ABSTRACT
The European colonisation of the world in the last 500 years and the three waves of proliferation of capitalist production resulted—on the level of political organisation—in widespread, coercive and rapid change. Colonialism brought about a rigid reduction of the number and the diversity of pre-colonial political systems, in some cases 'only' an alteration of the originality and peculiarities of indigenous political systems. The global change of this diverse structure materialised as a result of European colonial expansion, accelerated by the genesis of the modern state in the Europe, following the era of absolutism. The concept of the nation has shown fairly early its ambivalence as a political category. The post-colonial adoption and utilisation of the colonial repressive apparatus by the new elites remains to be interpreted as result of an integrated concept and the principle of political dominance. Civilian opposition and popular movements accuse democracy deficits in Third World states.
