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Recent economic, democratic and geopolitical events have raised the question of ‘the state' anew, as problems of territory, sovereignty, protectionism, borders, authoritarianism and surveillance have acquired fresh salience amongst both scholars and wider publics. Members of the Economy & Society Editorial Board convened a seminar at University College London in February 2025 to address these questions and problems, on the guiding assumption that there was no single or unambiguous new tendency or paradigm at work, but rather heterogeneous and as-yet under-theorised new types of state effect unfolding. This paper collects those contributions. In previous crises and conjunctures, this journal has challenged orthodox narratives regarding the relationship of states and markets, and the centrality of the state in political imaginaries and discourses. The paper aims to reflect on that legacy and update how the problem of the state may appear, from rival and not necessarily compatible vantage points.
Davies et al. (2026) studied this question.