importance for the increasing emphasis on the symbolic power of the state, Loveman (2005) ignores his analysis of the origin of this power.

It is important to emphasize that the concept of reproductive strategies does not necessarily entail that dominant groups and individuals make conscious or calculated plans about how to maintain and reproduce their positions. It is rather a concept that highlights how different types of observable practices contribute to a reproduction of different forms of capital.

There is an interesting tension between theory and historical reality here. Even if the rise of the state went hand in hand with the differentiation of the field of power, the non-identity of the field of power and the state is one of the things that make Bourdieu's understanding of state formation so usable for the study of transnational relations. When Bourdieu argues that a central stake in the field of power is the control over the state, this is because of the concentration of multiple forms of capital within the state and the power it has obtained to regulate the relations between fields. But there is no assumption in Bourdieu's theory that an institution like the state must develop. The relations between fields could be regulated more directly in the field of power, or the struggles in the field of power could displace power to other institutions (such as the EU) – or at least make the state delegate competency to them.

The designation of a ‘field of housing policies’ is very interesting in that it is so specific, that it breaks both with the general notion of the bureaucratic field as well as with the idea that each field has its own distinct kind of capital. In doing so, it takes away some of the consistency of Bourdieu's field concept, but only to open up for a whole new range of possibilities of studies.