Introduction

The analysis of organisation(s) has tended to concentrate upon behaviour in organisations as if it were unconnected to the wider social and historical context. Where this context is recognised, it is often treated as an `environment' which comprises a number of factors such as `markets', `technology', etc. These factors are depoliticised in the sense that they are unrelated to the socio-economic institutions through which markets and technologies are constructed and reproduced. All reference to the state is absent. The major exception to this rule has been labour process analysis which situates the organisation and control of work directly in the socio-political context of capitalist society. But, even in labour process analysis, there has been comparatively little examination either of labour processes within state organisations or, more generally, of the role of the state in conditioning all labour processes.

What is the State? Description

Descriptively, the state comprises a series of institutions, ranging from the army, the (remaining) nationalised industries through the civil service to Universities and hospitals. What they share is their basis upon non-market principles of organisation. In each case, command from central and/or local government rather than market demand dictates the goods and services which they produce. In general, they have been established (or appropriated) by elected or appointed representatives rather than by individuals acting in a `private' capacity as entrepreneurs. To describe the state in another way, it is what remains when private and voluntary organisations are excluded.

Treating the state purely descriptively can be very misleading. This is for two reasons. First, because traces of the state infuse virtually all organisations. The influence of the state upon people (e.g. through schooling) stays with them when they leave educational institutions. Second, it is misleading because the state creates a regulatory context in which non-state organisations develop. In principle, legislation (e.g. employment, health and safety) mediates the relationship between all employers and employees, and between producers and consumers (e.g consumer protection legislation). But it is also through the state that monetary and fiscal policies are enacted which, again, influence the material and ideological climate in which organisations develop, prosper or fail. In a variety of ways, the institutions which comprise the state serve to enable and/or constrain organisational structures and cultures (e.g. the various schemes subsidised by the DTI to stimulate particular kinds of `enterprise'). Offe (1985) has identified five areas in which relations of production are mediated by the state:

1. Distribution (e.g. through grants) to capitals, technologies and regions

2. Distribution of individuals to capitals and industries (e.g. through training schemes, government defence contracts)

3. Distribution of income and shaping of consumption patterns through money and credit policies (e.g. control of interest rates)

4. Participation in trading blocks (e.g. EC)

5. Regulation of wages and public sector spending (e.g prices and incomes policy; pay restraints)

However, a broadened definition of what the state is descriptively (i.e. where it is) does not deepen our understanding of its significance (i.e. what it does). To do this, it is necessary to theorise the state : to answer the question why is it?

Why is the State? Analysis

There are basically three perspectives. The first (liberal) perspective regards the state as an impersonal and benign entity to which powers (and a monopoly of the means of violence) are conferred in exchange for the protection and/or assistance. The liberal democratic version of this perspective stresses how the modern state is legitimised through the consent of individuals to serve the public interest. The second (critical) perspective regards the state as an oppressive apparatus controlled by a ruling class which systematically favours the interests of capital over labour. The third perspective views the state as an ambivalent phenomenon which comprises both benign and oppressive elements.

The State as a Benign Presence

There are two variants of the liberal democratic view. The first stresses the democratic basis of the state. It emphasises that Parliament is the sovereign body which, in a democratic society, is elected by the people for the people. If the governing party fails to ensure that the organisations which comprise the state are serving the public interest, then the electorate will vote it out of office. The second variant recognises that Parliamentary democracy is less than perfect and that the accountability of state institutions to the people, through Parliament, is difficult to achieve. For this reason, it is necessary to supplement it through a number of corporatist bodies which mediate between the state and a variety of interest groups. In exchange for regulating their own activity, these groups are granted powers to pursue the interests of their members (e.g. trade unions and professional associations).

The State as an Oppressive Apparatus

The perspective locates the institutions of the state firmly in the context of the structure of social inequality produced within capitalist society. These inequalities are understood to be reflected in the historical construction and development of the state. Its function, from this perspective, is to mediate the relationship between capital and labour in a way which contains and institutionalises actual and latent conflict. In particular, the state is seen to be crucial in the dissemination of ideologies which lead its citizens to believe that the state is safeguarding their (general) interests. At the heart of this argument is the `oppressive apparatus' view that a balanced or neutral state is a contradiction in terms in a capitalist society. Again there are two variants on this view. The first assumes that the power of capital, and the dependence of the state upon economic growth, ensures that the state gives priority to the objectives of capital. Insofar as the state appears to be a neutral arbiter between competing interests, this is regarded as a necessary deception to achieve legitimacy for its demands. The second argues that, although in a commanding position, capital is also dependent upon labour. From this dependence, labour derives considerable power which results in a struggle over the state. From this second viewpoint, the instutions of the state embody the contradictory tensions of capitalist society and not just the priorities of capital.

The State as a Ambivalent Phenomenon

This perspective builds upon the understanding that the state is the product of a struggle, principally between capital and labour. However, these elements are themselves understood to be fragmented. The institutions which their struggle produces are not tied to either of their respective interests, nor do they float entirely free from them. Instead of regarding their work either as a benign manifestation of democratic politics or as an instrument of class domination, state employees are seen to be guided by an ethos which strives to secure and advance their own position within the constraints and opportunities presented by changing political and economic circumstances to which they make a significant contribution. Individuals are understood to be `subjects' of the state in two senses. First, they are subjugated by these Institutions which require them to be, and to act, in particular ways. But, second, their capacity to act is also facilitated by these institutions.

Organisational Analysis and the State

Orthodox analysis of organisations has been founded upon two dominant metaphors : the machine and the organism. Either organisations are treated as machines, in which case their contexts are disregarded. Scientific Management is perhaps the best known example. Or organisations are studies as organism, in which case their contexts are conceptualised in terms of the turbulence of markets or uncertainties about technology rather than in terms of the socio-economic institutions which conditions relationships within organisations. Contingency theory is the best known example of this approach. A preoccupation with enhancing the performance of organisations by improving the `fit' or congruency with their environments leads contingency theorists to theorise the environment principally in terms of stability/certainty or turbulence/uncertainty rather than examining the structures of power, including the state, which serve to regulate and restructure these `variables'. Organisations and the state are treated as if they existed independently of each other. The influence of `the action frame of reference' (See Lecture Notes on Organisational Structure) and more recent studies of culture and symbolism (see Lecture Notes on Organisational Culture and Symbolism) have challenged the rationalism of orthodox analysis but they have perpetuated the neglect of the state.

The Labour Process in the State

This refers to the organisation of the labour process within the institutions that comprise the state. It can be argued that Marx's analysis of the labour process analysis has little or no relevance for non-capitalist institutions since there purpose is not to secure the private appropriation of surplus value from the exploitation of labour but, rather, to produce goods and services which are commanded by the state and financed, in part, from the Exchequer. However, this important difference between privately and publicly owned organisations can be acknowledged without denying the relevance of labour process analysis for the examination of state labour processes.

Labour process analysis has relevance for two reasons. First, because strategies and mechanisms of management control are also present in state labour processes. Methods of organising and managing labour have been imported from the private sector. Although `publicly owned', the absence of industrial democracy means that there is no real sense in which workers exert any greater control over the labour process in the public sector than they do in the private sector. Moreover, insofar as an ethic of `public service' has been associated with many forms of public sector work, employees are routinely encouraged to do the same amount of work for less pay and/or in worse conditions than they would if working in the private sector. The second reason is that, in the context of complex, advanced capitalist societies, the division between `private' and `public' sectors is itself potentially misleading. If, instead, work in these societies is examined as a vast, interdependent, collective labour process in which there are numerous interdependencies and interpenetrations between sectors, then the organisation and control of work in the public sector cannot sensibly be separated from what goes on in the private sector. This brings us to a consideration of the state in the labour process.

The State in the Labour Process

This refers to the extent to which state institutions conditions organisational practice within both private and public sectors - for example, through legislation and education. This is not restricted to the overt interventions of the state which serve to boost one sector (e.g. financial services) or squeeze another sector (e.g steel or shipbuilding). It also includes the role of state institutions in constructing and regulating the relationships through which the private sector is organised. Examples of this include companies legislation (e.g. limited liability, auditing) and employment legislation as well as the educational and training provisions which, in principle, render modern individuals more governable. When considered in this way, the state is seen to be central to the labour process, and not something external to it, as Braverman is inclined to represent it. For Braverman, as for many labour process analysts, the importance of the state is recognised in the abstract as something which differentiates `monopoly capitalism' from its earlier forms. But there is little or no attempt to understand how the state infuses the labour process rather than something which surrounds and intervenes occasionally to steer it.

It is only with the work of Burawoy that there emerges a more integrated conception of the state in the labour process. Drawing upon the ideas of Gramsci and Althusser, who had both stressed the ideological and political dimensions of capitalism as a mode of production, Burawoy argued that modern capitalist corporations are managed through forms of hegemonic control in which the interests of capital/managers and labour are concretely coordinated. Central to this process, in which the extraction surplus value is seen to be obscured from workers, are the rights - such as health and safety standards, grievance procedures, collective bargaining processes - which are `guaranteed' by the state. Here the institutions of the state, responding to corporatist (e.g. union) and democratic pressures as well as to the enlightened self-interest of capitalists/managers, are understood to manufacture the conditions which elicit workers' consent. This consent is achieved when, and so long as, workers believe that they can derive greater material and symbolic benefits from capitalism than they are likely to under any alternative system.

Corporatism and Populism; Strategies of Control

The problem for capitalist reproduction is that consent based upon this kind of instrumentalism requires either that it continues to deliver the benefits. If it falters or fails, a great pressure is placed upon the capacity of ideology to make good the deficit. Strinati has argued that just such an ideology - of populism - was deployed during the early 1980's when the British economy was in severe recession. Strinati describes populism as `a strategy and an ideology' developed to obscure/deny class divisions which are partially acknowledged, but then institutionalised, within the alternative, `corporatist' strategy of industrial relations.

`The rhetoric of populism is to appeal to the people rather than to vested interests...its vision of itself compels it to obscure and contain the intrusion of organised interests between the people and the state. It is another type of depoliticisation, but unlike corporatism it works through political disorganisation rather than corporate organisation'

With specific reference to the introduction of `secret ballot' legislation, Strinati observes

`The introduction of government-financed secret ballots, within the wider ramifications of populism, has the potential to define union members as privatised individuals, divorced from organised representation at the workplace and from solidarities which can serve to mitigate and alleviate the exploitation and grievances continually generated by the labour process'

In this regard, populism is consistent with an emphasis upon individual rights and opportunities, an emphasis which is wholly consistent with the development of HRM philosophy at the level of the enterprise (see Power and Human Resource Management notes). At a societal level, populism is often closely associated with nationalism; at the organisational level, it is associated with strengthening the identification of individuals with the superordinate values of the corporation (see Organisational Culture and Symbolism notes). The problem with the corporatist strategy in a deeply class divided society is that the state finds it difficult to deliver its side of the `social contract', mainly because of hostility from capital to collectivist forms of management; and, on the other side, the trade unions experience difficulty in controlling their members. The problem with populism is that the notion of `the people' breaks down under pressure from the internal divisions in society. As Strinati puts it,

`In the real world, "the people" do not exist. What does exist is a social structure called capitalism which consists of a series of unequal, divergent and competing economic, political and cultural interests, and "the people" are conjured into existence only in the face of - an as a mask for - this structure of interests'

This argument echoes the arguments of Lukes for the `third', radical dimension of power (see Power and Human Resource Management notes) and also Fox's critique of unitarist and pluralist theories of industrial relations. It is therefore vulnerable to the same criticism. Namely, that `interests' do not exist objectively, and cannot be attributed by fiat by the analyst. Rather, it is necessary to appreciate how interests are socially organised and defined. Having said that, it is also relevant to acknowledge the historical contexts in which `interests' are formed and pursued.

Specifically, it is relevant to note that contemporary (economic) populism is founded upon the assumption that the individual will be materially better off when s/he is free to pursue self-interest unhampered by collectivist institutions, such as trade unions or `Nannying' legislation. The principle is that such institutions should be `rolled back' to allow market mechanisms to operate efficiently (and without the burden of supporting an extended state apparatus). The important point to note is that this philosophy reinforces a concern for individual material prosperity and therefore is vulnerable when this prosperity fails to materialise. To take a contemporary example, high interest rates can wipe out the benefit of tax cuts; and the philosophy of making each individual pay for the services s/he uses (regardless of their ability to pay) can result in substantial increases for many people in payments for local services. Such failures open an opportunity either for offering an alternative strategy which also promises to make individuals better off, thereby further reinforcing the same values and risking exposure to the same failures. Or it opens an opportunity to reflect critically upon the pursuit of individual self-interest as a means of enhancing collective prosperity.

Organisation and the State

An appreciation of the relationship between organisation and the state requires a consideration of: how organisation is accomplished and how the state is involved in the organisation of work.