The state in Pierre Bourdieu's sociology

The subject of our study is to systematically bring to light the thoughts of Pierre Bourdieu, who has an important place in French sociology and is mostly known for his French identity, on the state. He is an influential name in 21st century French sociology. Our study has been brought together by focusing especially on the issues in his world of ideas. In particular, his understanding of the state, which is an important concept in political sociology, which constitutes the main theme of our study, has been emphasized. The phenomenon of state is one of the important concepts of political science. Nowadays, it appears frequently in political sociology. In this study, we similarly focused on Bourdieu's theory of the state, which is an important phenomenon in political sociology, and his thoughts on the understanding of the state were revealed. Bourdieu made a dual definition while explaining his theory of the state. Bourdieu was particularly influenced by Max Weber's definition of the pre-modern and post-modern state and its theoretical foundations. In this definition, Weber considered the state as a phenomenon that holds the monopoly of physical violence over a certain territory. Bourdieu added the dimension of symbolism to this definition. He also analyzed the basic structure of the state in the context of symbolic power and symbolic violence. Finally, in this thesis, Bourdieu's ideas on the stages of the formation of the state are included. While examining these stages, a four-tier order was used; these were determined as the stages of capital concentration, dynastic state, from the king's house to the state mind and from the bureaucratic state to the welfare state. Bourdieu also utilized 4 models in the formation of the modern state, the first of which is Norbert Elias, the second is Charles Tilly, the third is Philip Corrigan and the fourth is Derek Sayer. As a result, in our study, we have tried to give all the features of Bourdieu's state theory.