Theoretical and Methodological Aspects of the Early State Problem: A Socio-Philosophical Analysis

Abstract

 This article deals with the phenomenon of the early state as a transitional societal stage between the pre-state and the developed state. Different views on the ways of transitioning to the state structure of public life in contemporary social science are analysed. The paper indicates a lack of a valid typology of forms of socio-political organization of society that is generally accepted by the majority of the scientific community. The object of this research is the phenomenon of the early state. The purpose of the article is to identify problematic theoretical and methodological aspects of using the term early state in the analysis of key strategies for understanding the origin of the state as a historically contingent form of socio-political organization. To achieve this purpose, a number of tasks are accomplished here: to consider the current state of research on the origin of the state; to identify theoretical ideas that are common to these studies; to analyse the content characteristics of the notion of the early state in the theories of leading political anthropologists and to compare their ideas about the essence of the early state. The scientific novelty of this paper lies in the problematization of the processes of politogenesis in terms of socio-philosophical consideration. This implies, first of all, a conceptual analysis of the prevailing views in contemporary science on the origin and essence of the state, which are reproduced in the studies of political anthropologists, describing the early state as a historically necessary form of socio-political organization. The author concludes that the current pluralism of approaches within social science to the analysis of the origin of the state and its relationship with the early forms of socio-political organization is mainly due to the underdeveloped criteria for distinguishing between the concepts of state and early state, which, naturally, makes it significantly harder to determine the key factors in transitioning to the state structure of society.