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This paper answers the question, 'what is the state?' as posed in Abrams (1988) and Denis (1989), by examining Sayer's (1987) realist reconception of 'relations of production' and their 'ideal superstructures'. It suggests that Sayer's alternative to 'traditional' marxism warrants a reappraisal of the relationship between Marx and Foucault. It concludes that 'civil society' and 'the state' are Janus-faces of production relations, generated by Foucault's 'disciplinary practices'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is informed that "State" was not a common term of argument in eighteenth-century Britain. The recent rise to popularity of the term "civil society" - sometimes defined as the institutions which mediate between the citizen and the "state"-- adds a new category to the analytical stockpile; its appearance has probably tended to narrow the range of uses people wish to make of the term "state." Approaching the eighteenth century with nineteenth-century debates in mind, historians have often been preoccupied with the eighteenth-century balance between "centre" and "locality." However, the author opines that this was not an eighteenth-century issue-- at least not quite in those terms. Related issues which were sensitive concerned the exercise of arbitrary power; infringement of chartered or personal rights; use of patronage to build up power blocs; and capture of institutions by parties. But these abuses were objectionable by whomsoever perpetrated. One of the complications confronting anyone who tries to explore the workings of eighteenth-century English government is that England was only one of the territories over which crown and parliament ruled. It is clear that the "state" which framed governance and politics in the various kingdoms and other dependencies of the British crown was a structurally complex entity, operating within a variety of political cultures.