Political Organization and Social Control Notes

Political Organization and Social Control

Dimensions of Political Organization

• Three Dimensions:
  • Distinctness of Political Institutions: Extent to which political institutions are distinct from other aspects of the social structure.
  • Concentration of Authority: Extent to which authority is concentrated into specific political roles.
  • Level of Political Integration: Size of the territorial group under the control of the political structure.

Anthropology and Political Organization

• Political Anthropology Includes:
  • Politics: Ways in which power relations influence cultural life, particularly unequal power relations.
  • Political Decision Making: Ways in which societal decisions are made and enforced.
  • Dispute Resolution: How conflicts are resolved, from interpersonal to intra-societal levels.

Politics and Decision-Making in Societies

• Bands:
  • Little social power exists; some may have greater prestige.
  • Decisions made largely by consensus.
• Tribes:
  • Chiefs recognized based on majority sentiment.
  • Chief’s power relies on persuasion, not formal authority.
  • Decisions often made by consensus.
• Chiefdoms:
  • Political decisions made by chiefs, often hereditary.
  • Power enforced by groups aligned with chiefs, including relatives.
  • Rules enforced by the chief’s closest supporters.
• States (Civilizations):
  • Central governments make and enforce formal laws with armies, police, and bureaucracies.
  • Ruled by hereditary elites or elected rulers.
  • States claim a monopoly on power.
  • Government survives individual rulers.

Theories of State Formation

• Voluntaristic Theory (V. Gordon Childe):
  • People voluntarily surrendered autonomy to the state for certain benefits.
• Hydraulic Theory (Karl Wittfogel):
  • Early state systems arose because farmers surrendered some autonomy to a large government for large-scale irrigation benefits.
• Coercive Theory (Robert Carneiro):
  • The state came into existence as a direct result of warfare, specifically in areas with limited agricultural land for expanding populations. Warfare is the mechanism of state formation.

The Modern Nation-State

• Nation: A group sharing a common symbolic identity, culture, history, and often, religion.
• State: A political entity distinct from a band, tribe, or chiefdom.
• Nation-State: A group sharing a common cultural background and unified by a political structure they all consider legitimate.

Changing State Systems of Government

• The global historical trend during the last half of the 20th century has been toward democracy and away from autocracy, but it’s shifting back the other way.
• Democracy: A political system in which power is exercised, usually through representatives, by the people as a whole.
• Autocracy: A political system that denies popular participation in governmental decision-making.

Variations in Political Aspects of World Cultures

• A table that summarizes societies (bands, tribes, chiefdoms, states), comparing them according to:
  • The degree to which political institutions are distinct from kinship.
  • Level of political integration.
  • Specialized political roles.
  • Degree of political coerciveness.
  • Conflict Resolution.

Social Control

• Every society ensures people behave appropriately.
• Social Norms: Normal, proper, or expected ways of behaving.
• Deviance: A violation of social norms.
• Sanctions: Institutionalized ways of encouraging people to conform to the norms.

Social Norms in the U.S.

• Examples of social norms and consequences for violations:
  • Wearing a tuxedo to anthropology class: Raised eyebrows.
  • Eating dinner with fingers: Ridicule.
  • Illegal parking: Small fine.
  • Shoplifting: Large fine or short prison term.
  • Grand larceny: Long prison term.
  • Treason: Long prison term or death.
  • Homicide: Long prison term or death.

Informal Sanctions vs. Formal Laws

• States and civilizations tend to develop formal laws, while non-state societies rely on informal sanctions and community-based social controls.
• Formal Laws:
  • Include substantive and procedural laws, stipulating rights and duties (substantive laws) and what is to be done to those who do not comply with the law (procedural laws).
  • Decided by courts and legal specialists.
  • Enforced by state sanctions, such as military or police forces.
  • Socio-economic development may depend on the rule of law.

Informal Social Controls

• Socialization: Teaching the young people the norms in a society.
• Public Opinion: What the general public thinks about an issue.
• Degradation Ceremonies: Deliberate and formal societal mechanisms designed to publicly humiliate someone who has broken a social norm.

Formal Social Controls

• Oaths: The practice of having the supernatural bear witness to the truth of what a person says.
• Ordeals: A painful and possibly life-threatening test inflicted on someone suspected of wrongdoing.
• Courts and Codified Law: Legal prescription supported by governmental use of force.

Social Order and Conflict: Means of Dispute Resolution

• Peaceful:
  • Avoidance
  • Community action
  • Negotiation and mediation
  • Ritual reconciliation
  • Oaths and ordeals
  • Courts and codified laws
• Violent:
  • Interpersonal violence
  • Warfare (organized violence between communities):
    • Feuding
    • Raiding
    • Large-scale confrontation

Causes of War

• When internal social problems exist, political leaders may turn society’s frustrations toward another group.
• Outsiders may be portrayed as having more than their share of scarce resources or even as causing social problems. Social problems, perceived threats, political motivations, moral objectives

War: Primitive vs. Modern (Lawrence Keeley)

• Keeley tested two popular models of warfare in War Before Civilization (1996).
• Pre-Civilized “Primitive” Warfare:
  • “Ritual” or “low-intensity” combat.
  • Intermittent raiding and feuding among hunter-gatherers, simple farmers.
  • Simple, ineffective weapons.
  • Little emphasis on holding or taking territory.
  • Low economic motivation for war.
  • Low rates of serious injuries.
• Modern Warfare:
  • “Serious” or “high-intensity” combat.
  • Large-scale, sustained confrontations.
  • Lethal weapons.
  • Conflicts over political territories.
  • High economic motivation for war.
  • High rates of injury and death.

Keeley’s Conclusions

• Pacification of the Past: Anthropologists sometimes made the past and non-European cultures seem less violent than they often were.
• Was warfare in the past:
  • Less frequent than modern times? No, often more frequent.
  • Less lethal than modern armies? No, just as lethal as modern armies.
  • Sometimes included extreme violence, including cannibalism; e.g., Chaco Canyon, Crow Creek massacre.
  • Less important in terms of social change? No, frequently influenced culture change, including extermination of enemy groups.
  • Social and economic development may depend on the ability to suppress frequent warfare.

Extreme Violence in the Past

• Nearly 500 men, women, and children killed in the Mandan Indian village of Crow Creek (South Dakota) in the 1300s.
• Cannibalism in the Southwest:
  • Thousands of people were killed during the 1100s and 1200s in the American Southwest during a particularly violent period of warfare among Puebloan groups.
  • Included hundreds of people butchered and eaten.
  • Dr. Christy Turner believes this cannibalism was a form of political terror.

Lethal Combat: Chumash Indian Warfare

• Chumash warfare increased dramatically during the Medieval Climatic Anomaly.
• Relatively dense populations in California under considerable biological and economic stress.
• Severe Medieval-era droughts made it worse.
• Chronic scarcity of food and water during this time resulted in:
  • New, more lethal forms of warfare.
  • Further deterioration of human health and welfare.
  • New forms of social organization, including chiefdoms based on warfare and inter-community alliances and exchange.

Stages of Genocide (Gregory Stanton, Genocide Watch)

1. Classification: People are divided into "us" and "them."
2. Symbolization: Visible symbols name and signify classifications.
3. Discrimination: Dominant groups deny or restrict the rights of less dominant groups.
4. Dehumanization: Out-groups are compared to non-human beings, stripping away their humanity.
5. Organization: Structures begin to emerge expressly to persecute the out-group.
6. Polarization: Moderates are eliminated so only the extremes remain.
7. Preparation: Lists are made and plans are set to begin mass killing.
8. Persecution: Victims are identified and separated out from the rest of society.
9. Extermination: Out-group members are killed en masse.
10. Denial: Perpetrators deny and diminish the crimes they committed.