unpublished 1

Leonid GRININ
THE EVOLUTION OF STATEHOOD AS THE PROBLEM OF
PHILOSOPHY AND POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Abstract
Issues of the origin and evolution of statehood are among those most important
problems not only in political anthropology but also in philosophy of history.
Many aspects of these problems traditionally remain under vigorous debate. We
think these difficulties are connected in many ways with the dominant view on the
philosophical problems of social (cultural) evolution as much depends on scholar’s
views on the evolution process (e.g. its unilinear or multilinear nature; whether all
nations must pass the same phases of development or not; the hierarchy of its
driving forces; its directions and trends, etc.). One or another way of solving these
problems forms his/her concepts about origin and evolution of the state. And vice
versa opinions on the problems connected with statehood have a profound effect
on the cultural evolution’s approaches.
In the present paper there is made the analysis of the evolution of the state
organization with account for the conception of the political anthropology and
philosophy of history. In the paper there are suggested new models of the evolution
of the state. In particular instead of a two-stage model by Claessen and Skalník
(early state–mature state) which does not take into account the principle
differences between the states of industrial and pre-industrial epochs there is
suggested a three-stage model of the evolution of state: early state – developed
state – mature state.
Early states – are insufficiently centralized states with underdeveloped
bureaucracy, their flourishing falls on the period of Ancient World history and the
most part of the Middle Ages. The developed states – the centralized estate-
corporative and bureaucratic states of the Late Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modern
Age. The mature states are the states of the industrial epoch with rational type of
law and government where the classes of industrial society and modern type of
nation have formed.

INTRODUCTION
Social (cultural) evolution is an endlessly debated category. The matter is that
“evolution” (as well as “progress”, “development” etc.) is referred to those abstract
terms which comprise a very wide content1. The notion of the state, on the contrary,
seems to be quite concrete at first sight. However, in spite of that questions
connected with the nature and definition of the state, reasons of its rise, stages of
development, criteria of reference of a definite state to this or that stage – still
remain debatable. In the present paper we would like to show the complex
1
Although the contents of the notions of social and cultural evolution, as we see them, by no
means agree completely, but taking into account that in anthropology they are often used just as
synonyms, in the framework of the present paper we will also use them as synonyms. However,
as it will be further shown in the case of separating the notions of evolution and macroevolution,
it will be more exact to speak about cultural evolution and social macroevolution.
 unpublished 2
interrelations in the solution of particular problems of the social evolution theory
and the process of the rise and development of statehood because on the one hand,
the approaches to the theory of cultural evolution on the whole are essentially
dependant on the position concerning the problems connected with the state. On the
other hand, it is exactly the philosophic position concerning cultural evolution taken
by a researcher of the problems of the state that determines to a great degree in what
way he/she will solve them.

EVOLUTIONISM AND THE PROBLEMS OF THE THEORY OF THE

STATE
In spite of long and continuous critics (see e.g. Lowie 1961; Steward 1972
[1955]; Popper 1964, 1969) there are still powerful the ideas of unilinear evolution
and evolutionary scheme according to which all nations pass the same stages of de-
velopment and differ only in the time of passing them. Although this evolutionary
scheme appeared already in the 18th century and does not evidently correspond to
the results of modern investigations it is eliminated with an extreme difficulty
(Shieder 1977: 161).
The consideration of the evolution as a unilinear (or more exactly not
multilinear) process greatly simplifies and eventually distorts fundamentally the
evolutionary process. The result of competition, selection, search for more
successful evolutionary forms and patterns, i.e. the result of quite long and
complex processes, is presented as if initially predetermined. It is explicitly or
implicitly supposed that the old forms are always and everywhere substituted by
strictly determined forms. For instance, the chiefless primitive bands should be
substituted by chiefdoms, and chiefdoms, in their turn – by the states. In practice, it
might have quite often occurred otherwise. In particular the transition to complex
societies by no means always followed the classic evolutionary scheme: pre-state
society – primitive (early) state – because quite often there appeared societies of a
particular type, non-state in their structure of administrative government and
political organization but which were quite comparable in many aspects to the state
(see e.g. Kradin et al. 2000; Grinin et al. 2004).
There are some approaches within whose framework there have been made
attempts to resolve the contradiction between the conceptions of unilinear and
multilinear evolutionism. Marshall Sahlins offered to distinguish “general”
evolution that is the progress of the types of forms representing the movement
through the stages of universal progress and “specific” one, i.e. the historical
development of particular cultural forms (Sahlins 1960: 43). Robert Carneiro noted
the importance of taking into account the parameters and aspects of the study. If
one stresses the similarity of the institutions or structures that are developed,
evolution is unilinear. If one stresses the various roads, social evolution can be
considered as multilinear (Carneiro 1973; see also Carneiro 2003: 229–238). Of
course, much depends on the research task. But still for the most scientific tasks to
take into account the multilinearity and alternativity of evolution appears to be
absolutely obligatory. After all variability and alternativity are the most important
and fundamental features inherent of the social evolution all along, i.e.,
figuratively speaking, evolution always has several responses to arising problems
 unpublished 3
(see Bondarenko, Grinin and Korotayev 2002). Historical process is not a
rigorously predetermined development but a movement in the framework of
constant selection of alternatives and models. Moreover, these models are by no
means always in opposition but often integrate and actively borrow each others'
achievements. That is why an equal level of sociopolitical complexity can be
achieved not only in various forms but on essentially different evolutionary
pathways (Korotayev et al. 2000; Bondarenko, Grinin, and Korotayev 2002: 54).
It is false not to take this into account and that can be proved, in fact, by the
example of Carneiro himself whose views on the origin of the state can be
considered unilinear2.
Also it is important to reject the idea that the transition to a qualitatively new
level of organization (model, form) is a process similar to the transformation of an
embryo into an adult individual by means of genetic code, i.e. the process of
change programmed by the previous development. Any genetic code provides de-
velopment only according to certain and thousand times approved patterns. Be-
sides it prevents any, especially qualitatively new changes, after all its task is to
prevent deviations from the programme.
As the evolutionary development – i.e. the advance of social organisms to acquir-
ing new, earlier unknown quality which provides better adaptive opportunities – is
always connected with the emergence of the ever new, to a certain degree unfamiliar
problems (for the given society or World-System on the whole)3. Among such prob-
lems there may be e.g. the explosive population growth, an acute shortage of land,
an appearance of dangerous enemies or more cultural neighbors, a split and civil war
in before peaceful societies, a rapid growth of wealth, sharp social stratification, de-
terioration of the ecological situation etc. Moreover, it is worth paying attention to
the great role of the external factors among these problems or “challenges” accord-
ing to A. J. Toynbee (1962−1963). Unfortunately, this aspect is often underestim-
ated. For example, there is a common tendency to diminish the role of wars and
conquests in the formation of state. Thus according to H. J. M. Claessen in this
process they played a less important role in comparison with ideology or social
stratification (Claessen 1989; 2000; 2002)4.
However, just new challenges are obviously not enough for serious changes.
The matter is that most societies “respond” to new problems with the help of old,

2
For example, he writes that when dealing with political evolution we encounter an undeni-
able unilinearity. If all human societies were once nomadic bands that later after the invention
of agriculture, evolved, for the most part, into autonomous villages. Then villages developed into
multivillage chiefdoms and a limited number of chiefdoms went on to become states. Con-
sequently, the common line in the evolution of all states has been one of band – autonomous
village–chiefdom–state (emphasis added – L. G.) (Carneiro 2003: 234)..
3
When interpreting the notion of World-System we base primarily of the conception of Andre
Gunder Frank (1990, 1993). On our approach to World-System and its evolution see: (Korotayev,
Grinin 2006).
4
Of course not less false is to present conquests (of some nations or races by the others, of
the sedentary peoples by the nomadic ones etc.) as a decisive reason for the ancient state forma-
tion, as it was observed by some famous philosophers of the end 19th and beginning of the 20th
century (see e.g. Gumplowicz 1983; Oppenhiemer 1926; see also Kautski 1931). The position of
R. Carneiro (1970; 1978; 1981; 2000a; 2000b; 2003; 2004) is much more reasoned, of course,
but still it does not take into account some basic variants of state formation process.
 unpublished 4
customary, tested means because they select not from hypothetical but from the
alternatives close enough to be accessible by chance (Van Parijs 1981: 51) that is
they use actual – as opposed to potential – alternatives (Claessen 1989). Naturally,
such “responses” are far from always been effective. As a result a number of
societies perish, disappear, and lose independence.
Thus, on the departure of the Roman legions from Britain in 410 A. D. the Bri-
tons (Romanized British Celts) in search for defenders from the raids of the Irish and
Scottish barbarians called in the Saxons and gave them some land. But the Saxons
seeing the Britons' weakness soon stopped obeying local authorities and in the end
together with the Angles and Jutes became masters of the country. And the Britons
in spite of the long and stubborn resistance were partially driven away and partially
eliminated or subjugated. That is why in Britain instead of the “Britons'” state there
appeared barbarian Anglo-Saxon kingdoms (Blair 1966: 149–168; Chadwick 1987:
71).
But sometimes societies are nevertheless forced to respond in a really new way,
and at times it happens in spite of their wish. Of course, such new responses are far
from always been reasonable, effective and successful. After all, the pathway to
something new is an unknown, unfamiliar way, the way by touch. So mistakes in-
cluding the fatal ones are inevitable. That is why it so often happens in history that
societies perish or decline.
Thus for a new evolutionary perspective model to appear there is always needed
a combination of specific, in some way exceptional conditions, a unique coincidence
of external and internal factors, that is of new challenges and new successful re-
sponses to them (for details see Grinin 1997; 2003а: 52–53; 2003b: 48–52; 2007а:
7–10, 56–60; Grinin, Korotayev 2007). Let us examine this statement by the ex-
ample of the state formation.
It is recognized universally enough that to form a state a pre-state society must
possess a certain set of minimum characteristics with respect to population,
complexity, sociopolitical differentiation and ability to accumulate surplus (cf. e.g.,
Claessen 1978, 2000, 2002). Pre-state societies, however, after reaching a certain
size and a certain level of sociocultural complexity (at which the transition to the
state is already possible), may continue to develop without building political forms
of an early state for a long time (some of many examples can serve the Gauls in
pre-Roman period; the Saxons of Saxony in the end of the 8th century; Iceland
before its subjugation to Norway; the Hsiung-nu polity in the 2nd century B.C.;
Scythia in the 7th–5th century B. C. [on these and other similar polities see Grinin
2003c, 2004c, 2007a]). So they can significantly outgrow the respective levels of
those indices – but without forming a state. In particular, a culture may have a high
level of social stratification but lack a state system. How then should such societies
be classified? Still as pre-state cultures, or as something else?
Some of such societies can be characterized by the term heterarchy (about the
term and the concept heterarchy see e.g., Crumley 1995, 2001; see also McIntosh
1999). But among such societies there are many hierarchical polities as well as
those of some other types (see e.g. Kradin et al. 2000; Grinin et al. 2004). So we
are convinced that the most productive path to follow is to recognize them just as
early state analogues (Grinin 2002, 2003c, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c, 2007а, 2007c,
 unpublished 5
2007d; Bondarenko, Grinin, and Korotayev 2002). This is because, on the one
hand, if compared with doubtlessly pre-state societies, such as, for example, simple
chiefdoms, tribes, independent simple communities, big-men systems etc., they are
not only bigger in size but much more complex as well. On the other hand, their
size and complexity were comparable to those of early states and they dealt with
problems of comparable scale and essence. That is why they may, in a certain
sense, be regarded as being at the same level of sociocultural and/or political
development as the early state societies. The latter, certainly, differ significantly
from their analogues, but not as much in the development level as in some
peculiarities of political organization and in ‘the mechanics’ of administration (for
details see Grinin 2003c, 2004a, 2004c, 2007а).
Was the emergence of the state inevitable in this case? This statement is true
only in the most general sense – to the degree in which the matter concerns the
state as a result of a long competition of different forms, their fall, transformations,
social selection etc. In other words it is true for the World-System and the
humanity in general. But for every society in particular the state might not be
inevitable. In fact it took thousands years for the evolutionary advantages of this
new form to come to light and it became dominant. But still dozens thousands of
political organisms disappeared as independent ones forever losing the chance of
becoming such.
Thus the main (general, principle) line of evolution is discovered not at once
because a) it arises in a long competition with non-principle (or secondary in
retrospective sense) paths and b) for a long time it adapts to different conditions
because to become the principle one it must spread at least in the principle areas of
the World-System. Otherwise, for instance, why was it so difficult for the states to
rise in different regions for more then 4 thousand years if the general line of
evolution had been discovered right away and paved? Why then did not there
emerge the Gauls` state though in the cultural level, population, development of
towns and trade they noticeably surpassed many others, e.g., the Franks who
conquered the Roman Gaul? (on the extremely high level of the development of
the pre-Roman Gaul see e.g. Clark and Piggott 1970: 310–328; Chadwick 1987;
Braudel 1986; Le Roux 1961; Thevenot 1996) Why did not the continental Saxons
with their high level of social inequality form the state unlike the Saxons that
conquered Britain? Why did most nomadic peoples fail to create the state although
been in close contact with civilized states?
The fact is that the state was not only a completely new solution of problems
facing the complicated societies, but also it was the way that meant the breakup
with many of the previous relations and traditions. And it is quite difficult and
sometimes impossible to do that. That is why many societies followed their own
way which, however, often led to some different results; in particular e.g. to an
extreme sacralization of the ruler; to the overcomplicating of kin relations and the
formation of aristocratic caste (estate) of the privileged clans and kin lines; to the
complication of network horizontal (instead of vertical hierarchical) links; a firm
fixation of professional and social differences (caste system); to the creation of
tribal or towns confederations without strong central power (but with effective
alternative mechanisms of intersocietal integration) or to some other patterns. At
 unpublished 6
that the choice of the direction of development is always connected with a number
of concrete historical reasons (for details see Grinin 2003c, 2004a, 2004b, 2004c,
2006b, 2007а, 2007b; Korotayev et al. 2000).
One should also bear in mind that evolutionary successful and potential struc-
tures not necessarily were more successful in a concrete historical situation. On the
contrary, for a long period it might have been the other way round. That is why
only retrospectively, at a long time spans it becomes obvious why and in what way
more evolutionary perspective systems still gradually gained victory and less cap-
able to qualitative reorganizations were rejected and destroyed though in some
places due to some reasons they could last out. But even when evolutionary more
complex and perspective form was found, there was usually required a long “in-
cubation period” and specific conditions for that form to prove its advantages.
Time and conditions were necessary also for these achievements to be spread to
other places and situations. The difficulty of borrowing and transference of
achievements was the most important reason of long delays in the development of
potentially perspective forms. And the problem often lied not only in the unwill-
ingness to change but also in the difficulty of adjustment and adaptation of the bor-
rowed technologies. Consequently, there must have appeared some additional in-
novations which would help these advantages to show up in new conditions (in re-
spect to those where they had appeared) but that could have happened not that
soon.
In respect to the state, for example, in these or those regions there were needed
various factors: technological, legal, cultural – to compensate the lack of fertile land,
population, wealth, specific combination of sacral and political aspects which were
present in the irrigation states in the valleys of big rivers. In particular in Central and
Northern Europe before the appearance of effective ferrous metallurgy the develop-
ment of statehood was hampered. Also spreading the technology in this area by no
means led to an automatic formation of statehood or its alternative forms of political
organization – it is a question of necessary but insufficient condition (for detail see
Grinin, Korotaev 2006, 2007; Korotayev, Grinin 2006).
It is worth dwelling on two complicated problems of modern theory of social
evolution, whose uncertainty is thought to come from incomplete overcoming of
the idea of the unilinearity of social evolution and the idea that all societies must
pass the same stages of development in the same forms but in different time peri-
ods. These problems we could formulate as follows: first, how should one insert re-
gress, stagnation, collapse, cyclic tendencies and similar processes in the evolution
because the evolution of practically every polity shows alternating periods of flour-
ishing and decay? Second, what level of analysis should be chosen as the basic
one: the level of a separate society or a higher level of combination of a group of
societies (or even World-System or whole historical process at one of the large
stages of its development)? These problems in our view are closely connected and
to solve the first of them one should analyze some features of social evolution at
the level higher than a separate society.
For example, H. J. M. Claessen to understand evolution finds important to em-
phasize that the growing complexity is not the essence of cultural evolution
(Claessen 2000: 1) because it is not always and everywhere observed and other
scholars suggest considering decay, stagnation and even collapse as intrinsic as-
 unpublished 7
pects of evolution (see e.g. Yoffee 1979). Such suggestions proceed from the impli-
cit idea that 1) the basic level of analysis of social evolution must be the develop-
ment of a particular society; 2) in the social evolution framework the development
of any societies is considered as theoretically equal. However, with such an ap-
proach, first, one loses an opportunity to distinguish among the combination of dif-
ferent paths of evolution a) more or less perspective, b) lateral and c) dead-ends;
second, an important methodological idea is underestimated that it is just the pro-
cess of growing complexity that ultimately creates more viable forms and better
adaptation of societies to environment. That is why such process of growing com-
plexity must be recognized as the most important specific characteristics of social
evolution5.
We suggest proceeding from the fact that societies by definition develop in dif-
ferent ways. That the transition to a new level (quality, model, form etc.) is realized
in the bundle of different variants, on the one side of which there is an appearance
of a perspective model of development in the future, and on the other – the appear-
ance of a non-perspective model which will eventually bring a society to the evolu-
tionary dead-end, from which an independent and successful outcome is im-
possible or extremely difficult. At that as we observed earlier, it is just this non-
perspectivity of some societies that to a great degree contributes to the perspectiv-
ity of the “successful” in the long run model. But if societies actually develop ac-
cording to different directions and models then how one can describe these qualit-
ative changes working at the level of evolution of particular societies but not at the
level of the whole or most part of them (whole historical process or World-System
at one of the large stages of its development)? On the other hand, the level of a par-
ticular society is also extremely important and returning to it, it is necessary to ad-
mit that evolution can fail to bring qualitative reorganizations of the growing com-
plexity type, although it is just them that are theoretically most important.
The way out from this “contradiction” in our view is a) to separate the processes
of social (or rather cultural) evolution proper and social macroevolution (as a
combination of the most important and long for the humankind and World-System
changes), and b) to consider macroevolution not only at the level of societies but at
a higher suprasocietal level, at the level of large groups of societies within which
there are distinguished particular societies which are pioneers working out from
their own experience the successful evolutionary model or “locomotives”
advancing others6. But still a significant part of achievements of societies that
developed not along the conventional general evolutionary path, nevertheless, are
also used. So this general macroevolutionary line is always that of a complex
system of combined and transformed achievements of many societies which
however can become especially apparent in one or another pioneer society. And
5
It is worth noting that in Voget`s and Claessen`s definition of evolution as the process by which
structural reorganization is affected through time, eventually producing a form or structure which
is qualitatively different from the ancestral form (Voget 1975: 862; Claessen 2000: 2) there is
much true but still some important specific features of evolution as it was said earlier, are lost in
this case.
6
The idea of separating evolution and macroevolution belongs to us jointly with A. V.
Korotayev what was stated in our common work (Grinin, Korotayev 2007), to it we also refer
those who would like a more detailed and reasoned statement of the above-said view on social
evolution.
 unpublished 8
then this advanced society’s culture and technology can be borrowed by other
societies and so on.
Any noticeable qualitative change at the highest level of abstraction – at the
level of the humanity on the whole or even at the level of World-System – was
often created at the expense of degradation or elimination of a great number of
societies in different directions of which only few become leading later on7. In
other words the development of World-System on the one hand, and of these or
those particular societies – on the other, is not the correlation of the same processes
differing only in scale. That is why it is more productive to consider them as a
correlation of a whole and a part. And the whole, especially if it is a system, as is
well known is not equal to the sum of its constituents. It is quite clear as the
constituents play different functional role of the center and periphery, predator and
prey, winner and loser, borrower (recipient) and giver (donor), colony and
metropolitan country, resource supplier and consumer, producer and mediator,
chief and executor; bodies specializing in separate functions and just participants
of division of labour and etc.
Thus, evolution is figuratively speaking not a wide ladder where sooner or later
everybody can go up independently and in a single direction but a most
complicated labyrinth, from which only a few can find the way out without
borrowings. In other words, the model of society development is extremely
dependant on whether it independently passes to a new level (stage, form) or not
and also on the degree of independence. In respect to the state many scholars
following Morton Fried (1967) emphasized such differences by introducing the
notions of the so-called primary and secondary states, that is correspondingly of
the states formed without other states influence and states formed under the
influence of already finished examples and under the impact of the existing states.
However, at the level of evolutionary theory on the whole such approaches for
some reason do not carve they way.

THE EVOLUTIONARY SEQUENCE OF STATE TYPES

Basing the above-stated ideas about the direction of development and the most im-
portant characteristics of cultural evolution and social macroevolution we can start
a discussion of the relevant set of definitions regarding the evolutionary sequence
of state types. Some scholars are "suspicious" to the very idea of identifying stages
within any processes; in fact, it is not unusual for them to directly contrast the no-
tion of "process" with "stages" as mutually exclusive (see, e.g., Shanks and Tilley
1987; see also Marcus and Feinman 1998: 3). However, we agree with Carneiro
(2000b) that the opposition of process to stages is a false dichotomy, as stages are
nothing else but continuous episodes of a continuous process, whereas the notion
of process can be used for the development of the notion of stages (Goudsblom
1996; see also Grinin 2006c, 2007e).
When the development of statehood in the framework of the overall historical
process is analyzed, two main stages are usually identified: the ones of the early
state and those of the mature state (see, for example, Claessen and Skalník 1978a;
Claessen and van de Velde 1987, 1991; Skalník 1996; Shifferd 1987; Tymowski
7
At least that how it was during the whole main part of historical process though modern
situation is a bit different.
 unpublished 9
1987). However, when we try to apply this scheme to the political development of
the World System, it becomes evident that in no way is this scheme complete.
Why? To answer this question we have to consider the concept of the early state in-
troduced by Henri J. M. Claessen and Peter Skalník. The concept appears to have
been the last among the great epoch-making political-anthropological theories of
the 60s and 70s of the last century (e.g., Sahlins [1960, 1963, 1968], Service [1962,
1975], Fried [1967, 1975]), which did more than just giving a new consideration of
sociopolitical evolution, its stages and models. One may even say that these theor-
ies succeeded in filling the evolutionary gap between the pre-state forms and the
state, which had formed by that moment in the academic consciousness due to the
fact that the accumulated ethnographic and archaeological data could hardly fit the
prior schemes.
However it seems that in comparison with other ‘stage’ theories from the
above-mentioned list the theory of the early state has a number of important
advantages, especially concerning the view on social evolution in general and the
evolution of statehood8. In the theory of the early state it was fundamentally new
and important from methodological point of view to define the early state as a
separate stage of evolution essentially different from the following stage, the one
of the full-grown state, or mature state. ‘To reach the early state level is one thing,
to develop into a full-blown, or mature state is quite another’ (Claessen and
Skalník 1978b: 22). At the same time they (as well as a number of other authors)
indicated quite soundly that not all early states were able to become and actually
became the mature ones (see e.g. Claessen and Skalník 1978a; Claessen and van de
Velde 1987; Shifferd 1987). Thus there was formed exactly the evolutionary
sequence of statehood in the form of two-stage scheme: the early state – the mature
state. And that explained a lot in the mechanisms and directions of the political
evolution.
The differences between the early and mature states in Claessen and Skalník's
opinion in general were described as the change of ideology and the system of
relationships between power and population during the transition from one type of
the state to another. According to them ‘the structure of the early state… [was]
based principally upon the concept of reciprocity and genealogical distance from
the sovereign’, and so the period of the early state terminates ‘as soon as the
ideological foundation of the state no longer is based upon these concepts’. From
Claessen and Skalník's analysis it follows that in the mature state the managerial
and redistributive aspects became dominant. The mature state is based upon an
8
It is clear that there are some weak points in Claessen–Skalník's theory. In particular in their
theory does not take into account the fact that many complex non-state polities per se are not as
much the societies of developmental stages prior to the early state as they are the polities quite
comparable to inchoate and typical early state in the level of evolutionary complexity and the
scope of functions. We tried to show the possible solutions of this problem introducing the notion
of early state analogues (Grinin 2003c, 2004c, 2007a, 2007b; Bondarenko, Grinin, and
Korotayev 2002). Another drawback of the early state theory is that implicitly only a monarchic
form of state with a sacral monarch at the head is regarded as an early state and that is why the
ancient and medieval democratic states virtually were disregarded by the theory (see about this
e.g., Grinin 2004a, 2004b).
 unpublished 10
efficient governmental apparatus and a new type of legitimation and ideology,
based on a more complete law and political order or ‘a new myth of the society’ or
something like that; besides, land as the basic means of production becomes an
object of private ownership and in the state there increases the role of the owners
of land and other means of production (Claessen and Skalník 1978a: 633–634; see
also Claessen 1984; Claessen and Oosten 1996).
However, it is important to point out that in The Early State (Claessen and
Skalník 1978d) as well as in other works (e.g. Claessen 1984) the characteristics of
the mature state were presented quite briefly as actually they were needed only to
emphasize the characteristics of the early state. Besides Claessen and Skalník the
phenomenon of the mature state was more or less thoroughly examined in the
articles by Thomas Bargatzky and Patricia Shifferd (Bargatzky 1987; Shifferd
1987).
On the whole almost everybody who employs the term ‘mature state’ connects
such a type of state with the presence of an effective bureaucratic apparatus, still
with respect to the time of appearance of the mature state (and consequently of its
specific characteristics) there are evident discrepancies which may be reduced to
the two viewpoints. The first is shared by the majority of scholars who use this
term (including Claessen and Skalník) who employ the term with respect to the
ancient and medieval as well as modern states9.The second point of view is
expressed by Shifferd (although quite unclearly) who thinks that mature states are
primarily the European states of the New Age. To this point of view Ronald
Cohen's position (Cohen 1978: 35–36) is also rather close, as although he does not
use (at least in the cited paper) the notion of mature state, but in quite a definite
way he opposes early states to the industrial ones (Ibid. p. 36)6. In other words, in
the evolution of state organization he also defines two stages: the pre-industrial
(early) and industrial states.
So the former viewpoint (Claessen, Skalník, Bargatzky et al.) proceeds from the
point that mature states are the second and the highest stage of the state
organization which appeared in the Antiquity and is present until now; the latter
(Shifferd, Cohen) divides the whole evolution of the statehood into early states and
modern states called at times mature, at other times industrial but which appear
only starting from the industrial epoch or at least from the Modern Age. Note that
this approach has something in common with the approach dividing states into
archaic and modern nation-states that exists beyond the Early State’s Project
framework (see e.g., Marcus and Feinman 1998: 4–5)10.
It is important to point out that there is some truth in both viewpoints. On the
one hand, the bureaucratic pre-industrial states of the Antiquity and Middle Ages
differ much from the weakly centralized ‘reciprocal’ early state based on the ruler's

9
More distinctly the idea that states of capitalist or industrial type are not included in their
concept of mature state was presented by Claessen in the work ‘Verdwenen koninkrijken en ver-
loren beschavingen [Disappeared kingdoms and lost civilizations’ (Claessen 1991: 184–185, in
Dutch)].
10
For more details about the approaches dedicated to the phenomenon of
the mature state, and its analysis see: (Grinin 2008).
 unpublished 11
clan. And so an important boundary in the evolution of the statehood can be traced
already from Egypt of the New Kingdom. On the other hand, it is evident, that the
European rational legal states of the Modern Age and especially of the industrial
epoch differed in the most profound way from the complex monarchies of the An-
tiquity and Middle Ages (even from such developed as Sung and T'ang empires in
China), which are called ‘mature states’ by some scholars. It makes sense to cite
the following statement by Max Weber: ‘In fact, the State itself, in the sense of a
political association with a rational, written constitution, rationally ordained law,
and an administration bound to rational rules or laws, administered by trained offi-
cials, is known, in this combination of characteristics, only in the Occident, despite
all other approaches to it’ (Weber 1958: 15–16). And really, would not it be rather
strange to assume that the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th century did not
lead to the radical transformation of the state organization?
The fact is when we try to apply the scheme ‘early state – mature state’ to the
evolution of the state in the world history, it becomes evident that in no way is
this scheme complete. So the sequence of two stages of the evolution of the state-
hood must be re-examined and changed. Hence we think that it would be more cor-
rect to distinguish not two but three stages of statehood, namely after the stage called
by Claessen and Skalník the mature state there must be inserted one more stage
which would denote the type of industrial states (not only European but all the indus-
trial states). However here comes the question of the name of this third stage. It
would be better to introduce a new term for it. But which term? Supermature? But it
seems it would sound awkward. So we came to the conclusion about the necessity
to keep the term mature state only for the industrial states and to define as de-
veloped states those pre-industrial bureaucratic centralized states that Claessen,
Skalník and others call the ‘mature’ ones (see Grinin 2006a, 2006b, 2007b, 2008;
Grinin and Korotayev 2006). Hence, we are dealing with the following sequence of
three stages: early states; developed states; mature states.
Early states are insufficiently centralized states. They politically organize soci-
eties with underdeveloped administrative-political and social structures, their flour-
ishing falls on the period of Ancient World history and the most part of the Middle
Ages.
Developed states are the formed centralized states of the Late Antiquity, the
Middle Ages, and the Early Modern period. They politically organize societies with
distinct estate-class stratification.
Mature states are the states of the industrial epoch. They politically organize
such societies, where estates have disappeared, the bourgeois and working classes
have formed, nations have developed, and representative democracy has prolifer-
ated11. Thus, according to such point of view, in the Antiquity and Middle Ages
there were no mature states, but only early and developed ones.
For each stage of the statehood we can identify the following three types of the
state: the primitive, typical, and transitional ones12. In the framework of this article
the basic characteristics of statehood stages are identified on the basis of the
11
Note, however, that not all the mature states are democratic. On totalitarian mature states
see Grinin 2007b: 274, 279–280).
 unpublished 12
middle phase of each stage (thus, respectively for typical early, typical developed,
and typical mature states).
Now we can discuss about the main differences between the early, developed, and
mature states13. Early states differ greatly from each other in many characteristics.
However, if we try to understand what differentiates them from the developed and
mature states, we can find out that the early states are always incomplete states.
There were numerous versions of the early states (see about Grinin 2004a, 2004b,
2007b), but within each of them some important elements of statehood were either
absent, or significantly underdeveloped. In most cases this incompleteness was ex-
pressed in the most direct way, as most of the early states simply did not have min-
imal necessary level of centralization or/and some significant statehood attributes,
or did not develop them to a sufficient degree. This is especially significant with
respect to such statehood attributes as professional administration, control and re-
pression apparatus, taxation, artificial territorial division, as well as a sufficiently
high degree of written law. But this ‘incompleteness’ is also relevant with respect
to relationships between the state and the society.
The developed state is a state that has been formed and completed, and cent-
ralized, that is why the attributes of statehood that could be absent within the polit-
ical system of the early state are necessarily present within that of the developed
one. The developed state influences social processes in a much more purposeful
and active way. It is not only tightly connected with the peculiarities of social and
corporate structure of the society, but also constructs them in political and judicial
institutes.
The most important characteristics of the developed state that distinguish it from
the early state are:
a) The developed state has more statehood attributes which in addition are
more elaborated. The developed state possesses all the below mentioned state-
hood features in a rather clear and systematic form: a special professional adminis-
tration/coercion apparatus separated from the population; regular taxation; and an
artificial territorial division. Also it always has a written law and a special culture
of written documentation, registration, and control. Taxation becomes more regular
and ordered. Archaic duties and revenues (tribute, gifts, labor-rents, etc.) disappear,
or play subordinate roles.
b) The developed state is an estate-corporative state. The social structure of
the developed state becomes represented by large social groups and not by numer-
ous tiny social layers or socio-territorial units (like autonomous cities or temples
with special privileges) as it is for early states. Large ethnic groups develop instead
of conglomerates of tribes and small peoples. As a result, society becomes suffi-
12
In general, these names are given to the respective phases in accordance with the tradition
of Claessen and Skalník (1978b: 22–23; 1978c: 640; Claessen 1978: 589) who identified the in-
choate, typical, and transitional stages of the early state.
13
Because of the restricted size of the article further comments, explanations, examples and
references concerning the developed, mature and especially early states were omitted. Neverthe-
less, they can be found in my works devoted to this issue (see Grinin 2003c, 2004a, 2004b,
2004c, 2006a, 2006b, 2007a, 2007b, 2008; Grinin and Korotayev 2006).
 unpublished 13
ciently consolidated socially. With respect to states one cannot help but notice that
the activities of a developed state are directed toward the legal shaping of estates,
at making the society more stable, at ordering social mobility. On the other hand,
both the state structure and its policies reflect the peculiarities of its social (and
ethnic) arrangement; the state actively influences the social structure of society and
acts as an intermediary between various estates/corporations.
c) The developed state is always a centralized state; generally, it is much
more durable and stable than the early state. The developed state cannot be a
political conglomerate, as it was frequently the case with respect to early states.
This is not just a set of territories that disintegrate as soon as the central power
weakens. Of course, the disintegration can be experienced by the developed states
rather regularly (especially, during the transition from primitive to typical de-
veloped statehood). However, if the further development of such a state occurs, it
is always connected with a new and tighter form of centralization within more or
less the same territory. This is accounted for by the fact that the developed state is
formed within a definite, historically prepared (both materially and culturally) ter-
ritory with common culture, ideology, writing, and is supported by the develop-
ment of communications, trade, a certain unification of money types, measures,
law, and so on.
d) In the developed state the social role of the state changes. The developed
state, being an estate-corporative state with a stable social order, performs its role
in the organization of coercion much more effectively than the early state. As the
state itself takes the functions of maintaining social order, it reduces the possibilit-
ies of the upper strata to solve themselves the problems of coercive support of their
position (for example, through the prohibition for them to have their own armed
forces).
e) The presence of a new type of state ideology and/or religion. Political ideo-
logy in the wide sense of this term develops instead of primitive ideas of royal
power. The Confucianism in China provides a telling example here. However, such
an ideology usually had certain religious forms (for instance, like the 16th century
Russian treatment of Moscow as ‘the Third Rome’).
It is quite natural that different states entered the developed state phase in differ-
ent ages. However, the indicated dates refer to the beginning of the transition into
developed statehood, with the main transformations taking place later, sometimes
much later. Egypt entered the developed state phase at the beginning of the New
Kingdom Age in the 16th century BCE. China reached this stage as a result of its first
unification in the late 3rd century BCE under Qin Shi Huang. Byzantium was a de-
veloped state from the very beginning, as it was the successor of the Roman empire.
By the 3rd century CE, Iran can already be regarded as a developed state with the
consolidation of the Sassanid dynasty. France entered this phase in the late 13 th cen-
tury during the reign of Philip IV the Fair. England entered this phase in the late 15 th
century and the early 16th century (after the end of the War of the Roses and the Tu-
dor dynasty coming to power). For many European countries the 16th century was a
‘period of state construction’ (Elliott 1974: 80). But this century also appeared to be
 unpublished 14
a turning point for the political evolution of such countries as Ottoman Empire, Rus-
sia, India and Iran (where we also observe the formation of the developed
statehood).
The mature state is a result of capitalist development and the industrial revolu-
tion; hence, it has a qualitatively different production basis, social structure and is
based on a formed or forming nation with all its peculiarities. Such a state is qualit-
atively more developed in organizational and legal aspects, as well as with respect
to specialized institutions of administration and control. The first such states
(France in the reign of Louis XIV) appeared in the late 17th century. Yet, only in the
19th century they became dominant in Europe and the New World. So in general
the mature state is a result of the development of capitalism and the Industrial Re-
volution. In addition to this, the transition to the mature statehood is connected
with the demographic revolution.
The main characteristics of the mature state:
a) it significantly surpasses the developed state with respect to the complexity
and efficiency of its political organization and legal system; it necessarily has a
professional bureaucracy with its definite characteristics (see, e.g., Weber 1947:
333–334), distinct mechanisms and elaborated procedures of legitimate power
transition;
b) there are usually present the working out of constitutions and the division of
powers, and the role of law (especially civil law) significantly increases. As a res-
ult one of the most important functions of the mature state is to secure not only the
social order, but also the legal one, to which developed states often paid little atten-
tion;
c) it is based on a modern type of nation (or a set of nations), that is why it can
only exist within a society with a unified national (or supranational) culture (about
the tight relations between the nation and the state see e.g., Gellner 1983). That is
why such a state is concerned with its influence on culture, including control over
language, religion, education and so on. Hence, the mature state ideology always
includes some nationalism (or some other ideas on the superiority of the given
state's population; for example, its special progressiveness, revolutionary spirit,
love for democracy/freedom, etc.);
d) in connection with the growth of the role of property relations, the establish-
ment of legal equality of the citizens, the abolishment of estate privileges the ma-
ture state is gradually transformed from the estate-class state to the purely class-
corporate state. Thus, here the role of new industrial classes especially the bour-
geoisie within the state system dramatically increases. As the class division is
mostly economic, and not juridical, it becomes necessary to have organizations and
corporations that express the interests of certain parts and groups of certain classes
(and sometimes interests of a certain class as a whole). These are various organiza-
tions and political parties of both workers and bourgeoisie, as well as other social
strata;
Thus, the mature state bases itself on new types of infrasocietal links:
– material links – unified economic organism and unified market;
– cultural links – unified culture-information organism;
 unpublished 15
– national links – consciousness of national unity and development of new sym-
bols of this unity: nation, national interests, supreme interests;
– consolidation on the basis of ideology: cult of law and constitution, cult of na-
tion;
– consolidation on the basis of participation in pan-national organizations and cor-
porations (trade unions, parties, movements) and participation in pan-national elec-
tions.
CONCLUSION

Thus, in this article we aimed at showing that the problems of evolutionism and
political anthropology are closely interrelated. It especially concerns the dilemma of
unilinearity or multilinearity of social evolution. That is why in the present article
we paid so much attention to the evidence of multilinearity of social evolution, to
the demonstration of real alternatives to the early state in social evolution in the
form of what we called the analogues of early state. We suppose that one can ad-
vance in the matter of solving a number of problems if to consider social evolution
and historical process not as a firmly predetermined line of development but as a
complex process within the framework of constant selection of alternatives and
models. We also believe that there is a great necessity to separate within social evol-
ution theory a theory of social macroevolution as its most important constituent part.
The general path (retrospectively) of macroevolution is groped not at once, a) it
arises and strengthens in long struggle with competing non-principle paths and b) it
adapts for a long period to different conditions because to become the principle path
it must spread at least in the basic areas of World-System). The above-said explains
in particular why for a long time there existed and successfully competed with states
the non-state polities (the analogues of the early state); why for a long time and with
difficulty (and not independently everywhere) there was going on a transition to de-
veloped and mature states.
In the paper we maintained that the scheme ‘early state–mature state’ poorly
describes the evolution of the statehood, so the sequence of three stages (early state
– developed state – mature state) has been suggested as a more acceptable altern-
ative. However it is worth paying attention that during the 20th century social policy
of highly developed mature states experienced radical changes. We can observe the
transformation of the class state into the social state that is the state that actively pur-
sues the policy of providing support for poor, socially unprotected groups and that
places limits on the growth of inequality. Thus, many present-day characteristics of
the Western states cannot be regarded unconditionally as the ones of the mature state
(for more details see Grinin 2006b: 544; 2007b: 288–290; 2008; Grinin and
Korotayev 2006: 98).

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