State: the nature of the phenomenon

Within the framework of the overwhelming majority of modern theories, the stateis considered as a specialized and centralized institution for governing a society, to what itsright to exercise coercive authority - legitimized violence is often added as the state’s criticalcharacteristic feature. Contrariwise, my approach stems from the presumption that the stateshould be perceived not as a specific set of political institutions only but, first and foremost,as a type of society to which this set of institutions is adequate. Following this approach leadsto the necessity of paying special attention to coming to the fore of the non-kin, territorialrelations in state society - the point often evicted from many contemporary definitions of thestate due to the wide-spread vision of it as merely a specific form of political organization.I also argue that political centralization cannot be regarded as a feature specific for the state, as it is applicable to many non-state forms of societies. In the meantime, the feature typicalfor the state only, is specialization resulting in administrators’ professionalization, that is,in the formation of bureaucracy, related directly to the non-kin social ties coming intoprominence. As for the right to coerce, it should not be made the central point of the stateconcept because it is a dependent variable itself: the specificity of monopoly of the legitimateviolence in state society is precisely that it is exercised through and by bureaucrats whooperate within bureaucratic institutions