In this volume. Heide Gerstenberger investigates the development of bourgeois state power by on the one hand proposing a critique of different variants of the structural-functionalist theory of the state and on the other hand analysing the examples of England and France. The central thesis of the work is that the bourgeois form of capitalist state power arose only where capitalist societies developed out of state structures that were already rationalised.

Heide Gerstenberger, Prof. Dr., has taught 'Theory of state and society' at the University of Bremen from 1974 to 2005. She has published extensively on state theory, social analysis as well as on the history and the present conditions of seafaring.