Introduction

This introductory article presents an overview of the collection. It places its importance in relation to relevant literature and critically highlights the importance of and contributions to each of the articles in this collection. The introduction also stresses the importance of continuing to study the state, particularly from the perspective of the Global South. This entails looking at the state both as an real “thing” as an object of theory. The Introduction emphasizes the polycentric understanding of the state that the collection adopts and the diversity and complementarity between the articles presented. Above all the Introduction highlights the relevance, importance and originality of the collection of articles as a whole and as individual pieces of scholarship.