Introduction

After some terminological preliminaries, Part II is organized around four questions: How frequently and to what extent are states autonomous? What conditions promote state autonomy? What are the consequences of different forms of state autonomy for government policies? How do bureaucrats and politicians manage to become autonomous under democratic conditions? The traditional marxist view of state autonomy as contingent on class relations is juxtaposed to the "state-centric" approach which takes state autonomy as a methodological postulate. The analysis of the consequences of different forms of autonomy is based on the neo-classical approach to economic history. Finally, models of autonomous bureaus and legislatures under democracy are placed within the context of institutional and economic constraints.