Anthropological Forms of Political Systems
Anthropologists generally recognize four kinds of political systems, two of which are uncentralized and two of which are centralized.
- Uncentralized systems
- Band
- Small kin group, no larger than an extended family or clan; it has been defined as consisting of no more than 30 to 50 individuals.
- A band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out.
- Tribe
- Generally larger, consisting of many families. Tribes have more social institutions, such as a chief or elders.
- More permanent than bands; a band can cease to exist if only a small group walks out. Many tribes are sub-divided into bands.
- Band
- Centralized systems
- Chiefdom
- More complex than a tribe or a band society, and less complex than a state or a civilization
- Characterized by pervasive inequality and centralization of authority.
- A single lineage/family of the elite class becomes the ruling elite of the chiefdom
- Complex chiefdoms have two or even three tiers of political hierarchy.
- "An autonomous political unit comprising a number of villages or communities under the permanent control of a paramount chief"
- State
- A sovereign state is a state with a permanent population, a defined territory, a government and the capacity to enter into relations with other sovereign states.
- Chiefdom
Read more about this topic: Political System
Famous quotes containing the words forms, political and/or systems:
“Our normal waking consciousness, rational consciousness as we call it, is but one special type of consciousness, whilst all about it, parted from it by the filmiest of screens, there lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“In bourgeois society, the French and the industrial revolution transformed the authorization of political space. The political revolution put an end to the formalized hierarchy of the ancien regimé.... Concurrently, the industrial revolution subverted the social hierarchy upon which the old political space was based. It transformed the experience of society from one of vertical hierarchy to one of horizontal class stratification.”
—Donald M. Lowe, U.S. historian, educator. History of Bourgeois Perception, ch. 4, University of Chicago Press (1982)
“We have done scant justice to the reasonableness of cannibalism. There are in fact so many and such excellent motives possible to it that mankind has never been able to fit all of them into one universal scheme, and has accordingly contrived various diverse and contradictory systems the better to display its virtues.”
—Ruth Benedict (1887–1948)