On the Autonomy of the Democratic State (Paper)

“For the last three decades the study of liberal democratic politics has been dominated by the basic assumption that public policies are determined by the extra-governmental actors which control and exercise the weightiest political resources... Nordlinger challenges this ‘societal constraint’ focus in a book that is probing, imaginative, and elegantly crafted... Nordlinger displays exceptional qualities of scholarship: close familiarity with a very wide range of literature, theoretical and methodological sophistication, and imagination... [A] thoughtful, challenging, and provocative book... Must reading for every political scientist.”―Canadian Journal of Political Science

“In his intellectually sophisticated and ambitious book, Eric A. Nordlinger is concerned with two central questions: how to accountf or the authoritative actions of the democratic state, and the extent to which the democratic states is an autonomous entity. His conclusions are that the preferences of the state are at least as important as are those of social forces in accounting for political actions and nonactions, and that the democratic state is often autonomous, even when its preferences diverge from the demands of the most powerful social groups.”―American Historical Review

“A rigorous, thoughtful, and original approach which should make it difficult in the future to offer any more reductionist theories of the state.”―Stanley Hoffmann

“A major contribution to the growing literature on the state...a searching and original examination of the ways in which official institutions can influence the societies in which they are embedded.”―Stephen D. Krasner, Stanford University