THE STATE AS THE CENTRAL BANK OF SYMBOLIC CREDIT国家中央银行信用的象征.docVIP

THE STATE AS THE CENTRAL BANK OF SYMBOLIC CREDIT David L. Swartz Department of Sociology Boston University August, 2004 (minor revisions in December 2004) Paper presented at the American Sociological Association 99th Annual Meeting, August 14-17, 2004 in San Francisco. Please do not quote or cite without permission. Comments are welcome and may be sent to David L. Swartz, Boston University, Department of Sociology, 96-100 Cummington Street, Boston 02215, or email at dswartz@bu.edu. INTRODUCTION This paper is for the most part expository of Pierre Bourdieu’s thinking regarding the state. Presenting Bourdieu’s thinking about the state seems appropriate at this time since his political sociology is not well known in North America, particularly his thinking regarding the state. The sociology of Pierre Bourdieu has certainly had a significant impact on contemporary thought and research in American sociology, particularly in the subfields of culture, education, stratification, and social theory. Less well understood, however, is his political sociology, particularly with regard to the role of government in the stratification order. This paper attempts to address this important lacuna in North American understanding of this leading European social scientist. It identifies the key influence of Max Weber on Bourdieu’s thinking and notes the point where Bourdieu believes he moves beyond Weber. The paper also identifies how Bourdieu’s thinking regarding the state is an extension of his broader sociology of culture, particularly his conceptualization of symbolic power, of class struggles as classification struggles, and his field analysis. LATE CONCEPTUAL DEVELOPMENT Bourdieu offers an analysis of the state relatively late in his career. He did not participate in the major paradigmatic shift starting in the seventies among many political sociologists that would place the historical origins and administrative reach of state power at the center of their analyses