ABSTRACT
This chapter analyzes the ways in which the different levels of political activity were organized by the rulers, how different groups participated in them, and the conditions under which these processes developed and functioned. In order to be able to understand these problems in a fuller way we must necessarily consider the conditions under which these political systems developed and could maintain themselves. The chapter presents the hypothesis that every type of political system developed is maintained under specific local conditions. It also presents a series of hypotheses about the types of conditions which made the institutionalization of these political systems possible. The chapter discusses the problem of the conditions under which the political systems of the centralized bureaucratic empires develop, become institutionalized, and are maintained; and it point outs the necessity to present specific hypotheses about the nature of these conditions.
