The article presents some theoretical elements that can be useful to study the processes of formation of the State field and the role of the civil wars in these processes. In the text four matters are outlined: 1) The impossibility to study the State under the presupposition of the existing separation between State and society; 2) The importance of examining the process of formation of the State field from a historical and cultural perspective that includes, among other things, the reflection on the fights, silences, agreements, consensuses and resistances of the different actors who intervene in this field; 3) the value of addressing the State from the local and regional perspectives; and 4) its multiple tensions, conflicts and violence.