Considerations on the Relevance of Political Crisis Theories

Considerations on the relevance of political crisis theories The paper will try to assess the relevance of the so called political/state theoretical crisis theories (O’Connor 1987) which were developed by people like Nicos Poulantzas (2008), Claus Offe (1973) and Jürgen Habermas (1972) in the wake of the crisis of Fordism, for a deeper understanding of the current crisis of capitalism/finance dominated accumulation. These approaches, which rested on the assumption that the accumulation process had become inextricable intertwined with political and administrative activities, tried to understand the role of the state as a crucial factor in the crisis of (fordist) capitalism. This not only, because the interventionist state of Fordism tried to implement a range of measures to manage the crisis but even more so because it had appropriated at least certain functions of the crisis. Thus, the question will be raised whether these approaches could be actualized to deepen the critical understanding of the current crisis. Due to their state theoretical fundaments the aforementioned theories raise the question about the connection between the crisis processes and the attempts to manage them on the one hand and the transformations of the divisions of labour and relations of production as well as the reproduction of labour power through the different arms of the welfare system on the other. By focusing on the connections between the reconfigurations of the divisions of labour and welfare to manage the crisis of Fordism the paper will try to assess current dominant strategies to tackle the crisis.