Political Anthropology

1
Political Anthropology

• The Organization of Power

2
Power and Authority

• Power
• the ability to exercise ones will over others.
• Authority
• the socially approved use of power.

3
Political Anthropology

• How are power and social control
• organized?
• distributed?
• manifested?
• How are group decisions made?
• How is social order enforced?
• How are conflicts dealt with?

Because of the embeddedness it is better to talk
of sociopolitical
4
Mechanisms of Control

• Internal (ideological)
• culturally instilled values
• expectation of supernatural harm or reward
• External (behavioral)
• informal
• ridicule and ostracism, gossip
• praise
• formal
• laws and rules
• institutionalized threat of force

5
Law and Conflict Resolution

• Formal and informal sanctions
• Conflict mediators
• Often older men
• Nuer leopard skin chief
• Ordeals
• Oaths supernatural source
• Oracles people or things that have
• prophetic abilities

Delphic Oracle, Greece
6
Degrees of Organizational Complexity

• Uncentralized
• Band
• Tribe
• Centralized
• Chiefdom
• State

In general, as the economy becomes more
productive, population size increases leading to
greater regulatory problems, which give rise to
more complex social relations and linkages
(greater social and political complexity).
1962, Elman Service
7
Bands the political organization of foraging
groups

• Rarely more than 30-40 people
• kin-based
• Flexible extended family units
• No formal political organization
• No socioeconomic stratification
• the political order (polity) is not a distinct
  institution, but is embedded in the overall
  social order.

8
Bands

• How are group decisions made?
• adult consensus
• informal leaders
• egalitarian
• How is social order enforced?
• ridicule and ostracism
• How are conflicts dealt with?
• negotiation/mediation
• mobility

9
Tribes

• Multiple autonomous small communities that share
  common identity
• Usually pastoralists or Horticulturalists
• Several hundred to thousands of people
• No formal political organization
• Little socioeconomic stratification

10
Tribes

• How are group decisions made?
• Consensus among descent groups
• How are social norms enforced?
• ridicule and ostracism
• How are conflicts dealt with?
• negotiation/mediation
• semi-official mediation

11
Tribes The Village Head

• achieved position comes with very limited
  authority.
• He cannot force or coerce people to do things.
• He can only persuade, harangue, and try to
  influence people to do things.
• acts as a mediator in disputes, but has no
  authority to back his decision or impose
  punishments.
• The village head must lead in generosity.
• He must be more generous, which means he must
  cultivate more land.
• He hosts feasts for other villages.

modern-day Iroquois, New York
12
Tribes Big Man

• Big Man -like a village head, except that his
  authority is regional in that he may have
  influence over more than one village
• wisdom
• wealth
• generosity
• charisma.
• unofficial prestige status
• The benefit is greater influence and community
  standing.

Nuer, Sudan
13
Pantribal Sodalities and Age Grades

• Sodalities are non-kin-based organizations that
  may generate cross-societal linkages.
• often based on common age or gender.
• Some sodalities are confined to a single village.
• Some sodalities span several villages these are
  called pantribal sodalities. they can mobilize a
  large number of men for raids.

14
Age Sets

• sodalities that include all of the men or women
  born during a certain time Similar to a cohort of
  class of students
• Members of an age set progress through a series
  of age grades together (e.g., initiated youth,
  warrior, adult, elder, (freshmen, sophomore,
  junior, senior, graduate).
• Sodalities create nonkin linkages between people
  based on age, gender, and ritual and create a
  sense of ethnic identity and belonging to the
  same cultural tradition

15
Chiefdoms

• Agriculturalists or pastoralists
• Multiple communities that share common identity
  and tribute system
• Thousands to many thousands of people
• Centralized political organization based on
  hierarchical lineage system
• a political unit of permanently allied tribes and
  villages under one recognized leader with
  authority
• Significant socioeconomic stratification based on
  lineage

Old Chief of the Arawa Tribe, Rotorua, New
Zealand.
16
Chiefdoms

• How are group decisions made?
• Chief and advisors
• How is social order enforced?
• ridicule and ostracism
• official order
• use of force
• How are conflicts dealt with?
• negotiation/mediation
• centralized arbitration

17
Chiefdoms

• Small hierarchical bureaucracy
• Tribute - tax paid to chief to be redistributed
  according to community needs
• Chiefs Leaders own, manage, and control basic
  factors of the economy and have special access to
  
• crops
• labor
• cash
• goods.

Grand chief Matthew Coon Come
18
Chiefdoms

• Formalized leadership functions
• Unrelated to personal qualities
• Rules of succession (primogeniture)
• Office is permanent - it outlasts the individuals
  who occupy them
• Loyalty, status, coercion but not too much

Zulu Chief
19
States

• Agriculturalists
• Multiple cities that share tax and administrative
  infrastructure system
• Tens of thousands to billions of people
• Centralized political organization possessing
  coercive power
• Social stratification is one of the key
  distinguishing features of states.

Calcutta
20
States

• How are group decisions made?
• rulers decide on behalf of populous
• How is social order enforced?
• official enforcement
• threat or use of sanctions
• How are conflicts dealt with?
• negotiation/mediation
• centralized arbitration

Angkor
21
States

• Status
• not necessarily kin-based
• class-based
• Codification of laws
• More formalized in industrial societies
• Courts adjudicate and mediate Officials
• Monopoly on use of force
• Police force

• Hammurabis Code (1750 BC)