Sociologica, 2/2010 - Copyright © 2010 by Società editrice il Mulino, Bologna. 1 Essays State Transformation or Regime Shift? Addressing Some Confusions in the Theory and Sociology of the State by Paul du Gay and Alan Scott doi: 10.2383/32707 Denn wer in aller Welt ist denn “der Staat”…? [Weber 1917, 267] 1 x Introduction Political sociology and state theory display two characteristics common across the social sciences. First, the various schools or strands work in relative isolation from each other. Even the terms “political sociology” and “state theory” mark these dif- ferences: the former generally codes a broadly Weberian approach, the latter a neo- Marxist one. Key theorists within one strand – say, Tilly, Mann, or Jessop – will rarely be referred to by those working in another. These walls serve a purpose: each posi- tion is able to develop its analysis without interference. They also have a paradoxical outcome: unless one assumes some strong version of relativism in which criteria of sameness are internal to paradigms, the same, or at least very similar, debates go on in parallel but seemingly with relatively little mutual awareness. Secondly, a lot of work in this area is concerned with identifying, generally relatively recent, transformations of “the state,” frequently in epochal terms. The dominant image is that of a before and after, the latter often designated by the simple prefix “post.” Both of these tendencies are apparent in recent accounts of changes in the nature of the state. It has been widely recognized that in order to develop a social- scientific analysis of changes in the form and capacity of the contemporary state a base-line model has to be constructed to provide such a before-and-after portrait: State T 1 and T 2 . How that model is constructed differs according to theoretical stance. In regulation theory, as it has been developed notably by Bob Jessop [e.g,. 2002] and x 1 For who on earth is the “state…”? [Weber 1994, 104].