  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. ______________________________________ Objectives 4/16

  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. Typologies

  Grey areas  Not every example fits prototypical characteristics  culture change may involve uneven shifts in social, political and economic aspects of a society Limitations

 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 decision- making  flexible set of political systems

  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 Complications

 1.Bands 2.Tribes 3.Chiefdoms 4.States Political Organizations

  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 Band

  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 Tribe

  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 Chiefdom

  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

  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 State cont.

 Can humans exist without some people ruling and others being ruled? Life without Chiefs

  98% of existence= no chiefs  Small societies based on family  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.One has calculated the amount of a gift 2.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.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 Directions