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The Headless State

The Headless State Aristocratic Orders, Kinship Society, & Misrepresentations of Nomadic Inner Asia

David Sneath, David (Director Sneath, Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit University of Cambridge), University Assistant Lecturer in the Department of Social Anthropology and Assistant Director of the Mongolia and Inner Asia Studies Unit David Sneath — 2007
"Sneath argues that aristocratic power and statelike processes of administration were the true organizers of life on the steppe. Rethinking the traditional dichotomy between state and nonstate societies, Sneath conceives of a "headless state" in which a configuration of statelike power was formed by the horizontal relations among power holders and was reproduced with or without an overarching ruler or central "head." In other words, almost all of the operations of state power existed at the local level, virtually independent of central bureaucratic authority.".
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