INTRODUCTION
We are on the threshold of yet another great transformation of the selfunderstanding of modern societies. There have been many attempts from various points of view
to label this process: the ambiguous terms "postindustrial" and "postmodern" society reflect the vantage points of economic and cultural concerns. Our interest is in
politics. But from this standpoint, the changes occurring in political culture and social conflicts are poorly characterized by terms whose prefix implies "after" or
"beyond." To be sure, for a variety of empirical and theoretical reasons the old hegemonic paradigms have disintegrated, as have the certainties and guarantees that
went with them. Indeed we are in the midst of a remarkable revival of political and social thought that has been going on for the last two decades.
One response to the collapse of the two dominant paradigms of the previous period—pluralism and neoMarxism—has been the attempt to revive political theory by
"bringing the state back in." While this approach has led to interesting theoretical and empirical analyses, its statecentered perspective has obscured an important
dimension of what is new in the political debates and in the stakes of social contestation. 1The focus on the state is a useful antidote to the reductionist functionalism of
many neoMarxian and pluralist paradigms that would make the political system an extension, reflex, or functional organ of economic (class) or social (group)
structures of selectivity and domination. In this respect the theoretical move served the cause of a more differentiated analysis. But with respect to all that is nonstate,
the new paradigm continues the