Editing State (polity) (section)

===State autonomy within institutionalism===
{{Main|New institutionalism}}

State autonomy theorists believe that the state is an entity that is impervious to external social and economic influence and that it has interests of its own.<ref name="sklair-2004-139-140">{{Cite book | author=Sklair, Leslie |chapter=Globalizing class theory |editor=Sinclair, Timothy |title=Global governance: critical concepts in political science |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-415-27665-8 |pages=139–140|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1xs_MGAo3zgC&pg=PA139|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160519041724/https://books.google.com/books?id=1xs_MGAo3zgC&pg=PA139 |archive-date=19 May 2016}}</ref>

"New institutionalist" writings on the state, such as the works of [[Theda Skocpol]], suggest that state actors are to an important degree autonomous. In other words, state personnel have interests of their own, which they can and do pursue independently of (and at times in conflict with) actors in society. Since the state controls the means of coercion, and given the dependence of many groups in civil society on the state for achieving any goals they may espouse, state personnel can to some extent impose their own preferences on civil society.<ref name="AUTOREF10" />