Is it possible to implement state transition model using business rules

Summary:

I have a state model for my incident tickets, for eg. new->implement->review->close . Can I add rules so that the user may only change state in this order?

Content (required):

So I have a status field. I am able to restrict the menu items for this field using Workspace rules. It works correctly, the user is only given an option to move to implement state from new and no other menu items are listed.

But workspace rules do not apply on Connect REST API. The user is able to update the field to any status from a REST API call.