Abstract
The office of war chief became “Kingship” when the high priests empowered it with godliness. The Kings conquered large territories, and the Kings were worshiped as divine – descended from the gods and embodying the gods. The kings ruled with the help of the high priests and hundreds of state officials. This divine Kingship was so effective in integrating and stabilizing multicultural territories that it became institutionalized in the great civilizations of Mesopotamia, Egypt, India, and China (also in the Mayan, Inca, and Aztec civilizations). Where the divine Kingship became deeply institutionalized and long lived, democracy, not only disappeared, but became inconceivable.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Lewis Henry Morgan, The Iroquois League, and, Ancient Society, Charles Kerr & Co. 1909, Chicago.
- 2.
Polybius, Early Rome, see also Livy¸ Early Rome.
- 3.
William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Oxford, Oxford Press, 1956.
- 4.
Josephus, Roman-Jewish War, Amazon books, 2002.
- 5.
Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order, N.Y. Farrar, Straus, Giroux, 2011.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Glassman, R.M. (2019). The Kingly-Bureaucratic State: The Integration of Larger Political Areas. In: The Future of Democracy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16111-8_5
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16111-8_5
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-16110-1
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-16111-8
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)