Comment on the post-colonial theory of the state in about 150 words.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Route 1 post-decolonisation, sovereign but built on inherited colonial apparatus → Brar’s relabeling
Route 2 modern apparatus grafted onto a non-modern base → category defined by that mismatch
common insight = apparatus-base mismatch → Riggs’s prismatic society (formalism, modern + traditional coexist) → Myrdal’s soft state (institutions can’t enforce rules → blocks poverty alleviation) → Alavi’s overdeveloped state (superstructure outgrows base → relative autonomy → military-bureaucratic oligarchy, Pakistan)
thin as a unified state theory → Myrdal’s cultural determinism + Alavi freezing class at independence
Route 1 still explains why coercive, top-heavy institutions outlived colonialism
Route 2 best read as a colonial apparatus over a weak base, theorised from three angles
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
Also asked on this head
Theories of the State — 9 questions in the Vault.
- What is the Marxist and liberal approach towards the state? On what grounds are the theoretical differences between them premised? Explain.
- Comment on the pluralist theory of the state in about 150 words.
- Examine the liberal theory of the State in contemporary politics.
How this is taught
The same flow snapshot, built for every head of the syllabus, with the answer written in class.
The first session of Foundation 2027 is published in full.
Six programmes across three levels.