A Theory of the Origin of the State: Robert L. Carneiro Dawit Getachew College of Social Science, Department of Political Science and International Relations, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia. Submitted to: MR. Eyasu Gizaw Submission date: 2 nd July,2022 Course: Introduction to Politics and Government Id number: SSE/8197/13 Summary: Traditional theories of state origins are considered and rejected in favor of a new ecological hypothesis. According to Robert Leonard Carneiro “the state is an autonomous political unit, encompassing many communities with in its territory and having a centralized government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and decree and enforce laws”. Although it was by all odds the most far-reaching political development in human history, the origin of the state is still very imperfectly understood. According to the author ‘the origin of the state was neither mysterious nor fortuitous, rather it was the outcome of a regular and determinate cultural process’. Moreover, it was not a unique event but a recurring phenomenon: states arose independently in different places and at different times. Where the appropriate conditions existed, the state emerged. Serious theories of state origins are of two general types: voluntaristic and coercive. Voluntaristic theories hold that, at some point in their history, certain people spontaneously, rationally, and voluntarily gave up their individual sovereignties and untied with other communities to form a larger political unit deserving to be called a state. Of such theories the best known is the old Social Contract theory, which was associated especially with the name of Rousseau. The most widely accepted of modern voluntaristic theories according to Robert is the “automatic” theory. Another current voluntaristic theory of the state origins is Karl Wittfogel ’s “hydraulic hypothesis.” This and all other voluntaristic theories of the rise of the state founder on the same rock: demonstrated inability of autonomous political units to relinquish their sovereignty in the absence of overriding external constraints. Coercive theories argue that, force, and not enlightened self-interest, is the mechanism by which political evolution has led, step by step, autonomous villages to the state. A close examination of history also indicates that only a coercive theory can account for the rise of the state. The view that war lies at the root of the state is by no means new. Yet, though warfare is surely a prime mover in the origin of the state, it can not be the only factor. After all, wars have been fought in many parts of the world where the state never emerged. Thus, while warfare may be a necessary condition for the rise of the state, it is not a sufficient one. There are other factors which account for the rise of the state. These factors include: Environmental Circumscription, Political Evolution, and Social Circumscription. The circumscription theory in its elaborated form goes far toward accounting for the origin of the state. It explains why states arouse where they did, and why they failed to arise elsewhere. It shows the state to be a predictable response to certain specific cultural, demographic, and ecological conditions.