Impersonal power : : history and theory of the bourgeois state / / by Heide Gerstenberger ; translated by David Fernbach.

• Author: Gerstenberger, Heide.
• Place / Publishing House: Boston : : Brill,, 2007.
• Year of Publication: 2007
• Language: English
• Series: Historical Materialism Book Series 15.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (815 p.)
• Notes: Description based upon print version of record.
• Other title: Subjektlose Gewalt.; Preliminary Material /; Part One. The Rise Of Bourgeois States: Preconditions For An Explanation /; Part Two. From Ancien Régime To Bourgeois State: England /; Part Three. From Ancien Régime To Bourgeois Society: France /; Part Four. Results Of The Historical Comparison /; Part Five. The Organisation Of Generalised Power: A Conceptual Framework For Historical Epochs /; Annotated Bibliography /; Index /
• Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references (p. [689]-789) and index.
• ISBN: 1281925713; 9786611925710; 9047421523
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: by Heide Gerstenberger ; translated by David Fernbach.

The point of departure of Heide Gerstenberger’s path-breaking work is a critique of structural-functionalist theory of the state, in both its modernisation theory and materialist variants. Prof. Gerstenberger opposes to these a historical-theoretical explanation that proceeds from the long-term structuring effect of concrete social practice. This is elucidated by detailed investigation of the development of bourgeois state power in the two key examples of England and France. The different complexions that the bourgeois state assumed are presented as the results of processes of social and cultural formation, and thus irreducible to a simple function of capitalism. This approach culminates in the thesis that the bourgeois form of capitalist state power arose only where capitalist societies developed out of already rationalised structures of the Ancien Régime type.