Ch 10 Public Power, Political Organization & Social Control — Comprehensive Notes

Key Concepts & Terminology

• Politics: Organized use of public power; excludes private/domestic micropolitics.
• Power: Ability to bring about results backed by potential or actual force.
• Authority: Ability to achieve results based on status, respect, reputation.
• Influence: Ability to achieve results through social or moral pressure, even from low‐status positions.
• All three are relational; likelihood of coercion increases from influence → authority → power.
• Political organization: Cultural groups that manage public decision-making, social order, collective rights, & security.

Political Organization Types

Bands (Foragers)

• Flexible membership, 20–few\,hundred kin-related individuals.
• Leadership: Informal, event-specific; no permanent leader, no coercive power.
• Social leveling: Satire, ridicule, mobility prevent accumulation of authority.
• Political activity: Decisions on migration, food distribution, interpersonal conflict.
• External war rare due to low density & wide territories.

Tribes (Horticulture & Pastoralism)

• Emerged 10{,}000–12{,}000 years ago.
• Comprise several bands/lineages sharing language & territory; membership via kinship.
• Population hundreds–several\,thousand.
• Headman: Part-time male leader; duties—herd movement, planting, feasts, conflict mediation; relies on authority & influence.

Big-Man / Big-Woman Systems (Melanesia)

• Intermediate between tribe & chiefdom.
• Prestige via redistribution, moka exchanges, grand feasts.
• Network spans multiple villages; core = kin, extends to non-kin.
• Responsibilities: Internal scheduling, external trade/war, intergroup feasts; aided by councils.
• Moka (Mt. Hagen, PNG): Gift-giving (esp. pigs) cycles; more giving = more prestige.
  • Requirement: ≥1 wife—women’s labor → pigs → political capital.
  • \approx60\% of big-men are sons of big-men ⇒ mix of achievement & ascription.
• Vanatinai (gender-egalitarian): Existence of big-women—lead voyages, sponsor mortuary feasts, act as sorcerers, healers, gardeners.

Chiefdoms

• Permanently allied tribes/villages under a chief with power.
• Populations in thousands; centralized, ranked, economically stratified.
• Chiefship = permanent office; succession required.
• Duties: Regulate production/redistribution, resolve conflict, plan raids/war.
• Qualifications: Ascribed (lineage, birth order) + achieved (charisma, wealth).
• Women’s indirect power example: Iroquois—women appointed male chiefs & controlled maize supply, vetoing wars.
• Confederacies: Paramount or “big” chief over multiple chiefdoms (e.g., Algonquins—Powhatan).

States (All contemporary humans)

• Centralized unit with bureaucracy & coercive leaders; pre-1000\,BCE rare, now universal.
• UN membership grew from 51 (1945) to 193.

Core State Powers

• International relations; defensive/offensive force.
• Monopoly on internal force: laws, courts, police.
• Standing armies & police (full-time).
• Define citizenship & rights; often unequal.
• Maintain census (age, gender, wealth).
• Taxation authority.
• Manipulate information: censorship, propaganda, media pressure.

Symbols of State Power

• Sacred rulership links (deity, priest, advisor roles).
• Monumental architecture & urban planning.
• Egalitarian dress codes in democracies/socialist rhetoric: “Mao jacket,” Western suits.
• Elite commodities: mansions, multiple residences, bullet-proof vehicles, luxury cars (e.g., African imported cars).

Gender & State Leadership

• States largely patriarchal; women under-represented.
• Explanations: Male control over production technology & warfare.
• More female political presence in peaceful/socialist-leaning states (Nordic).
• Statistics: Women ≈ 19\% of world’s parliamentarians; Rwanda >50\% after conflict.
• Mechanisms: Mandated gender quotas; debate on policy impact & gender essentialism.
• Notable female heads of state—often kin-linked (e.g., Indira Gandhi).

Social Order & Control

Informal & Formal Mechanisms

• Social control: Maintaining orderly group life.
• Informal: Socialization, education, peer pressure (Amish/Mennonites—shunning).
• Formal: Codified rules, legal systems, crime prevention.
• Norms: Unwritten accepted standards; enforcement via avoidance, reprimand.
• Laws: Binding rules with defined punishments; often religiously legitimated (Dreamtime, Sharia).

Small-Scale Societies

• Conflict resolution: Discussion, one-on-one fights, shaming, ostracism.
• Goal: Restore harmony; capital punishment rare.
• Supernatural legitimization: Sumba promise-breakers fear ancestor “supernatural assault.”
• Village fission & ostracism for severe issues.

States

• Greater stratification → greater legal stress.
• Key factors:
  • Specialization: Police, judges, lawyers (elite biases).
  • Formal trials/courts.
  • Power-enforced punishment: Prisons, death penalty.
• Policing: Surveillance + threat of punishment; Japan’s neighborhood police boxes, high confession rates, strong police power.
• Trials: From spirit-based guilt → trial by ordeal → modern courts aiming at justice/fairness; disparities persist.
• Prisons: Emerged with states; first US prison late 1700s; US highest incarceration rate 743/100{,}000; disparities—1/9 Black men (20–34) imprisoned.
• Critical legal anthropology: Law maintains dominance; Aboriginal youth study—systemic bias at every stage.

Case Illustrations of Social Order

• Maasai 14-cow donation (sacred cattle) to support 9/11 victims → shows global compassion.
• West Papua militarism: Collaboration for survival in “entangled worlds.”

Social Conflict & Violence

Ethnic Conflict

• Motivations: Autonomy, equitable treatment, suppression, genocide, ethnocide.
• Central Asia: Resource competition masked as ethnic strife—water, oil, farmland.

Sectarian Conflict

• Intra-religious (Catholic/Protestant; Sunni/Shia).
• Pakistan obstetric clinics: Sunni women received inferior care during conflict (structural violence).

War

• Defined as organized lethal group conflict.
• Appears with Neolithic settled life; absent among bands.
• Tribes: Yanomami—frequent, small-scale warfare.
• States: Standing armies, mutual reinforcement of military & state power; Costa Rica no army.
• Causes: Territory, resources, markets, allies, “just wars,” humanitarian defense.
• Afghanistan: Warfare as royal legitimation → Soviet invasion 1979 → over 1{,}000{,}000 dead, 3{,}000{,}000 refugees; ongoing complexities—honor codes, Islam, drugs, foreign intervention.

Global–Local Conflict

• Neocolonial wars: Iraq, Afghanistan—control strategic areas; violate traditional rules.
• Corporate vs. local groups: Resource extraction; Corporate Social Responsibility (profit + people + planet).
• Anthropology roles: Consultancy for harmony, advocacy for affected peoples, critique of biased Environmental Impact Assessments (Peru mining case—lack of counter-experts).

Changing Public Power & Control

Nations & Transnational Nations

• Nation: Shared language, culture, territory, politics, history.
• Many states multi-national (e.g., USA).
• Imagined community (Anderson): States craft unity via language, monuments, media.
• Puerto Rico: Quasi-colony; half population on mainland → transnational identity; in-migration (Dominicans, Cubans) increases diversity; returnees English-dominant.

Democratization

• Transition from authoritarianism to democracy.
• Features: End torture, free political prisoners, lift censorship, tolerate opposition.
• Hardest shift: Authoritarian socialism → market capitalism; kinship/patronage may clash with democratic principles.

United Nations & Peacekeeping

• Carneiro’s pessimism: War enlarges political units → mega-state; UN weak due to state sovereignty.
• Anthropology counters: War not universal; some cultures peaceful.
• Positives: UN as dispute forum; NGOs & grassroots bridges; critical cultural relativism fosters dialogue.

Ethical, Philosophical & Practical Implications

• Morality of power vs. consensual authority.
• Gender quotas raise questions of essentialism & substantive policy change.
• Differential incarceration rates highlight systemic inequality & social justice needs.
• Corporate extraction conflicts demand balancing profit with environmental & human rights.
• Global entanglement: Remote communities nevertheless impacted by & responsive to world events (Maasai, West Papua).

Numerical & Statistical References

• Band size: 20–few\,hundred.
• Big-men inheritance: 60\%.
• UN states: 51 → 193 (1945–present).
• Women parliamentarians: World avg \approx19\%; Rwanda >50\%.
• US incarceration rate: 743/100{,}000; Rwanda 595; Russia 568; Georgia 547.
• Aboriginal youth study: Higher severity at each discretionary stage (see Figure\,10.2).