The Return of the State in Political Communication?

The post-lunch session at ECREA 2018 is on media, democracy, and social change, and starts with Des Freedman. He begins by noting the role of the state as a particular, and particularly important, institutional power in political communication, whose role tends to be underresearched compared to that of various non-state actors from politicians to activists – perhaps because the idea of the state is seen as somewhat dated, following the decline in authority of territorial nation states.

States have outsourced many of their functions to the private sector, and have been overtaken by globalised commercial players, to such an extent that they are perhaps seen as no longer so relevant; in response, we have perhaps theorised the state out of existence somewhat ahead of time. This is in part because the world is seen as too complex for the successful operation of state power; only conspiracy theorists still hang on to the idea of a ‘deep state’ controlling all aspects of human life.

As a result, we might be thinking of ‘a state’ in which we live, but not ‘the state’ that is determining how we live our lives – and this is also because many Western states are now ‘soft’ states, even though other current examples (China, Turkey, Hungary, ...) represent considerably more rigid structures at their various levels of governance.

Yet some scholars are now also speaking of a ‘return of the state’, and especially of national governments in opposition to globalised governance; of the entrepreneurial state in which public-sector initiatives are driving innovation; and of the ideology of the state that serves as a meta-institution regulating subjectivities. But more importantly, neo-liberalism has not made the state disappear; it has become less visible but still defends established power relations and enshrines particular class structures. These are power states, regulational states, promotional states, entrepreneurial states, developmental states, and indeed captive states, but also welfare states.

These states may be difficult to research, and such research may find it difficult to attract funding, and such state power is messy and opaque – but it is also open to resistance, and the research may be able to contribute to such resistance.