ABSTRACT
In this chapter I set out a broad characterisation of the argument of the book as a whole and a guide to the chapters that follow. I introduce the constitutionalist and constructionist approaches in turn, setting out the broad bases from which they proceed with reference to an example drawn from the work of artist and novelist Alasdair Gray. I then offer initial indications of the limitations of both positions as well as of the core argument of the book: that the problem of the state should be treated as a problem for the social and political sciences by investigating the ways in which it is treated as a problem in and for social and political practice. I will argue that recognising this enables us to move beyond the impasses that have characterised studies of the state certainly for the last 50 years if not much of the century before. Studies of the state have traditionally begun by asking who and what make up the state – the constitutionalist perspective – but have come to ask, more recently, how states come to be made up in the ways that they are – the constructionist perspective. However, while asking who, what and how can be useful, we also need to ask where, when, under what conditions and for whom these questions arise in the context of social and political practices.
