State formation

States are minimally defined by anthropologist David S. Sandeford as socially stratified and bureaucratically governed societies with at least four levels of settlement hierarchy (e.g., a large capital, cities, villages, and hamlets). Primary states are those state societies that developed in regions where no states existed before. These states developed by strictly internal processes and interaction with other non-states societies.[10] The exact number of cases which qualify as primary states is not clearly known because of limited information about political organization before the development of writing in many places,[11] but Sandeford lists ten likely cases of primary state formation in Eurasia, the Americas, and the Pacific.[10]

Studies on the formation of early states tend to focus on processes that create and institutionalize a state in a situation where a state did not exist before. Examples of early states which developed in interaction with other states include the Aegean Bronze Age Greek civilizations and the Malagasy civilization in Madagascar.[12] Unlike primary state formation, early state formation does not require the creation of the first state in that cultural context or development autonomously, independently from state development nearby. Early state formation causation can thus include borrowing, imposition, and other forms of interaction with already existing states.[13]

Theories on the formation of modern states focus on the processes that support the development of modern states, particularly those that formed in late-medieval Europe and then spread around the world with colonialism. Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, with decolonization processes underway, attention began to focus on the formation and construction of modern states with significant bureaucracies, ability to tax, and territorial sovereignty around the world.[14][15] However, some scholars hold that the modern state model formed in other parts of the world prior to colonialism, but that colonial structures replaced it.[16]

Uruk, one of the prime sites for research into early state formation.

Voluntary theories contend that diverse groups of people came together to form states as a result of some shared rational interest.[18] The theories largely focus on the development of agriculture, and the population and organizational pressure that followed and resulted in state formation. The argument is that such pressures result in integrative pressure for rational people to unify and create a state.[19] Much of the social contract philosophical tradition proposed a voluntary theory for state formation.[20]

One of the most prominent theories of early and primary state formation is the hydraulic hypothesis, which contends that the state was a result of the need to build and maintain large-scale irrigation projects.[21] The theory was most significantly detailed Karl August Wittfogel's argument that, in arid environments, farmers would be confronted by the production limits of small-scale irrigation. Eventually different agricultural producers would join together in response to population pressure and the arid environment, to create a state apparatus that could build and maintain large irrigation projects.[22]

In addition to this, is what Carneiro calls the automatic hypothesis, which contends that the development of agriculture easily produces conditions necessary for the development of a state. With surplus food stocks created by agricultural development, creation of distinct worker classes and a division of labor would automatically trigger creation of the state form.[18]

A third voluntary hypothesis, particularly common with some explanations of early state development, is that long distance trade networks created an impetus for states to develop at key locations: such as ports or oases. For example, the increased trade in the 16th century may have been a key to state formation in West African states such as Whydah, Dahomey, and the Benin Empire.[21]

Conflict theories of state formation regard conflict and dominance of some population over another population as key to the formation of states.[22] In contrast with voluntary theories, these arguments believe that people do not voluntarily agree to create a state to maximize benefits, but that states form due to some form of oppression by one group over others. A number of different theories rely on conflict, dominance, or oppression as a causal process or as a necessary mechanism within certain conditions and they may borrow from other approaches. In general the theories highlight: economic stratification, conquest of other peoples, conflict in circumscribed areas, and the neo-evolutionary growth of bureaucracy.

Panorama of Monte Albán in present-day Mexico, seen from the South Platform. Archeologists oftentimes look for evidence of such "large-scale construction projects, trade networks, and religious systems" to identify early states.[23]

• Economic stratification

Friedrich Engels articulated one of the earliest theories of the state based on anthropological evidence in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (1884).[24] The theory of Engels developed from study of Ancient Society (1877) by Lewis H. Morgan and from the sketches of this work by Karl Marx on the Asiatic mode of production.[25] Engels argues that the state developed as a result of the need to protect private property. The theory contended that surplus production as a result of the development of agriculture created a division and specialization of labor, leading to classes who worked the land and to those who could devote time to other tasks. Class antagonism and the need to secure the private property of those living on the surplus production produced by agriculturalists resulted in the creation of the state.[26] The anthropologist Morton Fried (1923-1986) further developed this approach, positing social stratification as the primary dynamic underlying the development of the state.[27]

• Conquest theories

Similar to the economic stratification theories, the conquest theory contends that a single city establishes a state in order to control other tribes or settlements it has conquered. The theory has its roots in the work of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) and of Jean Bodin (1530–1596), but it was first organized around anthropological evidence by Franz Oppenheimer (1864-1943).[28][29] Oppenheimer argues that the state was created to cement inequality between peoples that resulted from conquest.[30]

• Carneiro's circumscription theory

The mountain Huayna Picchu overlooks the ruins of Machu Picchu. The Andes mountains circumscribed much of the region.

Robert Carneiro developed a theory (1970)[31] aiming to provide a more nuanced understanding of state formation by accounting for the fact that many factors (surplus agriculture, warfare, irrigation, conquest, etc.) did not produce states in all situations. He concluded that while population pressure and warfare were mechanisms of state formation, they only created states in geographic regions circumscribed, or walled off from the surrounding area.[32] Geographic barriers (or in some cases barriers created by nomadic raiders or by rival societies) create limitations on the ability of the people to deal with production shortfalls, and the result is that warfare results in state creation.[27] In situations of unlimited agricultural land (like the Amazon or the Eastern United States), Carneiro believes that the pressures did not exist and so warfare allowed people to move elsewhere and thus did not spur creation of a state.[33]

• Neoevolutionary theories

Further information: Neoevolutionism

A number of different theories, sometimes connected with some of the processes above, explain state formation in terms of the evolution of leadership systems. This argument sees human society as evolving from tribes or chiefdoms into states through a gradual process of transformation that lets a small group hierarchically structure society and maintain order through appropriation of symbols of power.[34] Groups that gained power in tribal society gradually worked towards building the hierarchy and segmentation that created the state.[35]

Elman Service (1915-1996) proposed that, unlike in economic stratification theories, the state largely creates stratification in society rather than being created to defend that stratification.[36] Bureaucracy evolves to support the leadership structure in tribes and uses religious hierarchy and economic stratification as a means to further increase its power.[37] Warfare may play a key role in the situation, because it allows leaders to distribute benefits in ways that serve their interests, however it is a constant that feeds the system rather than an autonomous factor.[38] Similarly, anthropologist Henry T. Wright argues (2006) that competitive and conflictual environments produce political experimentation leading to the development of the state. As opposed to theories that the state develops through chance or tinkering, experimentation involves a more directed process where tribal leaders learn from organization forms of the past and from the outcomes they produced.[39]

Other aspects are highlighted in different theories as of contributing importance. It is sometimes claimed that technological development, religious development, or socialization of members are crucial to state development. However, most of these factors are found to be secondary in anthropological analysis.[40] In addition to conquest, some theories contend that the need for defense from military conquest or the military organization to conquer other peoples is the key aspect leading to state formation.[21]

Some theories proposed in the 19th century and early 20th century have since been largely discredited by anthropologists. Carneiro writes that theories "with a racial basis, for example, are now so thoroughly discredited that they need not be dealt with...We can also reject the belief that the state is an expression of the 'genius' of a people, or that it arose through a 'historical accident.' Such notions make the state appear to be something metaphysical or adventitious, and thus place it beyond scientific understanding."[18] Similarly, social Darwinist perspectives like those of Walter Bagehot in Physics and Politics argued that the state form developed as a result of the best leaders and organized societies gradually gaining power until a state resulted. Such explanations are not considered sufficient to explain the formation of the state.[28][41]

A woodcut of the Defenestrations of Prague in 1618—which began the Thirty Years' War and ended with the Peace of Westphalia that started the recognition of the modern state

Two related theories are based on military development and warfare, and the role that these forces played in state formation. Charles Tilly developed an argument that the state developed largely as a result of "state-makers" who sought to increase the taxes they could gain from the people under their control so they could continue fighting wars.[42] According to Tilly, the state makes war and war makes states.[49] In the constant warfare of the centuries in Europe, coupled with expanded costs of war with mass armies and gunpowder, warlords had to find ways to finance war and control territory more effectively. The modern state presented the opportunity for them to develop taxation structures, the coercive structure to implement that taxation, and finally the guarantee of protection from other states that could get much of the population to agree.[50] Taxes and revenue raising have been repeatedly pointed out as a key aspect of state formation and the development of state capacity. Economist Nicholas Kaldor emphasized on the importance of revenue raising and warned about the dangers of the dependence on foreign aid.[51] Tilly argues, state making is similar to organized crime because it is a "quintessential protection racket with the advantage of legitimacy."[52]

Michael Roberts and Geoffrey Parker, in contrast, finds that the primary causal factor was not the "state-makers" themselves, but simply the military revolutions that allowed development of larger armies.[53] The argument is that with the expanded state of warfare, the state became the only administrative unit that could endure in the constant warfare in the Europe of this period, because only it could develop large enough armies.[54] This view—that the modern state replaced chaos and general violence with internal disciplinary structures—has been challenged as ethnocentric, and ignoring the violence of modern states.[55]

War has played a key role not only in the consolidation of European states but also of some third world states. According to Herbst, external security threats have had a fundamental role in the development of the South Korean and Taiwanese states.[6] A 2017 study which tests the predictions of warfare theories of Tilly and others found that the predictions do not match the empirical record.[56] The study found that median state size decreased from 1100 to 1800, and that the number of states increases rapidly between the twelfth and thirteen centuries and remained constant until 1800.[56]

Stein Rokkan and others have argued that the modern territorial state developed in places that were peripheral to the commercial "city belt" ("a central regional band extending, roughly, in an arc from the Low Countries, through the Rhineland and into Northern Italy") that ran through Central Europe.[56] The existence of prosperous urban centers that relied on commerce in Central Europe prevented rulers from consolidating their rule over others.[56] The elites in those urban centers could rely on their wealth and on collective security institutions (like the Hanseatic or Swabian league) with other urban centers to sustain their independence. A lower density of urban centers in England and France made it easier for rulers to establish rule over expansive territories.[56]

Another argument contends that the state developed out of economic and social crises that were prominent in late-medieval Europe. Religious wars between Catholics and Protestants, and the involvement of leaders in the domains of other leaders under religious reasons was the primary problem dealt with in the Peace of Westphalia.[43] In addition, Marxist theory contends that the economic crisis of feudalism forced the aristocracy to adapt various centralized forms of organization so they could retain economic power, and this resulted in the formation of the modern state.[57]

Some scholarship, linked to wider debates in anthropology, has increasingly emphasized the state as a primarily cultural artifact, and focuses on how symbolism plays a primary role in state formation.[58] Most explicitly, some studies emphasize how the creation of national identification and citizenship were crucial to state formation. The state then is not simply a military or economic authority, but also includes cultural components creating consent by people by giving them rights and shared belonging.[47]

While modern states existed without European influence around the world before colonialism,[59] post-colonial state formation has received the most significant attention.[60] While warfare is primary in theories about state formation in Europe, the development of the international norm of non-interventionism means that other processes of state formation have become prominent outside Europe (including colonial imposition, assimilation, borrowing, and some internal political processes.[61][60] John W. Meyer's World Society Theory contends that the state form was exported from Europe, institutionalized in the United Nations, and gradually the modern nation-state became the basis for both those in power and those challenging power.[62] In addition, because many of the early modern states like the United Kingdom and France had significant empires, their institutional templates became standard for application globally.[62]

According to academics on state formation in Africa, most notably Jeffrey Herbst, many contemporary African states lack the empirical qualities of states found in their counterparts in the developed world. This is due to the differences in the state building experience between Europe and Africa. Statebuilding in Europe was characterized by the threat of territorial wars, as such states formed as a by product of ruler's efforts in preparing for and waging war. As states in Africa were formed out of decolonization and born in an international system that respected the sovereignty of international borders, this meant that the threat of territorial conquest, which highlighted the European statebuilding experience, was absent from Africa. As such, ruling elite in Africa did not have the impetus to develop strong and effective institutional structures as the survival of the state was guaranteed by the international community. In doing so this led to the proliferation of weak states in Africa, with only juridicial statehood, in reality they lacked effectiveness and legitimacy.