State formation

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The term `` state formation '' discusses the causes, formation conditions and accompanying circumstances of the transition from pre-state societies to those with state rule in the sense of a monopoly of violence financed by taxes from the subjects , with the aim of reconstructing historically valid or at least ideal-typical scenarios.

The theories of the formation of the state were initially drafted as historical speculation or hypotheses , but after the emergence of ethnology could in part be empirically proven. Many theories seek to develop a general scenario. Some authors, on the other hand, take the view that the historical emergence of state rule should be determined in each individual case and a generally valid model of state formation can only be developed through a combined (alternative and / or cumulative) application of the theories.

Historical classification

The first states arose in the fourth to third millennium BC in Mesopotamia in the cities ( Uruk , Kiš , Lagasch , Eridu , Isin , Sippar , Larsa , Adab , Nippur , Šuruppak , Ur , Akkad ) and Elam ( Susa ), Egypt ( Naqada ) and China ( Xia Dynasty ); In the third to the second millennium, states emerged in India ( Indus culture ), Greece, Crete ( Minoan culture ), later in Mexico ( Olmec and Maya ) and Peru ( Caral ).

State rule has only developed in sedentary societies, and only where agriculture was so developed that a surplus was produced.

Before the emergence of chief rule and earlier state power , the peoples were constituted segmentally , warfare was already known in hunter-gatherer cultures and with loosely organized Neolithic farmers, with generally higher death rates in prehistoric conflicts than in modern wars.

First phase of state formation

Most contemporary anthropologists , ethnologists , researchers of prehistory and early history, and historians generally agree that for millennia, that is, for the longest time before any recorded history, human societies existed without a ruling class, which is also what modern ethnology and Examination of all indigenous cultures is confirmed. All stateless cultures, which were at the same time always egalitarian cultures and in some cases still are today, exist without a separate group of established authorities or formal political institutions. According to the Canadian anthropologist Harold Barclay , anarchism as an independent perspective or the gentile structure that we find in modified form across the planet on all continents, arose long before in the Paleolithic . For thousands of years, people have lived in completely autonomous and absolutely self-sufficient self-governing societies without ever needing an institutionalized government or political class.

The emergence of the state is very different from region to region. The earliest state formation in Mesopotamia began as early as the 4th millennium BC. In the form of city-states , according to which the city of Eridu is said to be the oldest of all cities according to the Sumerian king lists, while for most African and American regions the formation of states only began with the expeditions and conquests of the European seafarers, for some regions of Africa, however, only began in the 19th century by means of colonialism and imperialism of the European powers.

It was not until about 6000 years ago, around the time of the so-called beginnings of civilization , that the first societies with formal structures began to take shape. Hierarchy , management structures and related ideologies began to prevail in some regions. Initially, these hierarchical societies were relatively rare and isolated, primarily limited to the Middle East of what is now Asia and later also to the Middle East . Slowly they grew in size and influence, sometimes they conquered the surrounding tribal societies, still anarchic , in which most of the people lived on, whereby they were then subjected to the rule of a state, mostly in the form of slavery .

Sometimes independently in response to outside pressure, other tribal societies also developed hierarchical manifestations, social and political organization. Nevertheless, until the era of European colonization, a large part of the earth remained essentially worldwide, with the most diverse cultures of the people in different parts of the world, still without formal institutions of government, in some regions for some regions into the 19th century. There are various historical theories about the emergence of the first uniformly structured political community, which are often linked to the legitimation of a current form of government .

Submission theory

The submission theory assumes that the state came into being in a process of subjugation of peaceful peasant peoples by warlike pastoralists : An initial phase of disorderly looting followed an institutionalization of the taxes of the subjugated, from which statehood developed in subsequent phases. According to Uwe Wesel, this is one of the best ethnologically secure findings.

Marxist theory

Friedrich Engels advocates a materialist theory : According to this, agriculture begins to generate a surplus through progress in production. The trade in this abundance enables the transition from subsistence economy to merchandise management . By trading in abundance, the haves appropriated more and more property. Two classes of people soon formed: the haves on the one hand and those who continue to live from their work on the other. Now the haves used their means to develop a military organization that was supposed to help them secure their position: the state. This theory is supported by Vere Gordon Childe .

More theories

Robert L. Carneiro's “Theory of Natural Boundaries” sees the origins of the state in the combination of population growth and the lack of immediate settlement areas (→  political geography ). Dispute and war over the land followed the population growth, leading to the subjugation of individual villages or tribes . He differentiates between the (in his opinion: six) originally created states ("primary states"), and (all others) through contact with these states created ("secondary states").

Regardless of the details, his distinction between primary and secondary state formation has become an anthropological common property.

According to the patriarchal theory , state rule is a kind of further development of male violence in the family: The power of men over women spills over into other areas of social life and thus leads to the permanent establishment of power structures, which ultimately lead to a monopoly of violence by the strongest.

According to the patrimonial theory , state rule is established in private ownership of land . The landowner finally gained the monopoly of force over those who lived on his land. In Justus Möser'sshare theory ” this approach was expanded to the effect that the emergence of the state can be explained by the association of landowners who form a community for the purpose of common protection and management of their goods and henceforth rule over the dispossessed.

The contract theory (in real historical sense, not in the sense of idealistic contract theory to specific social problems (scarcity of resources; management of public systems for) believes that state government had arisen following a voluntary agreement water management ) to solve centrally.

Second phase of state formation

The second phase of development can be seen as the extensive formation of states, which began after antiquity with its typical city-states and the centers in Athens , Babylon , Beijing and Rome . In connection with a religion , organizations and structures emerge, some of which are already described in the period of origin, for example with the work De civitate Dei by Augustine in the 5th century . The spatial boundaries and their stabilization only emerged over time, especially from the Middle Ages . Some state structures like the Holy Roman Empire differ markedly from the later nation states . Only in the 20th century, when the globe was finally divided up between the European colonial powers, did these state models of political organization claim the entire planet for themselves, which were almost exclusively divided among themselves by the European powers (see Berlin Congo Conference 1884–1885).

There is agreement that the forcible conquest in itself does not create a state; Added to this is the stabilization of the power relations. The main problem of the theory of the formation of the state lies precisely in how manifest violence has passed into a structural, latent one. Wolfgang Reinhard , Thomas Ellwein and Ulrich von Alemann , for example, dealt with the formation of the state in today's understanding .

See also

literature

General
Special
  • Dominik Nagl: No Part of the Mother Country, but Distinct Dominions - Legal Transfer, State Building and Governance in England, Massachusetts and South Carolina, 1630–1769. Lit Verlag, Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-643-11817-2 ( review ; full text ).

Individual evidence

  1. a b Uwe Wesel , History of Law , Rn 32.
  2. See Lawrence H. Keely, War before Civilization , Oxford University Press, 1996.
  3. ^ Robert Graham: Anarchism: A Documentary. History of Libertarian Ideas: From Anarchy to Anarchism . Black Rose Books, Montreal 2005, ISBN 1-55164-250-6 , pp. XI – XV (accessed August 11, 2010).
  4. a b c Harold Barclay: Peoples without government: an anthropology of anarchism , Kahn & Averill, London 1982.
  5. Friedrich Engels: The origin of the family, private property and the state
  6. See, for example, Jean-François Millaire, Primary State Formation in the Virú Valley, North Coast of Peru. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . Vol. 107 Issue 14, April 6, 2010, pp. 6186-6191; Henry T. Wright, Recent Research on the Origin of the State , Annual Review of Anthropology, 1977, pp. 379-397.
  7. ^ Samuel Noah Kramer : The cradle of culture , Time Life, Amsterdam 1967
  8. Joseph Ratzinger: People and House of God in Augustine's Doctrine of the Church , dissertation 1950/1951 at the theological faculty of the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich
  9. David Graeber, Frei von Herrschaft: Fragments of an anarchist anthropology , Peter Hammer Verlag, Wuppertal 2008.
  10. a b Hans Peter Drexler, Metamorphoses of Power - the emergence of rule, classes and the state , p. 16 f.
  11. Michael Schmid, On the evolution of rules. Some theoretical model considerations , p. 124 f. ( PDF ( Memento of February 1, 2012 in the Internet Archive )).