In his book, “Strong Societies and Weak States”, Migdal proposes a new model and theory to explain state-society relations in the Third World countries while rejecting the claims of many prior theories, such as modernization theory, dependency theory, Marxist theory, world system theory as well as empiricists’ claims. Migdal’s rejection of these theories is based on their teleological and unilinear preoccupation with the effect of the center or the core countries on the social organization and politics in the periphery or Third World societies. Migdal disagrees with empiricists, such as area specialists and historians, on the grounds that they, too, focus their analysis on the politics in the capital city and neglect the significance of the state-society struggles that occur in the remote areas of the country as well as the pressure of forces from outside the society.

In part, Migdal, agrees with the World System Theory. However, he argues that the nature of state-society relations cannot be reduced to be the result of state-centered policies as a result of the capitalism and political forces emanating from the core and influencing the Third World societies. Migdal’s own model and theory propose to understand state-society relations by analyzing both the state and how it influences the society as well as the local society itself, and how its organization shapes the capabilities and character of the politics at the center.

In the development of his model, Migdal stresses on analyzing the distribution of social control among the various state and non-state organizations in the society that form the rules to govern people’s behavior. His theoretical framework aims to understand why Third World states have faced difficulty in forming state organizations that can ensure rules of behavior for the society to follow, hence consolidating state power.