On the Stages of the Evolution of Statehood

The state has passed along a great evolutionary path, whose analysis is an important task for political and historical anthropology, as well as for various other social sciences. Unfortunately, there are still no generally accepted approaches either to the definition of the state as such or to the definition of polities that can be designated as early states; and moreover, some anthropologists deny this stage of statehood, confusing it, in my view, with complex and super-complex chiefdoms and their analogues (on such approaches see Grinin 2017), or consider as non-state entities those polities and poleis that do not fit the characteristics of a developed state, for example, ancient Athens (Berent 2004; see criticism of such approach in Grinin 2008a; see also van der Vliet 2005). When analyzing the development of statehood, those who recognize the stage of an early state, following Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalník (Claessen and Skalník 1978a), usually distinguish two main stages within the historical process: the early state and the mature state. This division is undoubtedly rational and productive. However, Claessen and Skalník limited their scheme of the development of statehood to the evolution of only pre-capitalist non-industrial states (Claessen and Skalník 1978b: 5). Consequently, the concept of the early–mature states needs important additions