ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the long-term development of the state in terms of its developmental dynamic. After opening with a discussion of the 2008 crisis and the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic as well as the trajectory of so-called neoliberalism, the chapter analyses each of the capacities of the state as well as its strengthening, until it articulates the concept of total state power, which brings those capabilities together and points to their development. Those capabilities are taxation, managing, moulding, surveillance, coercion, materialisation as well as the meta-legal one. The chapter ends by asking whether the post-pandemic period is witnessing a new shift in the role of the state in social life in the aftermath of the pandemic, suggesting that, in view of the available empirical evidence, this is indeed the case.
