State and (or) Evolution: Problems of Juristic Reasoning on the State Concepts, on the Origin and Development of the States (Part Two)

The second part of the article examines a number of methodological issues related to understanding the state. Among them are: the authors’ non-critical attitude to dogmatic ideas about the state, inconsistencies between the definition of the state and the presentation of its characteristics (features, elements). Particular attention is paid to state sovereignty as a quality that, on the one hand, is used to be unjustifiably associated by theorists with any doctrinal understanding of the state and with any historical eras, and on the other hand, actually belongs today to certain political entities that are not regarded as states formally.