How to build a State in a non State environment?

[Dayuhan]

First, I agree whole-heartedly. Terms like "tribal" have been used to denote anything less than a Westphalian system.

Somebody's going to call you out and ask why "other than Westphalian" must be considered "less", so it might as well be me.

I would disagree that "big man" is post tribal (so to speak), but it is fantastic that you are even familiar with the term in my opinion. I would consider big men an alternative or even pre-tribal (I know, that is not very articulate) system.

"Big man" is a pretty common and familiar term, is it not? I classified it as "post tribal" because of the prevalence of unconstrained "big man" politics in post-colonial Africa where the hastily contrived and often irrational national boundaries left tribal systems disrupted and in many cases disabled. While "big man" systems certainly existed in tribal societies, they were often constrained to some extent (not always, but often) by other elements of tribal politics. Of course the Cold War and the ability to draw support from external actors also enabled the "big man" systems... and one could go on.

This is why each society has to be examined individually. There are similarities. There are commonalities that can be understood and exploited. But unless you have an idea of what you are looking at you are clueless.

Agreed.

Actually, you sound like you live in an egalitarian society. Competence is the only measure of respect. Nearly impossible to get any enforceable decision without complete unanimity. Does that sound accurate?

Close to accurate, though the details are known to get complicated. Somehow that always seems to be the case where Homo Sapiens is involved.