Part 1 Introduction: what is politics?; power and state. Part 2 The liberal-democratic state and its power structure - critical pwerspectives on the liberal-democratic state: the liberal-democratic state - democracy and liberalism, theory and practice; the pluralist view of politics; the elitist theory of politics; the Marxist view of power; feminism and the state - gender, power, feminism and power. Part 3 Rivals to the liberal-democratic state: the communist state and its collapse; the fascist and the authoritarian state; nationalism and the nationalist state. Part 4 Conclusion - the state today: which theory, which reality?; challenges to the state in the contemporary world.
