CULT101 Understanding Cultural Encounters

Political Life Social Order and Disorder

14 DECEMBER 2020
• Political life may evoke thoughts of political parties, interest groups,
lobbying, campaigning, and voting.
• In other words, when people living in the United States think of political
life, they may think first of “politics,” the activities (not always apparent)
that influence who is elected or appointed to political office, what public
policies are established, how they get established, and who benefits from
those policies.
• But in the United States and in many other countries, political life involves
even more than government and politics. Political life also involves ways
of preventing or resolving troubles and disputes both within and outside
the society.
• Internally, a complex society such as ours may employ mediation or
arbitration to resolve industrial disputes, a police force to prevent
crimes or track down criminals, and courts and a penal system to deal
with lawbreakers as well as with social conflict in general.
• Externally, such a society may establish embassies in other nations
and develop and utilize its armed forces both to maintain security and
to support domestic and foreign interests.
• All societies have customs or procedures that, organized on behalf of
territorial groups, result in decision making and the resolution of
disputes. These ways of creating and maintaining social order and
coping with social disorder vary from society to society.
• Formal governments have become more widespread around the
world over the last 100 years, as powerful colonizing countries have
imposed political systems upon others or as people less formally
organized realized that they needed governmental mechanisms to
deal with the larger world.
• But many societies known to anthropology did not have political
officials, political parties, courts, or armies. Indeed, the band or
village was the largest autonomous political unit in 50 percent of the
societies in the ethnographic record, as of the times they were first
described.
• When anthropologists talk about political organization or political life,
they are particularly focusing on activities and beliefs pertaining to
territorial groups.
• Territorial groups, on whose behalf political activities may be
organized, range from small communities, such as bands and villages,
to large communities, such as towns and cities, to multilocal groups,
such as districts or regions, entire nations, or even groups of nations.
Types of political organizations
• When we describe the political integration of particular societies, we focus on
their traditional political systems.
• In many societies known to anthropology, the small community (band or village)
was traditionally the largest territorial group on whose behalf political activities
were organized.
• Elman Service suggested that most societies can be classified into four principal
types of political organization ranging from less to more centralized:
i. bands,
ii. tribes,
iii. chiefdoms,
iv. and states.
Band type organization
• Societies with a band type of political organization are composed of
fairly, small, usually nomadic group. Each of these bands is politically
autonomous, the band being the largest group that acts as political
unit. Authority within the band is usually informal. Societies with band
organization generally are egalitarian hunter-gatherers. But band
organization may not have been typical of food collectors in the distant
past.
• Because most recent foragers had band organization, some
anthropologists contend that this type of political organization
characterized nearly all societies before the development of
agriculture, or until about 10,000 years ago.
• Bands are typically small, with less than 100 people usually, often
considerably less. Each small band occupies a large territory, so
population density is low.
• Band size often varies by season, with the band breaking up or
recombining according to the food resources available at a given time
and place.
• Each band may have its informal headman, or its most proficient hunter, or
a person most accomplished in rituals.
• There may be one person with all these qualities, or several people, but such
a person or people will have gained status through the community’s
recognition of skill, good sense, and humility. Leadership, in other words,
stems not from power but from influence, not from office but from admired
personal qualities.

Headman: A person who holds a powerless but symbolically unifying position

in a community within an egalitarian society; may exercise influence but has
no power to impose sanctions.
Tribal organization
• Societies with tribal organization are similar to those with band in being
egalitarian. But in contrast with band societies, they generally are food
producers, have a higher population density, and are more sedentary.
Tribal organization is defined by the presence of groupings, such as clans
and age-sets, that can integrate more than one local group into a larger
whole.

• The personal qualities of leaders in tribal societies seem to be similar to

the qualities of leaders in the United States, with one major difference
U.S. leaders are generally wealthier than others in their society.
• The term tribe is sometimes used to refer to an entire society; that is,
an entire language group may be called a tribe. But a tribal type of
political system does not usually permit the entire society to act as a
unit; all the communities in a tribal society may be linked only
occasionally for some political (usually military) purpose.
• What distinguishes tribal from band political organization is the
presence in the former of some multilocal, but not usually
societywide, integration. The multilocal integration, however, is not
permanent, and it is informal in the sense that political officials do not
head it.
A segmentary lineage system is one type of tribal integration based on
kinship. A society with such a system is composed of segments, or
parts, each similar to the others in structure and function.
• Every local segment belongs to a hierarchy of lineages stretching
farther and farther back genealogically.
• The hierarchy of lineages, then, unites the segments into larger and
larger genealogical groups.
• The closer two groups are genealogically, the greater their general
closeness.
• Conflicts within the society—that is, between segments—especially in
border areas, were often turned outward, releasing internal pressure
in an explosive blast against other peoples.
• Segmentary lineage systems may have military advantages even when
they do not unite the entire society.
Societies with age-sets have a group of people of the same sex and
similar age who move through some or all of their life stages together.
• Usually entry into an age-set begins at or before puberty in a group
initiation ceremony held regularly over the years.
• Often the age-sets encompass a number of communities, so that a
sense of solidarity is formed.
• Age-sets can function as the basis of a tribal type of political
organization, as among the Karimojong of northeastern Uganda.
Chiefdom organization
• Chiefdom organization differs from tribal organization in having
formal authority structures that integrate multicommunity political
units. Compared with societies with tribal organization, societies with
chiefdoms are more densely populated and their communities are
more permanent. In contrast to “big men” in tribal societies, who
generally have to earn their privileges by their personal qualities,
chiefs generally hold their positions permanently. Most chiefdom
societies have social ranking.
• Most societies at the chiefdom level of organization contain more
than one political unit or chiefdom, each headed by a district chief or
a council. There may also be more than one level of chief beyond the
community, such as district chiefs and higher-level chiefs. Some
chiefdom societies integrate the whole society, with a paramount
chief at the top.
• The position of chief, which is sometimes hereditary and generally
permanent, bestows high status on its holder. Most chiefdoms have
social ranking and accord the chief and his family greater access to
prestige.
• The chief may redistribute goods, plan and direct the use of public labor,
supervise religious ceremonies, and direct military activities on behalf of
the chiefdom.
• In most chiefdoms, the chiefs did not have the power to compel people
to obey them; people would act in accordance with the chief’s wishes
because the chief was respected and often had religious authority.
• Substantial amounts of goods and services collected by the chiefs
were used to support subordinates, including specialists such as high
priests, political envoys, and warriors who could be sent to quell
rebellious factions.
• When redistributions do not go to everybody—when chiefs are
allowed to keep items for their own purposes—and when a chief
begins to use armed force, the political system is on the way to
becoming what we call a state.
State organization
• A state has been defined as political unit composed of many communities
and having a centralized government with the authority to make and
enforce laws, collect taxes, and draft men for military service. In state
societies, the government tries to maintain a monopoly on the use of
physical force (a police force, a militia, or a standing army).

A state, according to standard definition, is an autonomous political unit,

encompassing many communities within its territory and having a centralized
government with the power to collect taxes, draft men for work or war, and
decree and enforce laws.
• States, then, have a complex, centralized political structure that includes a wide
range of permanent institutions with legislative, executive, and judicial
functions and a large bureaucracy.
• Just as a particular society may contain more than one band, tribe, or chiefdom,
so may it contain more than one state. The contiguously distributed population
speaking a single language may or may not be politically unified in a single
state.
i. Ancient Greece was composed of many city-states; so, too, was Italy until the
1870s.
ii. German speakers are also not politically unified; Austria and Germany are
separate states, and Germany itself was not politically unified until the 1870s.
A state may include more than one society.
• Multisociety states are often the result of conquest or colonial control when
the dominant political authority, itself a state, imposes a centralized
government over a territory with many different societies and cultures, as
the British did in Nigeria and Kenya.
Colonialism is a common feature of state societies.
• But not all colonialisms are alike. Archaeology and history tell us about
various kinds of colonialism. The expanding state society may send people to
build a new imperial settlement in some other place to trade or protect trade
routes, like the British, Spanish, and others did. Or the colonial power may
displace and move parts of the original population, as the Inka empire did.
Nearly all of the multisociety states that emerged after World War II
were the results of successful independence movements against
colonial powers. Most have retained their political unity despite the
fact that they still contain many different societies.
• For example, Nigeria remains unified despite a civil war; the eastern
section called Biafra (mostly populated by people of Ibo culture) tried
unsuccessfully 30 years ago to secede, and subsequently there has
been serious conflict among some of the constituent societies.
• Multisociety or multiethnic states may also form voluntarily, in
reaction to external threat.
i. Switzerland comprises cantons, each of which speaks mainly
French, German, Italian, or Romansch; the various cantons
confederated originally to shake off control by the Holy Roman
Empire.
ii. But some states have lost their unity recently, including the former
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and much of Yugoslavia.
Nation-State, Nationalism, and Political
Identity
• States are political entities; people within them do not necessarily
share much beyond a bureaucracy, a set of laws, and being subject to
similar social controls.
• People within them may not have a sense of identity with the state
they live in.
• A sense of identity is more likely if a state is composed of a dominant
culture or ethnic group, but most states, certainly almost all empires,
have commonly been multicultural or multiethnic entities.
• Scholars often use the term nation to refer to the idea that a set of people
share a common territory, history, and identity.
• We may call it a state or a nation-state when the concepts of nation and state
co-occur; that is when the people in a state share a sense of nationhood.
• If there is a strong sense of identity with the nation, willingness to fight and
die for it, nationalism is a term often used as an expression of that loyalty.

The concepts of nation and nationalism are not necessarily associated with states. There are groups
living within state boundaries that comprise separate nations (some describe French and English
Canada as two nations within one) or who strive for separate nationhood for themselves.
The state level of political development has come to dominate the
world.
• Societies with states have larger communities and higher population
densities than do band, tribal, and chiefdom societies.
• They also have armies that are ready to fight at almost any time.
• State systems that have waged war against chiefdoms and tribes have
almost always won, and the result has usually been the political
incorporation of the losers.
Variation of political processes
• Anthropologists are increasingly interested in the politics, or political
processes, of the societies they study: who acquires influence or
power, how they acquire it, and how political decisions are made.
• States are generally characterized by class stratification, intensive
agriculture ( the high productivity of which presumably allows the
emergence of cities), commercial exchange, a high degree of
economic and other specialization, and intensive foreign trade.
• The rulers of a state cannot depend forever on the use or threat of
force to maintain their power, the people must believe that the
rulers are legitimate or have the right to govern.
• In those societies that have hereditary leadership, which is common
in rank societies and in state societies with monarchies, rules of
succession usually establish how leadership is inherited.
• But for societies whose leaders are chosen, either as informal leaders
or as political officials, we need a lot more research to understand
why some kinds of people are chosen over others.
• Degree of political participation varies in the societies studied by
anthropologist, just as among modern nation-states. Degree of
political participation seems as well as in modern democratic
nationstates, but not in those in between, such as feudal states and
preindustrial empires.
• Political scientist Marc Ross conducted cross-cultural research on
variation in degree of political participation. Ross phrased the
research question:
Why is it that in some polities there are relatively large numbers of
persons involved in political life, while in others, political action is the
province of very few?
Political participation in preindustrial societies ranges from widespread to low or
nonexistent.
• In 16 percent of the societies examined, there is widespread participation; decision-
making forums are open to all adults. The forums may be formal (councils and other
governing bodies) or informal.
• Next in degree of political participation are societies (37 percent) that have
widespread participation by some but not all adults (men but not women, certain
classes but not others).
• Next are societies (29 percent) that have some but not much input by the community.
• Finally, 18 percent of the societies have low or nonexistent participation, which
means that leaders make most decisions, and involvement of the average person is
very limited.
Degree of political participation seems to be high in small-scale societies,
as well as in modern democratic nation-states, but not in between (feudal
states and preindustrial empires). Why?
• In small-scale societies, leaders do not have the power to force people to
act; thus, a high degree of political participation may be the only way to
get people to go along with decisions.
• In modern democracies, which have many powerful groups outside the
government—corporations, unions, and other associations are examples
—the central authorities may only theoretically have the power to force
people to go along; in reality, they rely mostly on voluntary compliance.
Another factor may be early family experiences.
• Some scholars recently have suggested that the type of family people
are raised in predicts the degree of political participation in a society.
A large extended family with multiple generations tends to be
hierarchical, with the older generations having more authority.
Children may learn that they have to obey and subordinate their
wishes to their elders. Societies with polygyny also seem to have less
political participation. The ways of interacting in the family may carry
over to the political sphere.
Resolution of conflicts
• Many societies lack specialized offices and institutions for dealing
with conflict. Yet all societies have peaceful, regularized ways of
handling at least certain disputes. Avoidance, community action, and
negotiation and mediation are more common in simpler societies.
But peaceful solutions are not always possible, and disputes may erupt
into violent conflict.
i. When violence occurs within a political unit in which disputes are
usually settled peacefully, we call such violence crime, particularly
when committed by an individual.
ii. When the violence occurs among groups of people from separate
political units—groups among which there is no procedure for
settling disputes—we usually call such violence warfare.
iii. When violence occurs among subunits of a population that had
been politically unified, we call it civil war.
• Ritual apology occurs frequently in chiefdoms. Oaths and ordeals
tend to occur in complex societies in which political officials lack
power to enforce judicial decisions. Adjudication is more likely in
stratified, more complex societies. Capital punishment seems to exist
in nearly all societies, from the simplest to the most complex.
• People are likely to resort to violence when regular , effective
alternative means of resolving a conflict are not available. Violence
can occur between individuals, within communities, and between
communities. Violence that occurs between political entities such as
communities, districts, or nations is generally referred to as warfare.
• The type of warfare varies in scope and complexity from society to
society. Preindustrial societies with higher warfare frequencies are
likely to have had a history of unpredictable disasters that destroyed
food supplies. More often than not, societies with one type of
violence have others.