Stating the Difference: State, Discourse and Class Reproduction in Uttar Pradesh, India Craig Jeffrey and Jens Lerche ABSTRACT Much development literature concerned with state±society relations operates with a simplistic state±people dichotomy. In contrast, this article focuses on the intersection between state and society and argues that this plays an important part in class reproduction in `civil society'. This issue is explored with reference to the role of the local state in class reproduction in the Indian countryside. The focus is on the means by which rural social groups negotiate access to the local state and discourses surrounding the state. The balance of colonization, co-option and opposition that characterizes the relationship between dominant rural classes and local state officials/institutions is examined against the impact of the rise of a populist low class party. It is argued that the intersection between `class' and `state' is closer than even critical studies of state±society relations have posited. Moreover, the state can, within certain limits, be brought to serve interests other than those of the dominant classes. INTRODUCTION As far as consensus goes within the international development process, the common priority given to the `local' in the third world today is remarkable. The theoretical and practical space occupied by the state is being squeezed from both the international and the local sides. Globalization processes, the growing strength of international free market promoting institutions and the application of conditionalities to development aid are said to limit the room for manoeuvre of the nation-state. Simultaneously, actors as diverse as the World Bank, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and new social movements are apparently united in a quest to move power from third world states to local people and decentralized government institutions. There has been a parallel shift in focus away from the national level and the nation-state in scholarly circles. Studies emphasizing globalization and decentralization abound. Moreover, a group of scholars, partly inspired by the work of post-structuralist writers such as Foucault, and often drawing on ethnographic material based on intensive `local' fieldwork, have sought to identify `alternatives to development', not development alternatives (Escobar, 1992: 27, 22; emphasis in original). Development and Change Vol. 31 (2000), 857±878. # Institute of Social Studies 2000. Published by Blackwell Publishers, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK.