Dimensions of Local State Autonomy

Abstract

A materialist theory of the capitalist state construes the local state as an apparatus of crisis-management and ideological hegemony over spatially extensive and heterogeneous jurisdictions. Evidence from the State of Massachusetts (as an example) confirms that local state autonomy is subordinate to central state authority. Legal and constitutional arrangements, categorical transfer payments, standardized transfer formulae and implementation standards are shown to be important control mechanisms of the central state.