Until recently, dominant theoretical paradigms in the comparative social sciences did not highlight states as organizational structures or as potentially autonomous actors. Indeed, the term 'state' was rarely used. Current work, however, increasingly views the state as an agent which, although influenced by the society that surrounds it, also shapes social and political processes. The contributors to this volume, which includes some of the best recent interdisciplinary scholarship on states in relation to social structures, make use of theoretically engaged comparative and historical investigations to provide improved conceptualizations of states and how they operate. Each of the book's major parts presents a related set of analytical issues about modern states, which are explored in the context of a wide range of times and places, both contemporary and historical, and in developing and advanced-industrial nations. The first part examines state strategies in newly developing countries. The second part analyzes war making and state making in early modern Europe, and discusses states in relation to the post-World War II international economy. The third part pursues new insights into how states influence political cleavages and collective action. In the final chapter, the editors bring together the questions raised by the contributors and suggest tentative conclusions that emerge from an overview of all the articles. As a programmatic work that proposes new directions for the analysis of modern states, the volume will appeal to a wide range of teachers and students of political science, political economy, sociology, history, and anthropology.

Current thought increasingly views the state as an agent which, although influenced by the society that surrounds it, also shapes social and political processes. This volume includes some of the best recent interdisciplinary scholarship on states in relation to social structure.

In recent years, debate on the state's economic role has too often devolved into diatribes against intervention. Peter Evans questions such simplistic views, offering a new vision of why state involvement works in some cases and produces disasters in others. To illustrate, he looks at how state agencies, local entrepreneurs, and transnational corporations shaped the emergence of computer industries in Brazil, India, and Korea during the seventies and eighties.

Evans starts with the idea that states vary in the way they are organized and tied to society. In some nations, like Zaire, the state is predatory, ruthlessly extracting and providing nothing of value in return. In others, like Korea, it is developmental, promoting industrial transformation. In still others, like Brazil and India, it is in between, sometimes helping, sometimes hindering. Evans's years of comparative research on the successes and failures of state involvement in the process of industrialization have here been crafted into a persuasive and entertaining work, which demonstrates that successful state action requires an understanding of its own limits, a realistic relationship to the global economy, and the combination of coherent internal organization and close links to society that Evans called "embedded autonomy."

In order to analyze Brazil's recent accumulation of capital in the light of its continued dependence, Peter Evans focuses on the relationships among multinational corporations, local private entrepreneurs, and state-owned enterprises that have developed in Brazil over the last decade. He argues that while relations among the three kinds of capital continue to be contradictory, a triple alliance has been formed that provides the social structural basis for the pattern of local industrialization that has emerged. The author begins with a review of the theories of imperialism and dependency in the third world. Placing the Brazilian experience of the last twenty years in its historical context, he traces the country's evolution from the period of "classic dependence" at the turn of the century to the current stage of "dependent development." In conclusion, Professor Evans discusses the implications of the Brazilian model for other third world countries. Examining the nature of the triple alliance as it is manifested in such industries as pharmaceuticals, textiles, and petrochemicals, the author reveals the complex differentiation of the groups' roles in industrialization and lays bare the grounds for their collaboration and their conflict. He consequently shows how the differing interests, power, and capabilities of the three groups have combined to produce a system promoting industrialization that benefits the elite partnership but excludes the larger population from the rewards of growth.

Labor in the New Urban Battlegrounds examines a diverse array of innovative strategies for revitalizing the labor movement by forming alliances outside the workplace with a variety of community groups, social movements, and faith-based organizations, particularly those that address civil rights, immigrant rights, and consumer concerns. This book presents case studies of issues such as living wages, community development corporations, and local politics around which urban coalitions are built in "union towns" (New York City, Boston, Buffalo, and Seattle), "frontier cities" (Los Angeles, Miami, San Jose, and Nashville), and European cities (London, Frankfurt, and Hamburg).

Introducing the role of urban social context in the field of labor revitalization, the editors have chosen cases with different outcomes cities in which strong coalitions have enabled new union influence are contrasted with those in which such coalition building has been thwarted. As they survey the successes and failures of the new urban labor movement, the editors and contributors conclude that actor choice, strategic innovation, coalition building, and the urban context of labor organizing are key elements in the revitalization of the labor movement and the renewal of democracy. This book will allow the labor leaders of the future to learn from the recent experiences of their peers throughout the United States and Europe."

The recession of the 1980s triggered important economic and cultural changes in the United States, and working women were at the center of these changes. Sunbelt Working Mothers compares the experiences of Mexican-American and white mothers employed in apparel and electronics factories in Albuquerque and illuminates the ways in which individual women manage the competing demands of two roles. Authors Lamphere, Zavella, Gonzales, and Evans show how these mothers-without the economic resources of highly paid professional women-find day care, divide economic contributions and household responsibilities with spouses or roommates, and obtain emotional support from kin or friends. After an overview of the recent industrialization of the Sunbelt economy, the authors consider how new participative management techniques have given greater flexibility to some women's work lives. Drawing on interviews with married couples and single mothers, they offer an engaging account of representative women's home lives, and conclude that working families are changing. This timely book will be welcomed by students and scholars in the fields of anthropology, sociology, labor studies, women's studies, and social history.