ABSTRACT
These concluding reflections review the contribution of the volume to the task of reimagining the state for progressive politics. We highlight how different forms of critical theory offer resources for rethinking and reimagining states, politics and power. We show how alternative ways of theorising states – as decentred, prefigurative, emergent – open up political possibilities. This, in turn, draws attention to the importance of what we term ‘the politics of representation’. Here, we review contributions that have challenged hierarchical orderings of ‘strong’ and ‘weak’ states, or of colonial and post-colonial powers. Finally, we turn to the ways in which the volume offers possibilities of progressive, transformative change, while emphasising the significance of contradictions and ambivalences surrounding political experimentation in troubled times.
