Conjunctural Analysis (written for Transform, 2012)

Bob Jessop
Conjunctural analysis is useful in many fields but has special theoretical and
practical significance for critical political economy and left strategy. For the pursuit of
politics as the art of the possible depends heavily on correct conjunctural analysis
and is practised by most successful political forces. Its central role for left politics is
seen in the analyses of Marx and Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky, Otto Bauer,
Gramsci, Mao Zedong, Althusser, Poulantzas, and Stuart Hall, among many others.
For Lenin, the central focus of political analysis and action is the concrete analysis of
a concrete situation (1920: 165) oriented to the correlation of forces. And, for
Althusser, the key concept of a Marxist science of politics is the conjuncture: the
exact balance of forces, state of overdetermination of the contradictions at any given
moment to which political tactics must be applied (1970: 311).
A sound conjunctural analysis depends on: (a) an appropriate set of concepts for
moving from basic structural features to immediate strategic concerns; (b) the spatiotemporal horizons of action that define the conjuncture; (c) a clear account of
medium- and long-term goals that should guide strategy and tactics in the current
moment; and (d) ethico-political commitments that set limits to acceptable action in
particular contexts on the grounds that the ends do not always justify any means.
Moreover, because ones strategy depends on the likely responses of other key
social forces, one must map their conjunctural analyses too. There is scope for
infinite reciprocal regress here but it is lower in periods of relative stability that
promote stable expectations or, conversely, in the face of urgent crises calling for
immediate action. Multi-faceted crises that build over time with sudden, acute phases
are more disorienting and place the heaviest demands on conjunctural analysis.
Such analyses pose problems of periodization, i.e., the identification of continuities
and discontinuities in the situation of action, of discontinuities in continuity and
continuities in discontinuity, and the dissolution-conservation effects that come from
strategic interventions to modify the correlation of forces and bring about social

transformation. Time can enter strategic calculation in five main ways: chronicle,
narrative, genealogy, chronology, and periodization.
A chronicle is a simple list of events that occur at the same time or that follow one
another in time. It involves little attempt at interpretation or explanation apart from
what is implicit in the categories used to describe the event (e.g., strike, riot, market
crash, electoral defeat). Comparing analyses produced by different social forces can
provide important clues about their selective perception, the events they consider
important, and the categories used to name or classify them. For example, timelines
in mainstream media on the current crisis privilege economic events, policy shifts,
and trends in public debt and tend to ignore its broader social impact. They can
provide a basis for Ideologiekritik and exploring power/knowledge relations.
A narrative emplots selected past events and forces in terms of a temporal sequence
with a beginning, middle, and end in a story that embodies causal and moral
lessons. For example, neo-liberals narrated how trade union power and the welfare
state undermined economic growth in the 1970s and called for more market, less
state. The Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements offer sometimes
convergent, more often divergent narratives about the recent crisis and reach
radically different conclusions about the appropriate response. Their co-existence is
an important indicator of the current correlation of forces. Narratives play a key role
in strategic action because they can simplify complex problems, identify simple
solutions, connect to common sense and mobilize popular support. Narratives need
not be scientifically valid and, indeed, are often more powerful by virtue of what
Spivak (1988) has termed a strategic essentialism that enables coalitions to be
formed (a good example is found in the Manifesto of the Communist Party).
A genealogy traces the heterogeneous origins of various elements that are later
combined into a coherent structure that is subsequently reproduced more or less
systematically. An example is Marx's account of the genesis of the capitalist mode of
production from many individual processes and events that permitted the eventual
encounter of capitalists with capital and workers who owned only their labour-power.
Genealogies have a role to play in tracing the multiple causes of crises and
identifying potential points of disruption and deconstruction.
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Genealogy

Time

Chronology

Evolutionary time of
Time as neutral
variation-selectionmetric to distinguish
retention and/or time succession of events
of active bricolage
in past and present

Periodization
Evolutionary time
with attention to
temporalities of
different processes
and social relations

Time Scale

Can be unilinear or
multiple depends
on the object of the
genealogy

Orders events and

actions in unilinear
clock, calendrical, or
geological time

Multiple time scales

to order events and
actions in terms of
plural time horizons

Time Frame

Essentially
retrospective

Simple coincidence
or succession in time

May be linked to
future scenarios

Traces origins back

in time and requires
view on how to avoid
infinite regress

Succession of
present times if
made in real time or
reconstructs past
from perspective of
present

Differential sets of
constraints/
opportunities for
social forces over
different horizons
and action sites

Variation-selectionretention

Simple narrative with

beginning, middle,
and end

Complex narratives
or explanations
based on contingent
necessities and a
dialectic of pathdependency and
path-shaping

Temporal
Horizon

Type of
Explanation

Chance encounter
or discovery
Assemblage,
bricolage

Oriented to causal
and/or moral lessons

Box 1: Genealogy, Chronology, and Periodization and Conjunctural Analysis

A chronology describes the unfolding or succession of a complex series of discrete

events and processes, presenting them on a unilinear time scale that serves as a
neutral metric (e.g., clock time, geological time, or socially relevant markers such as
business or electoral cycles). While a chronicle lists empirical events, often without
regard to their conjunctural significance, a chronology links events and processes in
post hoc, propter hoc fashion, in which the past explains the present in terms of
more or less complex chains of action and reaction. Chronologies are often a first
step in producing periodizations but can never substitute for a correct periodization.

A periodization orders actions, events, or periods in terms of multiple time horizons

(e.g., the event, trends, longue dure; the time-frame of economic calculation versus
that of political cycles) and focuses on their conjunctural implications (as specific
mixes of constraints and opportunities) for different social forces over different time
horizons and/or different sites of social action. It connects one or more complex
series of historical events and processes and examines their uneven development
across different fields of social action; and it explains them in terms of the linkages
among underlying causal mechanisms. Its explanatory framework can underpin a
complex narrative and also identify the nodal points for strategic intervention the
points of intersection where decisive action can make a difference. There is no
master periodization they are constructed for specific purposes and vary with the
strategic position and interests of those who construct them. Most Marxist
conjunctural analyses take account of stages and steps in the class struggle; other
approaches may be more concerned with other sets of social forces.
A Strategic-Relational Approach
Conjunctural analysis is a common practice in the business and economic field, tied
to investment decisions, economic policy, crisis-management, and historical
interpretation. This can be a relatively mechanical exercise based on the intersection
of processes with different rhythms, e.g., inventory cycles, fixed investment cycles,
infrastructural investment cycles, and long waves of technological innovation and
exhaustion. This produces an understanding of conjunctures based on the
mechanical interaction of law-like cycles. From this viewpoint, conjunctures primarily
affect the timing of decisions or the choice of routines (including crisis-management
routines) rather than requiring a flexible choice of strategy and tactics.
This structurally-oriented approach can be extended by introducing cycles from other
fields of analysis, such as electoral cycles, long term swings in public sentiment, the
rise and fall of Great Powers due to imperial overstretch, and so on. The more cycles
are introduced, the more overdetermined is the conjuncture. This holds especially
where the cycles are not simply mechanically superimposed but modify each other
through their interaction in often unpredictable ways.

Whereas the preceding analytical approach is primarily oriented to observation of

historical trends that may inform the timing of decisions or the choice among pregiven

policy

sets

(e.g.,

Keynesian

contra-cyclical

demand

management),

strategically-oriented conjunctural analysis allows for path-shaping as well as pathdependency. The latter is oriented to the past in the present, i.e., how prior
development determines future trajectories. Path-shaping starts from the current
situation and assumes a more or less open future. It implies that social forces can
intervene in current conjunctures and actively re-articulate them to create new
possibilities. This means, in short, that social forces make their own history but not in
circumstances of their own choosing. This is why correct conjunctural analysis
matters (see below).
A full conjunctural analysis moves beyond a concern with the coincidence and/or
succession of events and processes to analyse the uneven, differential strategic
implications of this con-junction or coming together of multiple processes, actions,
and events. A key feature of such a strategic-relational approach is its concern with
the strategic possibilities that a specific period gives for different actors, different
identities, different interests, different coalition possibilities, different horizons of
action, different strategies, and different tactics. No period offers the same
possibilities to all actors, identities, interests, coalitions, horizons of action,
strategies, tactics and hence that several periodizations may be needed even for one
object of analysis. This presupposes commitment to political action rather than
disinterested observation or, at least, requires the observer to switch among the
strategic perspectives of specific social forces with specific identities, interests, and
political objectives. It follows that concepts of strategy and tactics must be placed at
the centre of a strategic-relational analysis of periods and, in particular, conjunctures.
Conjunctural analysis can be assessed in terms of the usual canons of scientific
validity but this is an insufficient test of their correctness not only because of the
usual tendencies towards the contamination of scientific inquiry by extra-scientific
considerations that merit the own critique but also because something more is
expected of conjunctural analysis. At stake is their correctness, i.e., their capacity to
identify what exists in potential in a given conjuncture and to provide sound
guidelines to turn these potentials into reality through transformative action. Thus
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correctness depends on the limits set by the objective nature of conjunctures and the
power of strategic perspectives. What is correct logically (in reading a conjuncture)
and chronologically (in terms of prior appeal or imposition of a reading) matters more
than what is true. A correct reading can create its own truth-effects. Thus, to
paraphrase Gramsci, there is a world of difference between conjunctural analyses
[he writes of ideologies] that are arbitrary, rationalistic, and willed and those that are
organic, i.e., offer a sound objective analysis in terms of the correlation of forces and
the strategic horizons of action of the social forces whose ideal and material interests
it represents (see also Lecercle 2006: 40-41).
Two Conjunctural Analysts
An important and innovative analyst of conjunctures, especially through the concepts
elaborated in his prison notebooks, was Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937). He inspired
many others, including the Greek communist thinker, Nicos Poulantzas (1936-1979),
who offers further major insights for conjunctural analysis. Many of Gramscis
analyses concern conjunctures, their strategic implications, and the most suitable
strategic lines of action. For example, he drew a broad contrast between the
revolutionary strategies appropriate to the East (where the state was despotic and
civil society gelatinous) and the West (where state power rested on hegemony
armoured by coercion and involved civil as well as political society). Among his key
conjunctural and strategic concepts are: war of position, war of manoeuvre, unstable
equilibrium of forces, different levels of analysis of the balance of forces,
intellectuals, parties, power bloc, class alliances, and the international conjuncture.
Poulantzas built on the analyses of Marx, Engels, Lenin and, notably, Gramsci but
took them to new heights in his account of the rise of fascism and, later, the collapse
of the military dictatorships in Greece, Portugal, and Spain. A key argument was that
interests cannot be defined outside a specific horizon of action, i.e., the range of
feasible alternatives in a given spatio-temporal context. This requires analysis of the
objective situation and the correlation of forces, including feasible alliances among
relevant forces in different phases of an unfolding situation. This analysis should
assess what is possible in a given spatio-temporal horizon of action and identify
strategies oriented to winning the most that is possible within this horizon neither
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over-reaching in a form of revolutionary maximalism nor falling back into a defeatist

fatalism or passive support for the lesser evil rather than seeking to advance the
prospects for future progress. While maximalism can lead to disastrous failures,
defeatism and policies of the lesser evil can lead to popular demobilization,
demoralization, and an individualistic turn to private solutions.
Fascism and Dictatorship (1974) applied these propositions to the rise of fascism as
a process with successive steps in a complex war of position and manoeuvre.
Poulantzas distinguished periods in terms of the politically dominant force was the
bourgeoisie or working class (or there was an unstable equilibrium of compromise)
and the nature of their connections to potential allies among other classes and within
the state apparatus, broadly conceived. Here and in his analysis of the crisis of the
dictatorships, he included the implications of the international situation for the
economic conjuncture, class relations, and risks of foreign intervention. Thus he
distinguished periods and conjunctures in terms of whether the bourgeoisie or
working class was engaged in, or could launch, a strategic offensive and whether
this should be met with a counter-offensive or defensive steps. Reading the
correlation of forces correctly was crucial to avoiding offensive steps during a phase
when defensive measures were more appropriate, and vice versa.
The first error is exemplified in the Cominterns view of the economic crisis as the
long-awaited moment for a revolutionary offensive and the false conclusion that, in
this offensive, the main enemy was social democracy rather than Nazism. This error
derived in part from a simple-minded economism according to which the Great
Depression doomed capitalism to collapse. With hindsight, Poulantzas read the
conjuncture differently. He insisted that the bourgeoisie held the dominant position in
the class struggle throughout the rise and consolidation of fascism. After a failed
working class offensive in an open war of manoeuvre in the preceding period, there
was a phase of relative stabilization before the bourgeoisie embarked on its own
offensive to smash the organizational bases of the labour movement and reverse its
earlier economic and political gains. He concluded that fascism corresponds to an
offensive step by the bourgeoisie and required a defensive step by the working
class. This was not a period of terminal decline for capitalism but a period of
structural economic crisis overdetermined by a dual crisis of hegemony affecting

hegemony within the power bloc and over the popular masses and a generalized
ideological crisis in which the Weimar Republic and its institutions had lost
legitimacy. The installation of an exceptional regime (fascist dictatorship) created the
conditions to restore capitalist domination and prepare for imperialist wars.
Regarding democratic transition in Greece, Poulantzas (1977) argued that the
communist movement had to choose between prioritizing the consolidation of
bourgeois democracy or polarizing forces in a rush towards an anti-monopolistic,
democratic socialism. Because its leaders expected a continuous, uninterrupted path
from a united front against dictatorship to a democratic socialist regime, the
communist party ignored the need for a flexible strategy with alternating defensive
and offensive steps. Its intransigence hindered the growth of popular struggles and
made a bourgeois counter-offensive and even resurgence of military power more
likely especially given capital's continuing strength in the state and internationally.
In both cases, Poulantzas argued that economic crisis matters only in so far as it
circumscribes the conjunctures of class struggle and contributes to political crises.
The field of class struggle or social relations more broadly is crucial here. This
analysis was expanded in more general remarks on the crisis of the state (1976) in
which he claimed that generic elements of crisis political and ideological as well as
economic are constantly reproduced within capitalist societies. But this no more
entails a permanent political crisis or permanent crisis of the state than it does a
permanent economic crisis. Rather crises are overdetermined condensations of
generic crisis elements plus specific crisis-tendencies and contingent events that
combine to form a distinct conjuncture with its own distinctive rhythms.
Nonetheless the occurrence of crisis does not explain outcomes -- these depend on
the correlation of forces and their respective strategies. Thus an analysis of political
crisis must not focus one-sidedly on the failure of political institutions but also
examine class relations. For, according to Poulantzas, it comprises a crisis of
hegemony within the power bloc because no class or class fraction can impose its
'leadership' on other parts of the power bloc, whether through its own political
organizations or normal democratic channels. It also affects supporting classes (e.g.,
the petty bourgeoisie), popular classes, and state personnel and is reflected in the
political scene. They are linked to a crisis of party representation, i.e., a split between
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different classes or fractions and their respective parties. This leads to efforts to bypass political parties and influence the state directly. In addition, different state
apparatuses may try to impose political order independently of decisions from formal
channels of power. This can undermine the institutional and class unity of the state
and prompt splits between its top echelons and lower ranks, leading to disobedience,
resistance, and battles among different branches for resources and priority for their
particularistic demands.
These historical reflections have clear implications for the current conjuncture. Here,
too, there is a major economic crisis, amounting to an epic recession in the North
Atlantic economies and fisco-financial crises in many states at different scales. In
contrast with the Weimar Republic and more akin to New Deal America, however,
these are not associated with a political crisis or crisis of the state. The transnational
power bloc has not been seriously fractured and financial capital has retained its
strongholds in the leading states and parallel power networks. This is partly due to
the earlier and continuing failure of left forces to challenge the hegemony of neoliberalism and partly to the gradual adaptation, if not open embrace, of social
democratic parties to the neo-liberal project. This reflects a long war of position by
neo-liberal economic, political and ideological forces, culminating in the Third Way,
which provides flanking and supporting mechanisms for neo-liberalism; and it also
reflects the weakening of popular forces through attacks on their economic and
political organizations in both the private and public sectors and partial integration
into a financialized way of life. In this conjuncture, following a brief phase of
disorientation when the neo-liberal policy paradigm lost its appeal, the correlation of
forces has enabled a rallying of the power bloc and the mobilization of state power to
defend finance-dominated accumulation in neo-liberal economies and the neo-liberal
project of market completion in the Eurozone. In this defensive phase in the struggle
for democratic socialism, it is essential to mobilize to defend democratic institutions,
however imperfect; to develop a more radical and resonant critique of the neo-liberal
project; to build on popular discontent with austerity politics by mobilizing old and
new social movements; and to embark on a war of position to promote a critique of
bourgeois political ecology and promote global solidarity. While this is by no means a
revolutionary conjuncture, nor is it a moment for fatalism or a politics of the lesser
evil. The key to a progressive politics is to link current resistance to the restoration of
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finance-dominated accumulation to the building of a long-term war of position for a

democratic socialism based on solidarity, sustainability, and global justice. This is not
a task for a single party, let alone one individual. It requires a new collective
movement and the connection of multiple conjunctural analyses of the concrete
situation in specific spatio-temporal contexts.

References
Althusser, L. (1970) Reading Capital, London: NLB.
Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London: Lawrence &
Wishart.
Lecercle, J.J. (2006) A Marxist Philosophy of Language, Leiden: Brill.
Lenin, V.I. (1920) Kommunismus. In Collected Works, vol. 31. 4th English edition,
Moscow: Progress Publishers, 165-167 <1965>
Poulantzas, N. (1970) Fascism and Dictatorship, London: NLB <1974>
Poulantzas, N. (1976) The political crisis and the crisis of the state. In J. Martin, ed.,
The Poulantzas Reader: Marxism, Law and the State. London: Verso, 294-322
<2008>
Poulantzas, N. (1977) Crisis of the Dictatorships, 2nd edition, London: NLB.
Spivak, G.C. (1988) Can the subaltern speak? In C. Nelson and L. Grossberg, Eds,
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press.

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