ABSTRACT
Comparison, types and complexity A central argument of the previous chapters was that the engagement in comparative study necessarily involves breaking up the ‘social whole’ via one or more sociological universals or types. This is the very premise of social scientific analysis. A second core argument was that these types should be true sociological universals, not biased towards modern or contemporary political experience. In this chapter, I shall discuss how the disciplines of anthropology, archaeology and historical sociology have approached the problem of sociological universals. I will conclude that they, with some significant caveats, continue to privilege the state and what can be termed its mirror images: tribes and chiefdoms. It is important to emphasise the caveats. Many scholars have moved beyond these problematic categories and explored alternative approaches to slicing up the social whole based on such prominent social theorists as, for example, Agamben, Bourdieu and Foucault. Nevertheless, the tribe-chiefdom-state triumvirate, with its many mutations, remains influential.
