A Different Kind of State: Imagining Popular Power and Democratic Administration for the 21st Century

Since the 2008 economic crisis, the political legitimacy of representative democracy has eroded. The roots of this legitimation crisis are found in growing inequality and the unwillingness of representative democratic capitalist states to address the structural causes giving rise to this polarization. In many respects, in the third decade of the 21st century, the class nature of the state has rarely been so apparent since before the Keynesian era. Various historical and contemporary cases provide examples of a ‘different kind of state’ where the state’s agenda setting function and policy outputs were informed by working class and other perspectives and interests. The result is greater social and economic inclusion generally and a democratization of the administrative state.