Bret Devereaux

And I think an excessively narrow definition of the 'state,' when they emerge and are used, has an unfortunately tendency to 'define out' non-Western states where the definition is otherwise met. 10/21

More to the center of the argument, the proscription of abandoning 'state' for 'community' I think still airbrushes an important distinction for comparing and understanding different polities. 11/21

Working at the meeting point of the Middle Roman Republic - where the state/non-state/proto-state question-marks of the sixth and fifth century had long since resolved into a clear state (perched atop a tributary empire and so complex in form) and truly non-state peoples... 12/21

...like those of much of Gaul and Spain, the state/non-state typology still has tremendous value for understanding differences in the structures of these communities. 13/21

The idea of 'state formation' is also valuable in situating Iberian and Gallic communities on a continuum of social change w/ Rome, at different points, rather than treating as completely alien forms of social org. because in many ways they are more similar than different. 14/21

Moreover, abandoning the 'state' label completely makes the process of state formation - with its tendency to 'ripple' outward as non-state peoples form states to compete with neighboring states - harder for the student to discern. 15/21

Not a core-periphery model, but a mode of thinking which treats state organization as an innovation (in social organization) like any other sort of innovation, which tends to spread either by imitation or replication and which developed independently in several different places.