ABSTRACT
Beginning from recent debates about the ways in which state-ness is imagined, performed and produced, this chapter examines some of the problems that arise when principles and practices of coercion are contemplated. I suggest that the exercise of state power in coercive forms raises analytical problems for the practice of reimagining. In this piece, I explore two particular problems that coercion raises in trying to reimagine the state for progressive purposes. First, there are questions about what sorts of issues might demand the deployment of coercive powers. What sorts of social protection may state power be deployed to provide: for whom and against what threats or risks? What sorts of violence and injustice might be contested or remedied through the exercise of state power? Through what means might social, economic and organisational compliance to progressive policies be enforced? Second, there are persistent issues about how to ensure the compliance of the apparatuses, agencies and agents of state power to any programme of progressive policies. Existing approaches to this question of aligning state apparatuses and personnel have included changing collective/occupational cultures, changing the agents, deploying new techniques and technologies of control and, not least, trying to establish popular control over policies, personnel and practices.
