This article critically discusses the way in which some common readings in political theory have conceived the role of the State in reducing it to a set of institutions that have as their main purpose to secure order, provide security, and social stability. The study pays special attention to the role of the State in both: the government apparatus,, and in "public" institutions —bureaucracy, army, police, courts, social security system, etc.—, responsible for the collective organization of social life. The article also proposes a critical reading of the "Failed State" concept, and some theoretical elements from approaches that identify the State as a uniform and monolithic entity in introducing some of the ideas proposed in the "State in Society" approach by Joel Migdal (2010) that are related to an alternative field of study or interdisciplinary methodology called anthropology of the State.