Caraga state university

Ampayon, Butuan City 8600, Philippines

URL: www.carsu.edu.ph

The Political
Lecture 12 Systems

Rex B. Makinano
Department of Sociology, CHaSS
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• Political Anthropology- is the
cross-cultural study of
political systems, of formal
and informal political Power- is the ability
institutions. to exercise one’s
• Legal Anthropology- the
comparative study of legal will over others;
systems or law. Although not authority is the
all societies have had law- in
the sense of a formal legal socially approved
code, judiciary, and use of power.
enforcement- all societies
have had some means of
social control.

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 Bands

❑Small group of politically

independent, though
related, households. The
least complicated form
of political organization.
Found among foragers
and nomadic societies.
Small, numbering at
most a few hundred
people.

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 Bands
✓No need for formal political systems.
✓Decisions are made 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.
✓Flexible membership
✓Egalitarian: no social stratification between leaders and
followers.
✓Everyone has access to the skills & materials needed to survive.

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 • Tribes consist of small, autonomous local
communities, which form alliances for
various purposes. Economy based on
❑ Tribes crop cultivation or herding. –
Horticulturalists –Pastoralists Leadership
among tribes is informal

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 Tribes

✓Tribes are uncentralized egalitarian systems in which authority is

distributed among a number of small groups; unity of the larger
society is established from a web of individual and group
relations.
✓General leader = “head man” or “big man” or woman.
✓The Big (Head) Man or Woman Part-time leader. Decides when
to move the herds; when to plant; when to harvest; when to
have feasts. Responsible for handling internal and external
conflicts. Each smaller group usually has its own “head man” and
acts autonomously for that group.

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✓The chief is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of
people.
✓The office of the chief is usually for life and often
hereditary.
✓The chief’s authority serves to unite his people in all
affairs and at all times. Highly unstable as lesser chiefs
try to take power from higher ranking chiefs.
✓Transitional between tribes & states. Office of Chief is
independent of the person.
✓Shared common lineal descent
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✓With respect to social integration, the chiefdom level transcends
the tribal level in two major ways: (1) it has a higher population
density made possible by more efficient productivity; and (2) it
is more complex, with some form of centralized authority.

✓ Unlike segmentary systems in which political units coalesce and

dissolve according to the situation, chiefdoms have relatively
permanent central agencies of government, typically based on
collection and redistribution of an economic surplus (often
including a labor surplus).

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States
• The most formal
of political
organizations.
Political power is
centralized in a
government,
which may use
force to regulate
the affairs of its
citizens and its
relations with
other states

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 States
✓Political organization of society, or the body politic, or,
more narrowly, the institutions of government.
✓It is a form of human association distinguished from
other social groups by its purpose, the establishment of
order and security; its methods, the laws and their
enforcement; its territory, the area of jurisdiction or
geographic boundaries; and finally, by its sovereignty.
✓ The state consists, most broadly, of the agreement of
the individuals on the means whereby disputes are
settled in the form of laws.

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 Credits and Citations
• http://sumananthromaterials.blogspot.com/2018/08/political-systems.html
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.slideshare.net%2Fviel
ariegulla%2Fpolitical-and-leadership-
structures&psig=AOvVaw1GVRAi1y4Df5gZeCxu2E-
q&ust=1623985591347000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCIi8rqTYnf
ECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAt
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fslideplayer.com%2Fslide%2
F4198311%2F&psig=AOvVaw1GVRAi1y4Df5gZeCxu2E-
q&ust=1623985591347000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCIi8rqTYnf
ECFQAAAAAdAAAAABA5
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fslideplayer.com%2Fslide%2
F4549388%2F&psig=AOvVaw3428Z7-RYI0j8-
gug9Bnqz&ust=1623991373456000&source=images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTC
NCfvNDtnfECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD
• https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thoughtco.com%2Fsm
allest-states-in-the-united-states-
4071971&psig=AOvVaw1zutxgxUq0aCtCXkY2hyNh&ust=1623991892119000&source=
images&cd=vfe&ved=0CAIQjRxqFwoTCKjvq7_vnfECFQAAAAAdAAAAABAD

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• https://www.britannica.com/topic/state-
sovereign-political-entity
• Kottak, Conrad Phillip. 1997. Anthropology The
Exploration of Human Diversity. 7th ed. USA: The
McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.

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