ANOTHER STATE OF MIND. RETHINKING THE STATE TO UNDERSTAND THE «RETURN OF THE STATE»

With this issue of Soft Power, we want to contribute to the debate on a ‘renewed’ theory of the state capable of interpreting the contemporary ‘return of the state’ and its 21 relationship with the previous neo-liberal phase. One of our purposes is, first, to rearticulate the idea according to which there is a constant (albeit problematic and tendentially conflictual) relationship between the state and the market, and therefore between the state and globalisation. This does not only mean that the state is necessary for the existence of a global market but also that, in its various historical phases, the role of the state changes, and that the functions it is called upon to perform also change, due to international competition and internal political and social conflicts. Moreover, this also entails the need to consider the state as a ‘machine in its complexity, i.e., as an apparatus in which knowledge, tools and conflicts are concentrated, and which therefore, as such, can respond in very different ways to solicitations and interstate competition. By intertwining different levels of discourse and methods, this issue therefore represents, to some extent, the first chapter of the work that awaits us in the coming years. And even if we cannot be sure of the direction that the ‘return of the state’ will take, it is certain that, to truly understand its logic, we will need new theoretical tools or perhaps another ‘state of mind’ that allows us to use the old tools in a perspective equal to the change we are experiencing.