Poulantzas, Nicos

GORRITI, JACINTA

Encyclopedia of Critical Political Science

Edward Elgar Publishing

Lugar: Cheltenham; Año: 2024; p. 673 - 674

Nicos Poulantzas (b. Athens, September 21, 1936–d. Paris, October 3, 1979) is a standardreference in studies on the Marxist theory of the capitalist state. Poulantzas’ intellectual legacy unfolded between the mid-1960s through the 1970s. He was Professor of Sociology at the University of Paris VIII (Vincennes-Saint Denis). During his life, Poulantzas published Political Power and Social Classes (1978 [1968]), Fascism and Dictatorship (1974 [1970]), Classes in Contemporary Capitalism [1974], The Crisis of the Dictatorships (1976b), and State, Power, Socialism (1980). From his early writings on law to his later interventions on socialism and democracy, Poulantzas addressed crucial questions within Marxist political theory (Jessop 1991), such as the relation between the State and social classes, the rise of authoritarian statism, the links between national and international processes of production, the problem of imperialism, and strategies for a transition to socialism. As Jessop points out (1985), Poulantzas’ thought originates in three sources (apart from the classics of Marxism): French philosophy (i.e., Jean-Paul Sartre’s existentialism, Louis Althusser’s structuralism, and Michel Foucault’s micropolitics), Italian politics (Antonio Gramsci and, later, Pietro Ingrao’s left Eurocommunist tendency), and Romano-German law (especially, the works of Hans Kelsen)