Abstract
Teleological accounts of the state are examined and rejected owing both to inherent problems with teleology and to methodological individualism. A new theory of the state is presented, in which the state is a bundle or agglomeration of uses of the political means—that is, uses of violence—that do not necessarily serve any coherent purpose. The sorites paradox is deployed as a tool to consider anarchies, states and utopias of various descriptions. The state emerges not as a discrete set of entities, but as a discursive formation.
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Kuznicki, J. (2017). The State Is a Bundle. In: Technology and the End of Authority. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48692-5_9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-48692-5_9
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-48691-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-48692-5
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