Political and Legal Systems (Miller Chapter 8)

1. Political and Legal Systems(Miller Chapter 8)

2. The BIG Questions • What does political anthropology cover? • What is the scope of legal anthropology? • How are political and legal systems changing?

3. Political Anthropology • Political anthropology addresses the area of human behavior and thought related to power • Takes a broader view of politics than political scientists • Political anthropologists study… • Power and related concepts • Political organization cross-culturally • Interactions among political units • Change in political systems

4. Bases of power Democratization Power and Related Concepts Political organization and government Who has it; who does not Political anthropologists address the area of human behavior and thought related to power Power, Authority, and Influence Social control Social Conflict and Violence

5. Legal Anthropology • Legal anthropology addresses issues of social order and conflict resolution cross-culturally • Legal anthropologists study… • Laws cross-culturally • Morality and laws • Social conflict • Social control

6. Politics and Political Organization • Politics refers to the organized use of public power • Is opposed to the more private micropolitics of family and domestic groups • Political organization is the existence of groups for purposes such as public decision making and leadership, maintaining social cohesion and order, protecting group rights, and ensuring safety from external threats.

7. Political Organizations and Social Groups • Political organizations and social groups share several features • Criteria/rules for membership • Identity markers (clothing, card, title) • Internal organization (leadership hierarchy)

8. Major Types of Political Organizations • Bands • Tribes • Big-man / big-woman system • Chiefdoms • States

9. Power, Authority, and Influence • Influence is the ability to achieve a desired end by exerting social or moral pressure on someone or some group • Authority is the right to take certain forms of action • Power is the ability to bring about results, often through the possession or use of forceful means

10. Band • A band is the form of political organization associated with foraging groups • The most long-standing form of political organization • Because for most of human history we lived in bands • Comprises between 20 people and a few hundred people at most, all related through kinship

11. Band • Is characterized by… • Flexible membership • A lack of permanent, formal leaders • May have individuals with authority or influence, but no individuals have power over others • Leader is “first among equals” • Low conflict between groups

12. Tribe • A tribe is a more formal type of political organization than the band • Is typically associated with horticulturalists and pastoralists • Developed about 10,000 to 12,000 years ago with the emergence of these modes of production • A tribe comprises several bands or lineage groups, each with similar language and lifestyle and each occupying a distinct territory • Members may belong to the same clan – a group of people who claim descent from a common ancestor, although they may be unable to trace the exact relationship

13. Tribe • Tribal groups contain from 100 to several thousand people • Tribes are found in various areas of the world • A tribal headman or headwoman is a more formal leader than a band leader • Political leader on a part-time basis only • Relies mainly on authority and influence rather than on power

14. Big-Man/Big-Woman System • Is a form of political organization in which individuals build a political base and gain prestige, influence, and authority through a system of redistribution based on personal ties and grand feasts • Often considered within a tribal system • Most common in the South Pacific • Often involves a moka, which is a strategy for developing political leadership that involves exchanging favors and gifts, such as pigs, and sponsoring large feasts where further gift giving occurs • Sphere of big-man/big-woman’s influence includes people in several villages

15. Chiefdoms • A chiefdom is a form of political organization that includes permanently allied tribes and villages under one leader, a chief who possesses power • Chiefdoms have large populations, often numbering in the thousands • They are more centralized and socially complex than tribes and bands • Ascribed/hereditary systems of social rank and economic stratification • Chiefs and their lineages have higher status than commoners

16. Chiefdoms • The position of chief is an “office” that must be filled at all times • Greater complexity of managing a larger population than with band and tribes requires greater responsibilities • Chiefdoms have existed throughout the world • Sometimes confederacies are formed when chiefdoms are joined • Headed by a “big chief” – a chief of chiefs

17. States • A state is a centralized political unit encompassing many communities, which includes a bureaucratic structure and leaders who possess coercive power • Is now the form of political organization in which all people live • Bands, tribes, and chiefdoms exist, but they are incorporated within state structures • Many thousands or millions of people may be encompassed by a state

18. States • States have much more power than bands, tribes, and chiefdoms • Reflected in architecture, urban planning, other symbols • Controls population with full-time police and uses standing armies to defend borders • Have the power to tax • Have the power to manipulate information • Are hierarchical and usually patriarchal • There are fewer women in direct political positions than men, but women may play large indirect roles in politics

20. Band Leader Headman/Headwoman Chief King/Queen/ President Types of Political Organizations and Leadership Bands Tribes Chiefdoms States

23. Social Control • Social control is the process by which people maintain orderly life in groups • All cultures have rules that allow that culture to establish orderly conduct • Even pirates have rules! • http://www.elizabethan-era.org.uk/pirate-code-conduct.htm • Rules vary cross-culturally

24. Social Control • Social control is the process by which people maintain orderly life in groups • Occurs through norms and laws • Norms are accepted standards for how people should behave that are usually unwritten and learned unconsciously through socialization • Violation of norms may simply be considered rude and the violator may be shunned, or some sort of direct action may be taken against the violator

25. Social Control • In contrast to norms, laws are binding rules created through custom or official enactment that defines correct behavior and the punishment for misbehavior • Are more common and more elaborate in state-level societies • Religion often provides legitimacy for law • Especially prevalent in contemporary Islamic status, but is also found in some laws in Western states as well • Violation of laws have associated punishments, such as getting fined, going to jail, etc.

26. Social Control • Social control in small-scale societies is characterized more through the use of norms • Social control in large-scale societies is characterized more through the use of laws

27. Social Control in Small-Scale Societies • Bands are small, close-knit groups, which are kinship based and disputes tend to be handled at the interpersonal level • Punishment is often through ridicule, shaming, or leaving the group • Emphasis is on maintaining social order and restoring social equilibrium, not hurtfully punishing an offender • Capital punishment (execution) is very rare • Punishment is often legitimized through belief in supernatural forces • If do something socially unacceptable, something supernatural may occur to punish that behavior

28. Social Control in States • In states we have a large and often diverse population – not everyone knows everyone else • Increased social stress due to inequities in wealth distribution, rights to land, etc. • These conditions necessitate… • Increased specialization of roles involved in social control • Formal trials and courts • Power-enforced forms of punishment, such as prisons and the death penalty

29. Social Control in States • Increased specialization of roles involved in social control • A variety of full-time professions devoted to maintaining law and order • Judges, lawyers • Police – exist mainly in state level societies • Policing is a form of social control that includes processes of surveillance and the threat of punishment related to maintaining social order • Varies in effectiveness from state to state • U.S. – high crime rates • Japan – much lower crime rates

30. Social Control in States • Formal trials and courts • Court system with lawyers, judge, and jury • Used in many societies • Goal is to ensure justice and fairness, but the analysis of legal systems in the U.S. and elsewhere have shown some serious problems • Trial by ordeal • A way of judging guilt or innocence in which the accused person is put through a test that is often painful

31. Social Control in States • Prisons and the death penalty • Prisons (places where people are forcibly detained as a form of punishment) emerged with state-level societies • Death penalty • Rare in non-state societies • Requires a great deal of power to condemn someone to death – reflects state power and is a powerful tool to influence people to act in a manner acceptable to the state

32. A British colonial prison in the Andaman Islands, India, where many Indian freedom fighters were imprisoned during the 18th and 19th centuries; now a tourist site

33. Critical legal anthropologists examine the role of law in maintaining power relationships through discrimination against such social categories as indigenous people, women, and minorities. Social Inequality and the Law

34. Social Inequality and the Law - Australian Aboriginal Youth and Justice • More likely to receive the most severe outcomes from criminal justice decision-makers than white youth • More likely to live in a poor neighborhood, be unemployed, and thus be classified as “undependable” and formally arrested • More likely to appear in court rather than Children’s Aid Panels • – Gale et al. 1990

35. Critical legal anthropologists examine the role of law in maintaining power relationships through discrimination against such social categories as indigenous people, women, and minorities. Social Inequality and the Law

36. Social Inequality and the Law

37. Social Conflict and Violence • All systems of social control have to deal with the fact that conflict and violence may occur • Conflict occurs on many scales • Private conflicts • Interpersonal conflict • Conflict at the household level • Public conflicts • Ethnic conflicts • Warfare

38. Ethnic Conflict • Ethnic pluralism is a characteristic of most states in the world today. • Ethnic conflict may result from an ethnic group’s attempt to gain more autonomy or more equitable treatment. • May also be caused by a dominant group’s actions to subordinate, oppress, or eliminate an ethnic group by genocide or ethnocide

39. Ethnic Conflict • Political analysts and journalists often cite language, ethnicity, and religion as the biggest causes of conflict worldwide • Ethnic identities commit people to a cause • Deeper issues often exist such as claims to material resources (land, water, etc.) which may exacerbate ethnic conflicts

40. Example of an ethnic group seeking territorial recognition: The Kurds of the Middle East

41. Ethnic Conflict • In the past few decades, political violence has increasingly been enacted within states rather than between states • Intra-state (within state) violence constitutes the majority of the many “shooting wars” in the world today

42. Warfare • Warfare is organized conflict involving group action directed against another group and involving lethal force. • Cultural variation exists in the frequency and seriousness of wars • Intergroup conflicts among free-ranging foragers that would fit the definition of war do not exist in the ethnographic record • Informal, non-hierarchical political organization among bands is not conducive to waging armed conflict • Bands do not have special military forces or leaders

43. Warfare • Warfare likely originated with domestication of plants and animals • Led to increased population density, different groups close to each other and often competing with each other for resources • Warfare more common in tribes, chiefdoms, and states than in bands • More influential leaders • How often and what types of warfare are engaged in vary depending on the society and many factors • Costa Rica – no army • U.S. – army

44. Warfare • Causes of war • Defending values • Defending freedom • “Operation Enduring Freedom” • Defending democracy • Defending human rights • Supporting allies • Extending boundaries • Securing more resources • Reacting to aggression

45. Warfare • One theory of effective warfare… • For war to be an effective tool of domination and for domination to be maintained after a conquest, there must be the introduction of a new economic and political system and an ideology that wins over the population • Physical domination combined with ideological dominance

46. Changes in Political and Legal Systems • Contemporary political anthropologists are most interested in political dynamics and change, especially in how the state affects local people’s lives.

47. Emerging and transnational nations Women in politics Changes in Political and Legal Systems Democratization

48. Emerging Nations and Transnational Nations • A nation is a group of people who share a language, culture, territorial base, political organization, and history • Not to be confused with a state • Example Puerto Rico • Half of the “nation” lives outside of the home territory • Are forming a transnational identity

49. Example of a transnational nation: Puerto Rico

50. Democratization • Democratization is the process of transformation from an authoritarian regime to a democratic regime. • Has varying levels of success • Transition appears to be most difficult when the change is from highly authoritarian socialist regimes • Often difficult because an economic transition in addition to a political one • Transition from state controlled government planned economy to a free market, capitalist economy