PYQ Vault · Paper 1 · Theories of the State
Critically examine the neo-liberal theory of the State.
How the answer moves
The flow snapshot — the routes in, the body, the counter-view and the routes out.
Flow snapshot — how the answer moves
Intro routes
R1 market-centred theory → not abolition but rollback of welfare → state as facilitator of markets revival of 19th-c liberalism → rose late 1970s against welfare-state crisis → “market fundamentalism”
Body flow
individual + market primacy → Hayek (The Road to Serfdom: planning → lost liberty; social justice a mirage) → Nozick (Anarchy, State, and Utopia: minimal night-watchman, redistribution illegitimate) → programme (privatisation, deregulation, free trade, austerity).. Thatcher's TINA → Thatcherism / Reaganism / LPG 1991 / Washington Consensus
Counter-view
Polanyi (markets need the state to exist) → 2008 crisis → inequality / wealth concentration → Stiglitz “failed ideology”
Conclusion routes
minimal state utopian → market rests on state enforcement → not state vs market but what kind of state social-liberal synthesis (Rawls / Sen / Dworkin) → private growth + state capacity + civil-society accountability
Model answer
Handwritten, in the form it would be written in the examination hall.
