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Abstract
We usually think that we know what 'the state' is, even when we embark on a theoretical quest for it. Somehow, the state is closely associated with Government ‐ including bureaucracy and army. Or we sometimes think of it differently, in terms of city‐state or nation‐state. I had the first notion in mind when I started to research the socioeconomic context of the making of the U.S. constitution. But the historical research forced me to face the vagueness of the concept, and to recognize that it is not only useless, but actually harmful in our understanding of modern societies. This paper is made‐up of three parts: the historical narrative of U.S. constitution‐making is sandwiched between, first, a deconstruction of the concept of state and, third, an attempt at establishing a new concept of state. I discard along the way the dichotomies of state/civil society and base/superstructure. And I argue for a close integration of theory and history in social analysis.

This paper examines the optimal environmental policy in a mixed oligopoly when pollution accumulates over time. Specifically, we assume quantity competition between several private firms and one partially privatized firm. The optimal emission tax is shown to be independent of the weight the privatized firm puts on social welfare. The optimal tax rule, the accumulated stock of pollution, firms' production paths and profit streams are identical irrespective of the public firm's ownership status.

This paper studies the effects of uncoordinated environmental tax policies on firms' incentives to form bilateral R&D collaborations. It is shown that the complete network is pair-wise stable for small differences in the taxation of environmental emissions. Larger tax differentials may induce firms to abandon all their international collaborations.

Cet article étudie la relation entre la formation de L'État canadien et la construction des identités amérindiennes, au moyen de la fonction légitimante des commissions d'enquête, pour la période allant de la Loi constitutionnelle, 1982 au rapport de la Commission royale sur les peuples autochtones en 1996. Nous examinons, en particulier, dans quelle mesure le rapport de la CRPA « normalise » des narratifs de politique amérindienne déjà présents, les stabilisant en une hiérarchie rigide de revendications qui s'appuie sur le modèle de la nation. L'analyse se concentre sur le positionnement problématique des Amérindiens urbains et des Indiens sans statut face à la « nation », ce qui mène à leur marginalisation dans les débats politiques actuels.This paper examines the relationship between Canadian state formation and the construction of Aboriginal identities via the legitimating function of the public inquiry, for the period from the adoption of the Constitution Act, 1982 to the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (1996). Specifically, we examine the extent to which the RCAP Report "normalizes" pre‐existing narratives regarding Aboriginal politics into a rigid hierarchy of claims privileging the nation model and those Aboriginals with a land base. We argue that the nation model is reinforced, legitimized and publicized through the RCAP Report's function as a legitimating tool of the state.