State Autonomy Analysis

State autonomy analysis treats the state not as a neutral arena or a simple instrument of the dominant class but as an organization with interests, capacities, and powers of its own. Crystallized in the 1985 volume Bringing the State Back In edited by Evans, Rueschemeyer, and Skocpol, and given a sharp conceptual edge by Michael Mann's 1984 distinction between despotic and infrastructural power, the framework asks two linked questions: how far can a state formulate goals independent of the preferences of dominant social classes (autonomy), and how effectively can it actually implement those goals across its territory (capacity)? The approach reoriented comparative political economy away from purely society-centered explanations.