Send message to Authors

Paper long abstract:

Our claim: If economic theory is an engine and sociological theory a camera, then, after careful review, we conclude that state theory is an "engine-camera" whose surfaces multiply descriptions of the state like a mimeograph. The result is a mass of descriptions that populate the interdisciplinary world of state theory, which are not merely synonymous or conceptually equivalent copies. "More than one, less than many" is the oft heard description of multiplicity, and we apply this notion to the state as it appears in state theory, which we consider from an actor-network perspective, given that ANT was never really a theory but a theory of theories.

Our evidence: We illustrate our arguments two ways. First, we consider a few statements from the extant literature about states that exemplify multiplicity; showing how multiplicity (nota bene: singular noun) is actively made in individual pieces of scholarship. Second, we have amassed the beginnings of an "encyclopedia" of state descriptions; showing how multiplicities (nota bene: plural noun) hold together on the broader stage of state theory as well as which descriptions of the state repel each other in a constellation of presences and absences that is state theory.