Chapter 12
Politics, Power, War and Peace
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What Will You Learn?
• Analyze how the issue of power is crucially important in
every society
• Recognize the difference between authority and coercion
• Understand various types of political organization and
leadership
• Determine how politics, economics, and maintenance of
inequality are linked
• Justice systems
• Warfare
• Identify the role of ideology in justifying aggression versus
nonviolent resistance
• Evaluate the importance of diplomacy and treaties in
restoring and maintaining peace
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Power and Political Organization
• Power is known as the ability of individuals or
groups to impose their will upon others and make
them do things even against their own wants or
wishes.
• Politics is the process determining who gets
what, when and how.
• Political organization is the way that power is
distributed and embedded in society; the means
by which a society creates and maintains social
order.
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Kinds of Political Systems
• Every society will have some form of political
organization usually uncentralized or
centralized.
• Uncentralized systems
– Bands
– Tribes
• Centralized systems
– Chiefdoms
– States
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Types of Political Organization
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Band Organization
• Band- small group of loosely organized kinordered group that inhabits a specific territory
and that may split periodically into smaller
extended family groups that are politically
independent.
• The least complicated and oldest form of
political organization.
• Found among nomadic societies.
• Small and egalitarian, numbering at most a
few hundred people.
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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.
• May have leaders if a person holds an ability
to serve all in the group. They hold no real
power.
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Tribal Organization
• Tribes- refer to a range of kin-ordered groups
that are politically integrated by some unifying
factor and whose members share a common
ancestry, identity, culture, language, and
territory.
• Economy based on crop cultivation or herding.
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Tribes
• Population densities generally exceed 1
person per square mile up to 250 people per
square mile.
• Leadership among tribes is informal.
• Political authority may lie with the clan, here
clan elders or headmen regulate affairs.
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Chiefdoms
• A chiefdom is a regional polity in which two or
more local groups are organized under a single
chief, who is at the head of a ranked hierarchy
of people.
• The office of the chief is usually for life and
often hereditary.
• Passing from man to son or sisters son
depending on lineage descent pattern.
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Chiefdoms
• The chief’s authority serves to unite his
people in all affairs and at all times.
• Usually the chief controls the economic
activities including redistributive systems.
• May attain a large amount of material wealth
which can be used to show and maintain
status as chief.
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State System
• The state, in anthropology, is a centralized
polity involving large numbers of people
within a defined territory who are divided into
social classes and organized and directed by a
formal government that has the capacity and
authority to make laws and use force to
defend social order.
• The most formal of political organizations.
• Commonly referred to as a civilization.
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State
• Political power is centralized in a government.
• Since the first state appeared about 5,000
years ago, they have shown a tendency
toward instability.
• Not to be confused with a nation which is a
people who share a collective identity based
on a common culture, language, territory, and
history.
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The Wealthy Can Often Have a Great Deal of Authority in the State System
(A Visual Approximation of Leaders in a State)
Adapted from Meme Generator
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Kurd Nation and the State
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Political Systems & Authority
• All political systems must find a way to obtain and
retain people’s allegiance.
• Authority or (legitimacy) claiming and exercising
power as justified by law or custom of tradition.
• Some groups might rely on coercion to obtain
authority.
– Imposition of obedience or submission by force or
intimidation.
• Legitimacy will vary cross culturally but it is an
established right that a person(s) must obtain.
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Politics and Gender
• Women have enjoyed political equality with
men in a number of societies.
• There are many modern day countries which
hold women as their highest political leaders.
• Iroquoian tribes of New York State – women
elect men to high positions in office and can
also remove them if they chose.
• Igbo of Nigeria - women held positions that
paralleled and balanced that of the men.
• Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth
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Cultural Controls in Maintaining Order
• Every culture has rules or laws that are not
necessarily written, but rather “internal beliefs.”
• Beliefs that are self-imposed by individuals.
• Cultural controls or control through beliefs and
values that are deeply ingrained in the minds of
each member of the culture.
• These can act as control mechanisms for how
members should act as opposed to social control
or forced governmental control.
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Cultural Controls in Maintaining Order
• Self-control: a persons capacity to manage her
or his spontaneous feelings; restraining
impulsive behavior.
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Internalized Controls
• Punishments for actions against the culture
might include the fear of shame, divine
punishment, and magical retaliation.
• Although bands and tribes rely heavily upon
them, they are typically insufficient by
themselves. Therefore most societies will
develop externalized controls.
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Externalized Controls
• In order to maintain order, externalized
controls are generally sanctionedexternalized social control designed to
encourage conformity to social norms.
• Mix of cultural and social control.
• Positive sanctions reward appropriate
behavior whereas, negative sanctions punish
behavior.
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Critical Thought
• Either alone or with a group, how many
internal and external controls can you come
up with that we use in our own society?
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Cultural Control: Witchcraft
• In societies with or without centralized
political systems the usage of witchcraft may
often be employed to act as a social control
mechanism.
• This may be either internal or external.
• These types of groups will generally have a
strong respect and fear of the misuse of
witchcraft, thus making it a great tool for
social control.
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Settling Disputes
• Among the Inuit one
way to settle a dispute
is through song.
• In a song duel,
participants insulted
each other via song.
Onlookers chose a
winner.
• Afterward the dispute is
resolved.
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Settling Disputes
• In Western societies someone who commits
an offense against someone else becomes
subject to legal proceedings.
– arrested, tried before judge, tried by jury, fined,
imprisoned, executed
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War
• In the past 5,000 years it is estimated that
humans have created and fought over 14,000
wars.
• Reasons for war vary entirely upon the society
in which it is found. Each group will have its
own objectives, motives, methods, and scale
of warfare.
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Why War?
• In addition to varying scales and methods of
warfare, there are various motives, strategic
objectives, and political or moral justifications for
it.
• Some anthropologists might argue that war is a
reflection of the aggressive nature of the human
male.
• Others will suggest it is situation specific as
opposed to an unavoidable expression of
biological determination towards aggression.
• Perhaps it is safer to assume warfare as a result
of misunderstanding and culture clash.
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Evolution of Warfare
• War is a more recent phenomenon
• It is not universal
• Food foragers do not have war
– Low in numbers
– Not at carrying capacity
– Little material accumulations
– Lack of state organization
– Inter group relationships-marriage
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Ideologies of Aggression
• Justifications for war are embedded in a
societies worldview.
• War typically dehumanizes the aggressor.
• Justified in their slaughter of men, women and
children.
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Genocide
• Genocide is the physical extermination of one
people by another, either as a deliberate act
or as the accidental outcome of activities
carried out by one people with little regard for
their impact on others.
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Ethnic Group and Violent Conflict
Today
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Peace Through Diplomacy
• Throughout history people have attempted to
avoid violent conflict through treaties.
– A contract of formally binding agreement between
two or more groups that are independent and
self-governing political groups such as tribes,
chiefdoms and states.
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