State formation

State formation is the process of the development of a centralized government structure in a situation where one did not exist prior to its development. State formation has been a study of many disciplines of the social sciences for a number of years, so much so that Jonathan Haas writes that "One of the favorite pastimes of social scientists over the course of the past century has been to theorize about the evolution of the world's great civilizations." The study of state formation is divided generally into either the study of early states (those that developed in stateless societies) or the study of modern states (particularly of the form that developed in Europe in the 17th century and spread around the world). Academic debate about various theories is a prominent feature in fields like Anthropology, Sociology, and Political Science.

There is no clear consensus on the defining characteristics of a state and the definition can vary significantly based upon the focus of the particular study. In general though, for studies of state formation, the state is considered to be a territorially bound political unit with centralized institutions for the administration of governance, as distinct from tribes or units without centralized institutions.

According to Painter & Jeffrey, there are 5 distinctive features of the modern state: 1) they are ordered by precise boundaries with administrative control across the whole; 2) they occupy large territories with control given to organized institutions; 3) they have a capital city and are endowed with symbols that embody state power; 4) the government within said state creates organizations to monitor, govern and control its population through surveillance and record keeping; 5) they increase monitoring over time.

Theories of state formation have two distinct focuses, depending largely on the field of study:

Studies of early state formation focus both on "primary states," or states which developed in a context with no preexisting states and thus may be fairly rare, and on "early states," or states which developed over a particular people but which may have interacted with existing states in nearby societies.

Primary states are defined by anthropologists Spencer & Redmond as those states that developed in a context with no contact or prior development of a state in the area. These are those situations where states developed for the first time in that social environment. 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; However, the list typically includes the first states to develop in Egypt, Mesopotamia, the Indus river valley, North China, Peru, and Mesoamerica. Cohen identifies six zones of independent state development: 1) a zone stretching from Europe and North Africa through the Middle East to East and South Asia, 2) Mesoamerica, 3) Peru, 4) West Africa, 5) East Africa, 6) Polynesia.

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