Editing State (polity) (section)

===State and civil society===
In the classical thought, the state was identified with both political society and [[civil society]] as a form of political community, while the modern thought distinguished the [[nation state]] as a political society from civil society as a form of economic society.<ref name="zaleski">{{cite journal |last1=Zaleski |first1=Pawel |title=Tocqueville on Civilian Society: A Romantic Vision of the Dichotomic Structure of Social Reality |journal=Archiv für Begriffsgeschichte |date=2008 |volume=50 |pages=260–266 |doi=10.28937/9783787336746_12 |jstor=24360940 |s2cid=261197955 }}</ref>

Thus in the modern thought the state is contrasted with civil society.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ehrenberg, John |chapter=Civil Society and the State |title=Civil society: the critical history of an idea |publisher=NYU Press |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8147-2207-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/civilsocietycrit0000ehre|url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/civilsocietycrit0000ehre/page/109 109]}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Kaviraj, Sudipta |chapter=In search of civil society |editor=Kaviraj, Sudipta |editor2=Khilnani, Sunil |title=Civil society: history and possibilities |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-521-00290-5 |pages=291–293|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AOnRSNob2O8C&pg=PA291|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160501185609/https://books.google.com/books?id=AOnRSNob2O8C&pg=PA291 |archive-date=1 May 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Reeve, Andrew |chapter=Civil society |editor=Jones, R.J. Barry |title=Routledge Encyclopedia of International Political Economy: Entries P–Z |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2001 |isbn=978-0-415-24352-0 |pages=158–160|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a29qBofx8Y8C&pg=PA158|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160623201355/https://books.google.com/books?id=a29qBofx8Y8C&pg=PA158 |archive-date=23 June 2016}}</ref>

[[Antonio Gramsci]] believed that civil society is the primary locus of political activity because it is where all forms of "identity formation, ideological struggle, the activities of intellectuals, and the construction of [[hegemony]] take place." and that civil society was the nexus connecting the economic and political sphere. Arising out of the collective actions of civil society is what Gramsci calls "political society", which Gramsci differentiates from the notion of the state as a polity. He stated that politics was not a "one-way process of political management" but, rather, that the activities of civil organizations conditioned the activities of political parties and state institutions, and were conditioned by them in turn.<ref>{{cite book |author=Sassoon, Anne Showstack |title=Gramsci and contemporary politics: beyond pessimism of the intellect |publisher=Psychology Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-415-16214-2 |page=70 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gZQJgfmplQoC&pg=PA70|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160503105634/https://books.google.com/books?id=gZQJgfmplQoC&pg=PA70 |archive-date=3 May 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |chapter=Gramsci and international relations: a general perspective with examples from recent US policy towards the Third World |editor=Gill, Stephen |title=Gramsci, historical materialism and international relations |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=1993 |isbn=978-0-521-43523-9 |page=129|chapter-url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Opkof1vyDAgC&pg=PA129 |author1=Augelli, Enrico |author2=Murphy, Craig N. |name-list-style=amp|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160502034756/https://books.google.com/books?id=Opkof1vyDAgC&pg=PA129 |archive-date=2 May 2016}}</ref> [[Louis Althusser]] argued that civil organizations such as [[Christian church|church]], [[school]]s, and the [[family]] are part of an "[[Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses|ideological state apparatus]]" which complements the "[[Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses#Repressive state apparatuses|repressive state apparatus]]" (such as police and military) in reproducing social relations.<ref>{{cite book |author=Ferretter, Luke |title=Louis Althusser |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-415-32731-2 |page=85 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fn0ZLu27jVoC&pg=PA85}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |author=Flecha, Ramon |chapter= The Educative City and Critical Education |editor=Apple, Michael W.|display-editors=etal |title=The Routledge international handbook of critical education |publisher=Taylor & Francis |year=2009 |page=330|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hD3qp2tvrLcC&pg=PA330 |isbn=978-0-415-95861-5}}</ref><ref>Malešević, 2002: [https://books.google.com/books?id=Lc_nMFoGcYkC&pg=PA16 p. 16] {{webarchive|url= https://web.archive.org/web/20160723035005/https://books.google.com/books?id=Lc_nMFoGcYkC&pg=PA16 |date=23 July 2016 }}</ref>

[[Jürgen Habermas]] spoke of a [[public sphere]] that was distinct from both the economic and political sphere.<ref>{{Cite book |author1=Morrow, Raymond Allen |author2=Torres, Carlos Alberto |name-list-style=amp |title=Reading Freire and Habermas: critical pedagogy and transformative social change |publisher=Teacher's College Press |year=2002 |isbn=978-0-8077-4202-0 |page=[https://archive.org/details/readingfreirehab0000morr/page/77 77] |url=https://archive.org/details/readingfreirehab0000morr|url-access=registration}}</ref>

Given the role that many social groups have in the development of public policy and the extensive connections between state bureaucracies and other institutions, it has become increasingly difficult to identify the boundaries of the state. [[Privatization]], [[nationalization]], and the creation of new [[regulation|regulatory]] bodies also change the boundaries of the state in relation to society. Often the nature of quasi-autonomous organizations is unclear, generating debate among political scientists on whether they are part of the state or civil society. Some political scientists thus prefer to speak of policy networks and decentralized governance in modern societies rather than of state bureaucracies and direct state control over policy.<ref>{{cite book |author=Kjaer, Anne Mette |title=Governance |publisher=Wiley-Blackwell |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-7456-2979-7 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AY5SIsf1nI4C|url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160611003517/https://books.google.com/books?id=AY5SIsf1nI4C |archive-date=11 June 2016}} -- {{page needed|date=January 2011}}</ref>