The article aims at recovering the terms of the critical dialogue about more general concepts of political theory (such as power, domination, State) sustained by Nicos Poulantzas with some representatives of the "American political sociology". Our basic hypothesis is that the originality of some of Poulantzas' contributions in his early works is strongly related, among other things, to the dialogue with such authors who formed the mainstream of the academic political science at the time. As an additional proposition, we argue for the need of resuming that critical dialogue and of systematically incorporating into the theoretical universe of the structural-Marxist political sociology some of the major categories developed by pluralist and systemic political scientists (such as those of power, influence, authority, political system and political elites). In this sense, we argue against the arguments put forward by some analysts about the existence of a radical incompatibility or a "zero-sum" relationship between notions employed by political scientists of these two theoretical traditions.
American political sociology; structural-Marxist; political theory; Nicos Poulantzas; political system; functionalism