Chapter 12

Politics, Power, and Violence

Politics = Power

• Types of power– Persuasion– Negotiation– Obligation– Coercion

Kinds Of Political Systems

• Uncentralized systems– Bands– Tribes

• Centralized systems– Chiefdoms– States

Types Of Political Organization: Membership

Membership Number of people Settlement pattern

Band Dozens and up Mobile

Tribe Hundreds and upMobile or fixed: 1 or

more villages

Chiefdom Thousands and upFixed: 1 or more

villages

StateTens of thousands

and upFixed: Many villages

and cities

Types Of Political Organization: Membership

Membership Basis of relationshipsEthnicities and

languages

Band Kin 1

Tribe Kin, descent groups 1

ChiefdomKin, rank and

residence1

State Class and residence 1 or more

Types Of Political Organization: Government

MembershipDecision making,

leadershipBureaucracy

Band “Egalitarian” None

TribeEgalitarian” or Big-

ManNone

ChiefdomCentralized, hereditary

None, or 1 or 2 levels

State Centralized Many levels

Types Of Political Organization: Government

Membership Conflict resolutionHierarchy of settlement

Band Informal No

Tribe Informal No

Chiefdom CentralizedNo Paramount

village or head town

State Laws, judges Capital

Types Of Political Organization: Economy

MembershipDivision of labor

ExchangesExchanges

Band No Reciprocal

Tribe No Reciprocal

Chiefdom No -> YesRedistributive

(“tribute”)

State YesRedistributive

(“taxes”)

Types Of Political Organization: Society

Membership Stratified Slavery

Band No No

Tribe No No

ChiefdomYes, ranked by

kinSome small-scale

StateYes, by class or

casteSome large-scale

Types Of Political Organization: Society

MembershipLuxury goods

for eliteIndigenous literacy

Band No No

Tribe No No

Chiefdom Yes No ->Some

State Yes Often

Bands

• Small group of politically independent, though related, households.

• The least complicated form of political organization.

• Found among nomadic societies.

• Small, numbering at most a few hundred people.

Bands

• No need for formal political systems.

• Decisions are made with the participation of adult members, with an emphasis on achieving consensus.

• Those unable to get along with others of their group move to another group where kinship ties give them rights of entry.

Tribes

• Tribes consist of small, autonomous local communities, which form alliances for various purposes.

• Economy based on crop cultivation or herding.

• Population densities generally exceed 1 person per square mile.

• Leadership among tribes is informal.

Tribes• Shown here is a

meeting of the Navajo Tribal Council, a nontraditional governing body created in response to requirements set by the U.S. government in order for the Navajo to exercise national sovereignty.

The Big Man

• This Big Man from New Guinea is wearing his official regalia.

Chiefdoms

• The chief is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of people.

• The office of the chief is usually for life and often hereditary.

• The chief’s authority serves to unite his people in all affairs and at all times.

• Highly unstable as lesser chiefs try to take power from higher ranking chiefs.

Chiefdoms

• A Kpelle town chief in Liberia, West Africa, listens to a dispute in his district.

• Settling disputes is one of several ongoing traditional tasks that fall to paramount chiefs among Kpelle people.

State

• The most formal of political organizations.

• Political power is centralized in a government, which may use force to regulate the affairs of its citizens and its relations with other states.

• Since their first appearance 5,000 years ago, states have shown a tendency toward instability and transience.

A Nation without a State

• The Kurds, most of whom live in Iran, Iraq, and Turkey, are an example of a nation without a state.

Political Leadership and Gender

Women have enjoyed political equality with men in a number of societies:

• Iroquoian tribes of New York State - men held office at the pleasure of women, who appointed them and could remove them.

• Igbo of Nigeria - women held positions that paralleled and balanced that of the men.

Gender and Politics

• Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf inspects members of the Liberian police after taking the presidential oath in January 2006.

• The first female president on the African continent, Sirleaf is a Harvard-educated economist who took the world by surprise when she won the head office in her war-torn and poverty-stricken country.

Social Control and Law

• Folkways – minor sanctions for not behaving

• Mores – Slightly more serious offenses

• Law – Most serious offenses.

Attributes of Law

• Authority – who carries out the law

• Universal application – similar crimes have similar punishments

• Legal sanction – negative ways you get people to conform

Types of Law

• Substantive law – who carries out the law and who carries out the punishment– Criminal – Civil

• Procedural Law – how law was broken and how will it be resolved

Legal Systems

• 2 Levels of procedural law– Self-help legal system – ad hoc system

• No formal court or jury• Familial or mediator

– Court legal system• Settled in institutions and organizations, not by

families• Courts of mediation• Courts of regularion

Song Duels

• Having a song duel is the traditional approach to dispute resolution among the Inuit of northern Canada.

Child Soldiers

• Today, there are more than 250,000 child soldiers, many as young as 12 years old. Among them are these boys training to be guerrillas in Sahel, Eritrea.

Warfare in Multinational States