Since the 1970s, we have been witnessing an increasing call for "bringing the state back in" to political science studies. In particular, the theories of state-building earned a great importance. This led to the multiplicity and diversity of state-building theories and as a result a kind of textual disorder in this literature. Thus, we argue that it is a must to give some theoretical order to these theories and build some coherent theoretical structures in the field of state-building theories through one of the methods in theory-framing that is theoretical approaches. In doing so, this article offers four main theoretical approaches to state-building theories including war approach, approach of economic and social crisis and dynamics of feudalism, cultural approaches and finally Third World approach. This article then follows a critical and pathological perspective and discusses the theoretical imperatives to be observed by the above-mentioned theoretical approaches.
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