Stategenesis & Writing (a Contribution to the Theory of Bureaucratic Apparatus as a Key Feature of the State)
Institute of World History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
For citation: Shchavelev, Aleksei S. Stategenesis & Writing (a Contribution to the Theory of Bureaucratic Apparatus as a Key Feature of the State) // Graphosphaera. 2021. Vol. 1. P. 20–40. URL: http://writing.igh.ru/index.php?id=stejtogenez-i-pismennost
DOI: 10.32608/2782-5272-2022-1-20-40
Abstract: The article elaborates the thesis that the key specific feature of a “state” is the presence of a bureaucratic apparatus and a social group of bureaucrats, i. e. “full-employing functionaries”, who exercise management and administration. Acceptance of this postulate inevitably entails the conclusion that a technology of writing as an administrative tool is the main condition of the existence of a “state”. The presence of writing always gives rise to a multilevel and multicomponent graphosphere. Some peoples didn’t use a writing system for solving problems of government, therefore, not all archaic societies with a developed written tradition created states. However, writing is a prerequisite for the formation of the state, therefore, state genesis took place only in societies that owned this technology. The “state” can be defined as a centralized polity, in which the management of a stratified and territorial society is carried out by specialists-bureaucrats using writing technologies, special quantitative systems and performative texts embodied in a complex graphosphere.
Key words: Politogenesis, State-Formation, Writing, State, Bureaucracy
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