The state and supreme power: the theory of traditionalism

The crisis of modern states and statehood compels the social sciences to seek underlying causes. Traditionalist theory rejects the paradigm of progress and linear social development, recognizing an involution of the state and law of the 21st century. This article examines the concepts of the state and supreme power from a traditionalist perspective. Within social science frameworks shaped by the progress paradigm, modern Western society — marked by rational knowledge and secular ethics — is contrasted with civilizations beyond its borders and with earlier societies whose ideological cores remain rooted in distinct spiritual and moral values; the latter are labeled «traditional societies». The dominant agenda remains the modernization and Westernization of these traditional societies, ostensibly culminating in the establishment of capitalist economies and democratic statehood. Although modernization theory has been widely criticized for promoting neocolonial dependence of developing countries on the West, modernization discourse still predominates in the social sciences.