Published: 15 June 2015
Purpose. The problem of statehood is analyzed in the light of the new paradigm of social evolution. Methods. Institutional approach in the interpretation by D. North, synergetic concept by I. Prigogine and the emerging in recent years new paradigm of social evolution form the basis of the authors' position. Results. The article provides assessment of the system-structural and cultural-historical (civilized) approaches to the problem of statehood, developed in the framework of the Soviet social study and widely spread in the post-Soviet period. On the basis of the reconstruction of the conceptual-methodological context of the statehood problem a working definition of the statehood as institutional infrastructure of historical forms of power organization is given emerging in the situation of the transition from the tribal system to civilization and operating as the driving start of the historical formation and development of the latter. Scientific novelty. The conceptual-methodological context of the statehood problem is reconstructed, factors of ideological deformation and dogmatization of the theoretical and methodological contents of the statehood problem are disclosed, a definition of statehood is given, which can form the basis of the interdisciplinary research of the problem through the means of political science, history, social philosophy, jurisprudence and history of culture.