ABSTRACT
One is that the political system is a basic part of any society's organization, and an examination of its place within the social structure and its relation to other parts of this structure is the most profitable method of analyzing its functioning. At one stage or another in each of these civilizations, political systems and organizations have developed that belong, as we shall see, to the broad type designated as "historical" (i.e., non-modern) centralized bureaucratic empires or polities. Further analysis shows the extent to which each historical type is analytically distinct, or the extent to which different types of political systems cutting across those listed would have to be distinguished. This chapter is concerned with one major type of political system, namely, with the centralized historical bureaucratic empires or states. In order to be able to understand the major characteristics of these political systems, it starts with a brief description of the patterns of their development.
