Objectives
4/16

 Describe and distinguish between the major types of
political organization.
 Know the general characteristics of leaders in
different political systems and discuss how those are
related to subsistence strategies.
______________________________________
Typologies

 Helping us to organize our thoughts
 Provide a framework for comparing and contrasting
cultural groups
 Providing parameters for testing the limits on
generalizations about human social organization.
Limitations

 Grey areas
 Not every example fits prototypical characteristics
 culture change may involve uneven shifts in social,
political and economic aspects of a society
Political Systems

Centralized
 Complexity of human
relationships
 Agricultural and
industrial societies
 Individual/group has
opportunity to exercise
greater control over
people and resources
 Colonized societies
Uncentralized
 Marriage and kinship are
primary means of social
organization
 Consensual decision
making, democratic fashion
 Male and females typically
are included in decisionmaking
 flexible set of political
systems
Complications

 Political systems often overlap or best with varying
degrees of integration
 Today there are over 200 states in the world
 There are 5,000 nations
 Tribes exist within states
Political Organizations

1.
2.
3.
4.
Bands
Tribes
Chiefdoms
States
Band

 Politically independent group of households
 Oldest political system
 Tend to be related
 Least complicated form of political organization
 Tend to marry within the group
 Stay together as long as the carrying capacity and
density of social relations stays stable
 Wet season= more people
 Dry season= less people
Tribe

 A group of nominally independent communities
occupying a specific region and sharing a common
language and culture integrated by some unifying
culture
 Kin groups, age, grades
 Horticulture and Pastoralism
 typically larger than bands
 Leaders have very little actually authority
 Based on reciprocal interactions and redistribution of
goods
Chiefdom

 A political unit in which two or more villages or
communities are organized under a single chief, who
is at the head of a ranked hierarchy
 Typically an hereditary office
 Truly an authority figure
 Distribute land, adjudicate, etc.
 Multilayered= chiefdom under superior chiefdom
 Unstable political system
State

 A centralized political system that may legitimately
use force to maintain social order.
 Most formal of political system
 States began about 5,000 years ago
 Power is centralized by government
 State may legitimately use force to regulate the
affairs of it’s citizens.
State cont.

 Tendency toward instability
 Competing state structures
 A primary distinguishing trait of states is the
delegation of executive authority
 Maintain order (within and outside boards)
 Controls and punishes crime, terrorism, rebellion, acts
against the state
 Authority is thus impersonal and quite predictable
Life without Chiefs

Can humans exist without some people ruling and
others being ruled?

 98% of existence= no chiefs
 Small societies based on family
 30 -50 people per band
 10,000 years since people began to settle into villages
 2,000 years people have been sustaining life through
multiple means

 Hunting and gathering bands
 Managed without a chief
 How did they do it?




Small groups of people
Have one goal
Set expectations
Generalized reciprocity (a lot of trust with little
distance)

 Modern examples of generalized reciprocity?
 Parents feeding children
 Use of family car
 Wives do not bill their husbands for cooking

“Etiquette requires that generosity be taken for
granted.”

When is it appropriate to say thank you?

 Never!
 Suggests two things
1.
2.
One has calculated the amount of a gift
One did not expect the donor to be so generous

 !Kung experience:
 Anthropologist went to village
 Killed biggest ox
 Villagers not grateful

 Why?
 “When a young man kills much meat he comes to
think of himself as a chief or a big man, and he thinks
of the rest of us as his servants or inferiors.”
1.
Directions

Separate into 4 groups
2. Read through article out loud or silently.
3. Write answers for your section only.
i.
Only turn in one paper for your group.
4. Hold onto papers when finished
5. Write responsibilities of leader on board