1. Politics, Power, War and Peace
Chapter 12
Politics, Power, War and Peace

2. 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

3. 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.

4. 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

5. Types of Political Organization

6. Band Organization
Band- small group of loosely organized kin-ordered 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.

7. 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.

8. 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.

9. 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.

10. 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.

11. 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.

12. 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.

13. 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.

14. 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

15. Kurd Nation and the State

16. 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.

17. 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

18. 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.

19. Cultural Controls in Maintaining Order
Self-control: a persons capacity to manage her or his spontaneous feelings; restraining impulsive behavior.

20. 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.

21. Externalized Controls
In order to maintain order, externalized controls are generally sanctioned- externalized 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.

22. 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?

23. 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.

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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.

27. 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.

28. 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

29. 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.

30. 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.

31. Ethnic Group and Violent Conflict Today

32. 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.