The Emergence of States
IB Anthropology
UWC Costa Rica
Economic Basis of and Political Regulation in Sociopolitical Ideal Types
Sociopolitical
Type
Economic Type
Example
Type of
Regulation
Band
Foraging
Inuit, San
Local
Tribe
Horticulture,
Pastoralism
Yanomami, Masai,
Kapuku
Local, temporary,
regional
Chiefdom
Intensive
horticulture,
Pastoral
nomadism,
Agriculture
Qashqai,
Polynesia,
Cherokee
Permanent,
regional
State
Agriculture,
Industrialism
Ancient
Mesopotamia,
Contemporary
Permanent,
regional
WHAT IS A STATE?
State, are autonomous
political units with social
classes and a formal
government, based on
law.
Tend to be large and
‘Certain statuses, systems, and subsystems with
specialized
functions are found in all states’ (Sharma and Gupta 2006).
1. Population control: fixing of boundaries,
establishment of citizenship categories, and
the taking of a census.
2. Judiciary: laws, legal procedure, and judges.
3. Enforcement: permanent military and police
forces.
4. Fiscal: taxation.
Population Control
• States typically conduct censuses.
• States demarcate boundaries that
separate them from other societies.
Customs agents, immigration officers,
navies, and coast guards patrol frontiers.
• Even nonindustrial states have boundary
maintenance forces (e.g. Buganda)
Population Control
• States control population through
administrative subdivision: provinces,
districts, “states,” counties, sub-counties,
and parishes.
• Lower-level officials manage the
populations and territories of the
subdivisions.
• Diminishing role of kinship
Population Control
• States foster geographic mobility and
resettlement, severing longstanding ties among
people, land, and kin (Smith 2003).
• Population displacements have increased in the
modern world and with globalization.
• People in states come to identify themselves by
new statuses, both ascribed and achieved—
(ethnicity, residence, occupation, party, religion,
and team or club affiliation)—rather than only as
members of a descent group or extended family.
Population Control
• States also manage their populations by
granting different rights and obligations to
citizens and noncitizens.
• Status distinctions among citizens are also
common.
Judiciary
• States have laws based on precedent and legislative
proclamations which regulate relations between individuals
and groups.
• Crimes are violations of the legal code, with specified types of
punishment.
• However, a given act, such as killing someone, may be legally
defined in different ways (e.g., as manslaughter, justifiable
homicide, or first-degree murder).
• Differential treatment based on stratification
• To handle disputes and crimes, all states have courts and
judges.
• Most states allow appeals to higher courts, although people
are encouraged to solve problems locally
Judiciary
• Contrast between states and non-states is intervention
in family affairs - aspects of parenting and marriage
enter the domain of public law.
• Governments in states step in to halt blood feuds and
regulate previously private disputes.
• States attempt to curb internal conflict, but aren’t
always successful. (85 percent of the world’s armed
conflicts since 1945 have begun within states).
• Only 15 percent have been fights across national
borders
Enforcement
•
All states have agents to enforce judicial decisions.
•
States have competed successfully with non-states throughout the world.
•
A government suppresses internal disorder (with police) and guards the
nation against external threats (with the military).
•
Military organization helps states subdue neighboring non-states, but this is
not the only reason for the spread of state organization.
•
Although states impose hardships, they also offer advantages. They provide
protection from outsiders and preserve internal order. By promoting internal
peace, states enhance production. Their economies support massive,
dense populations, which supply armies and colonists to promote
expansion.
•
A major concern of government is to defend hierarchy, property, and the
power of the law.
Fiscal Systems
• Fiscal system is needed in states to support rulers,
nobles, officials, judges, military personnel, and
thousands of other specialists.
• As in the chiefdom, the state intervenes in production,
distribution, and consumption.
• The state may decree that a certain area will produce
certain things or forbid certain activities in particular
places.
• Although, like chiefdoms, states also have
redistribution (through taxation), generosity and
sharing are played down. Less of what comes in flows
back to the people.
Fiscal Systems
• In non-states, people customarily share with relatives, but residents
of states face added obligations to bureaucrats and officials.
•
Citizens must turn over a substantial portion of what they produce
to the state.
• Of the resources that the state collects, it reallocates part for the
general good and uses another part (often larger) for the elite.
• The state does not bring more freedom or leisure to the common
people, who usually work harder than do people in non-states.
• They may be called on to build monumental public works. Some of
these projects, such as dams and irrigation systems, may be
economically necessary.
Fiscal Systems
• In non-states, people customarily share with relatives, but residents
of states face added obligations to bureaucrats and officials.
•
Citizens must turn over a substantial portion of what they produce
to the state.
• Of the resources that the state collects, it reallocates part for the
general good and uses another part (often larger) for the elite.
• The state does not bring more freedom or leisure to the common
people, who usually work harder than do people in non-states.
• They may be called on to build monumental public works. Some of
these projects, such as dams and irrigation systems, may be
economically necessary.