Devleti Tahayyül Etmek

"This book tries to evaluate the state without taking over or being captured by the idea of the state. It is therefore based on a different political imagination that I have outlined here and to which I return briefly at the end of the book. This political imagination is one that teaches us that the "state of emergency" we live in is the rule, not the exception." It emerges from the tradition of the oppressed, and as Walter Benjamin recognized, to write against the state of emergency in this way is to aim to lead to a real state of emergency that imagines the end of the state and thus the end of the possibility of fascism.”

"global concentration of capital accumulation is an exercise of state sovereignty rather than a replacement for it"

“As Marxists have long argued, the capitalist system would not last even a week without the state seriously assuming the role of executive committee of the ruling class.”

"The space that has been eliminated is the space of the nation-state."

Continuation of the last sentence; "But not the capitalist state," he continues, as predicted; and Neocleous makes a highly qualified criticism of opposing the liquidation of the nation-state with a statist political imagination. While it shows how nationalism, which has spread to the left, can evolve towards fascism, it also reveals liberalism's false hostility towards the state by identifying the statist political imagination. While condemning the understanding of the state as a direct reflection of the economic ground, he also points to those who exaggerate the autonomy of the state [at certain levels] by Marx's works, which are becoming more and more determined day by day.

In addition to his book, Imagining the State, in which he discusses how the "state" infiltrates our thoughts even when we most reject it, and his book, Governing Civil Society: Towards a Theory of State Power, which was recently translated into Turkish, Neocleous questions whether the self-construction of civil society carries autonomy against the state and examines whether the self-construction of civil society carries autonomy against the state in the 20th century. These works, which discuss the relationship between "state" and "civil society", the two basic concepts of the political space of the 20th century, invite the Turkish reader interested in politics to a dangerous depth. Critique of Security, which examines the concept of "Security", one of the most important complements of the relationship between "State" and "Civil Society" in the 20th century, will soon be published by Notabene publications.

Mark Neocleous is one of the indispensable names of political theory of our century....

-Ersin Vedat Elgür-
(From the Promotional Bulletin)



Number of Pages: 224

Year of Printing: 2015


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Nota Bene Publications

Number of Pages: 224

First Print Year: 2014

Language: Turkish