Varieties of Political Experience

Poggi's essays on central topics in political sociology reflect the formidable depth and breadth of his scholarship. Learned, lively, and with a critical edge, they cast historical as well as contemporary light on many corners of politics, the state, civil society and the economy. -- Charles Raab, University of Edinburgh

Over the decades, Gianfranco Poggi's work has acquired classic status within scholarship on political power, the nature of the state and its historical development. The texts assembled in this volume are testament to the author's unique skills in bridging political theory, political sociology and public law, and link his empirical investigation to the great sociological tradition of the nineteenth and twentieth century from Tocqueville and Marx, to Weber, Parsons and Lipset, including neglected scholars such as Heinrich Popitz. This volume includes new additions to Poggi's invaluable contribution to the understanding of the state in our present time and of the challenges that its national, liberal and social features face in the age of globalisation. -- Daniele Caramani, University of Zurich

This collection is simply full of treats. It has all the generosity of spirit and intellect of its author, whose contribution to our understanding of the state and power over the years has been significant. Gianfranco Poggi is not afraid to tackle big issues and survey large conceptual landscapes with refreshingly scant regard to distinctions between sociology, political theory, political science and public law, and with a profound understanding of the classical tradition. These essays – some published, others not, or not yet in English – cover themes he takes to be ‘upstream’ from the state: power and the political. He writes here with his customary energy, panache and infectious enthusiasm. This alone would make this a very welcome contribution, but he has a further gift for the Anglophone reader: a translation of a section of Heinrich Popitz’s Phänomene der Macht. -- Alan Scott, University of Innsbruck

Poggi reflects on one of the two central subjects of his life of writing – power, particularly political, and its institutional embodiments. These reflections are deeply enriched by his mastery of another subject – the writings of virtually everyone who has thought well about such matters. The book distils, clarifies and theorises vast and complex historical processes, paying equal attention to the constants of human affairs and to their numerous transformations. These are sorted, and their movements plotted, with magisterial command. He illuminates the nouns of power and politics – state, society, economy, politics, law; the many adjectives by which they come to be qualified, amended and transformed over millennia; and the interactions among all of the above. His ability to bear heavy weight lightly, to combine erudition of remarkable depth with deftness and lightness of touch, also makes this work that rare thing in social science: a truly engaging, spirited, and splendid read. -- Martin Krygier, University of New South Wales

This book reflects the intellectual trajectory of Gianfranco Poggi; his preferred themes – the relationships between different forms of power, the modern state and its juridical/bureaucratic underpinning, the changing organisation of civil society and its relation to political authority – and his preferred authors, from Weber to Popitz. It also reflects Poggi’s continuous attention to the main social science debates, which he divests of fashionable conceptual innovations to uncover the old concerns beneath. The book is also testament to the author’s ability to frame pressing contemporary issues through classic social theories and concepts, revealing their relevance to our understanding of where we stand, and where we might go. It is a small book, magnificently written and argued. Reading it is pleasure and enlightenment. -- Stefano Bartolini, European University Institute

Born in Italy in 1934, Gianfranco Poggi received his first degree in Law (Padua, 1956), and subsequently a master’s and a doctorate in Sociology at Berkeley (1958, 1963). After some teaching experiences at Bologna and Florence, in 1964 he joined the newly formed Department of Sociology at the University of Edinburgh. In 1988 he moved to the University of Virginia, leaving it in 1996 for a post at the European University Institute in Florence. He completed his academic career at the University of Trento, residing in the town until he passed away in 2023. Gianfranco Poggi has published widely in two main fields of scholarship – history of social thought (studies of Tocqueville, Marx, Weber, Durkheim, Simmel) and the analysis of modern political institutions (books on the modern state and on forms of social power). Some of his books from both fields have been translated into several languages.