2019
Relationship of
Political Science
with
Anthropology
 Foundation of social Studies
SUBMITTED BY:
LORRAINE JOY VILLANUEVA
JOHN REY POLINAS
KERWIN JOHN GARZON
SUBMITTED TO:
Dr. Jeselle S. Aquino
Relationship of Political science with Anthropology
Anthropology deals with racial divisions of man, his physical character, his geographic
division his environmental and social relations, and his cultural development. It is a science
which studies mankind in relation to physical, social, and cultural development. We seek the
help of Anthropology to prove that early society was communal in character that is its basis
was the group rather than the individual, whom we now accept, as the unit of society.
Anthropology also tells us that that in early stages of the development of the society,
temporary marriage was the rule rather than the exception. But such a condition of society
could not last for long and the need for regulating manage was felt. With the regulation of
marriage, civilization advanced and people permanently settled down as territorial units
paving the way for the emergence of the state. Thus, Anthropology, greatly helps the study
of political science. Without a good knowledge of early societies, their laws, customs,
manners and modes of government, we cannot understand accurately, the modern
institutions and the political behavior of the people.
Anthropology and Political Science:
Anthropology and Political science are very closely related. In fact, political activity is only a
part of a social activity. Thus, political science appears to be activity is influenced by the
social life of man. In fact political activities will have no meaning outside the social context.
Politics is after all the reflection of society. This is made clear by the common saying,
“people have the government which they deserve”. Political science gives anthropological
facts about the organization and functions of the state and government. Political science is
concerned with the state but Anthropology studies state as one of the human
associations.
The laws of the state have a great influence upon society. These laws are largely based on
customs, traditions, conventions and usages. But these customs, traditions etc. are the
concerns of anthropology. The institution of family is an element in social life. It is a concern
of anthropology. There are some common topics of interest for both anthropologists and
political scientists. Such topics are war, mass movements, revolutions, government control,
public opinion, propaganda, leadership, elections, voting, political minorities and social
legislations like civil code. Communal riots, racial tensions between whites and Negros,
Asians and Europeans, border disputes between different states, caste conflicts etc. are
problems that have political as well social implications.
The Relationship between Political Science and Social Anthropology
Article shared by Gaurav

On principle, social anthropology is concerned with the social structure and culture
of the Primitives peoples. Social anthropology, despite its variants in the US, Europe
and Asia, restricts itself to the study of the cultural and social ways of life of the
people.

On the other hand, quite opposite to the anthropological tradition, politics and for
that matter political science is concerned with power and authority. The realms of
focus are different: access to society is also different. But there are very close
relations between the two disciplines.

The all-embracing concern of politics is to maintain law and order and implement the
rights of citizens, effect conflict resolution and encourage social integration. Thus,
political science and social anthropology go hand and hand. This establishes the
relationship of these two disciplines.

The only difference is that political science is concerned with the political behavior of
the modern societies, whereas social anthropology studies the political behavior of
primitive peoples. Thus, in the domain of approach and perspective, both the
disciplines are quite close. The differences arise when we discuss their perspectives.

One very important thing about politics is that all the primitive societies, which
anthropology has studied, do not have political institutions. In modern state
societies, it may seem fairly easy to delineate what is politics and what is not.

Political science, as we find it today, deals with the formal political institutions; with
a legislative assembly, local administration, voting patterns and other aspects of a
society recognized as political.

The situation of primitive society is altogether different. A few of them do not have
any state. Very often, in such stateless societies, kinship and religion are, in practice,
indistinguishable from politics.

The basic question raised by political anthropologists in the study of the primitives is:
when there is no state in these tribal communities, how are they integrated and
what keeps them disciplined? Such an enquiry made by political anthropology brings
it closer to social anthropology.

One very common feature of social anthropology and political science is that they
both study power. In short, power as it was defined during the old days by Max
Weber, is the ability to enforce one’s own will on other’s behavior.

It means that power gives the ability to a person or a group to make someone do
something they would otherwise not have done. According to Weber, people have
power over each other. What is important about the distribution of power is that it is
not equally distributed.

Thus, it can be concluded that both these disciplines start on a similar track, but as
they go ahead and bring out their empirical generalizations, the differences arise.