Chapter 12, Political Organization

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Chapter 12, Political Organization

• Key Terms

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• Social differentiationThe relative access
  individuals and groups have to basic material
  resources, wealth, power, and prestige.
• Egalitarian societyA society in which no
  individual or group has more privileged access to
  resources, power, or prestige than any other.

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• Rank societySociety characterized by
  institutionalized differences in prestige but no
  important restrictions on access to basic
  resources.
• Stratified societySociety characterized by
  permanent social and economic inequality, in
  which some people are denied access to basic
  resources.

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• Achieved statusA social position that a person
  chooses or achieves on his or her own.
• Ascribed statusA social position that a person
  is born into.

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• PowerThe ability to control resources in ones
  own interest.
• AuthorityThe ability to cause others to act
  based on characteristics such as honor, status,
  knowledge, ability, respect, the holding of
  formal public office.

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• Political ideologyThe shared beliefs and values
  that legitimize the distribution and use of power
  in a particular society.
• Political processThe ways in which individuals
  and groups use power to achieve public goals.

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• FactionsInformal systems of alliance within
  well-defined political units such as lineages or
  villages.
• LeadershipThe ability to direct an enterprise or
  action.

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• RebellionThe attempt of a group within society
  to force a redistribution of resources and
  power.
• RevolutionAn attempt to overthrow an existing
  form of political organization.

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• LawA means of social control and dispute
  management through the systematic application of
  force by those in society with the authority to
  do so.
• Political organizationThe patterned ways in
  which power is legitimately used in a society to
  regulate behavior.

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• Social complexityThe number of different groups
  and their interrelationships in a society.
• Band Small group of people, related by blood or
  marriage, who live together and are loosely
  associated with a territory in which they forage.

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• WarA formally organized and culturally
  recognized patterns of collective violence
  directed toward other societies or between
  segments within a larger society.
• TribeCulturally distinct population whose
  members consider themselves descended from the
  same ancestor.

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• Age setA group of people of similar age and sex
  who move through some or all of lifes stages
  together.
• Age gradesSpecialized hierarchical associations
  based on age, which stratify a society by
  seniority.

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• Segmentary lineage system A form of
  sociopolitical organization in which multiple
  descent groups form at different levels and
  function in different contexts.
• Complementary oppositionA political structure in
  which higher-order units form alliances that
  emerge only when lower-order units come into
  conflict.

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• BigmanA self-made leader who gains power through
  personal achievements rather than through
  political office.
• MediationA form of managing disputes that uses
  the offices of a third party to achieve
  voluntary agreement between disputing parties.

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• CompensationA payment demanded by an aggrieved
  party to compensate for damage.
• ChiefdomA society with social ranking in which
  political integration is achieved through an
  office of centralized leadership called the chief.

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• AcephalousLacking a government head or chief.
• StateA hierarchical, centralized form of
  political organization in which a central
  government has a legal monopoly over the use of
  force.

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• CitizenshipMembership in a state.