Article contents
Some Thoughts on the Relation of Political Theory to Anthropology*
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 August 2014
Extract
The study of developing areas has, in recent years, caused political science and theory to be increasingly aware of realities of non-Western government and politics. Comparative politics and its theory no longer, therefore, can avoid utilizing the results of the research of anthropologists and ethnologists in a way comparable to the use of historical data if they wish to be comprehensively empirical. Since the political theorist will not, as a rule, be able to become a practising anthropologist, the basic problem of such cooperation turns upon whether the investigating anthropologist asks the crucial, the basic questions in the first place. A broad survey of their reports and writings, such as the Human Relations Area Files afford, shows that this is by no means generally the case. Nor is this easy to achieve, for political scientists and anthropologists differ in their objectives. It has been suggested that the anthropologist is primarily interested in diversity, in how many ways something could be done, whereas for the political scientist and theorist such divergencies are important mainly as they lead to political insight and verifiable generalization.
The utility of the writings of anthropologists for the political scientist is seriously impeded by the over-simplified and misleading understanding of the nature of power and authority held by many of them.
- Type
- Research Article
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968
Footnotes
What follows is a revision of a working paper prepared for a conference held at Yale University on May 7–8, 1965, which has been reported elsewhere. Its purpose was to consider the problems raised in adapting the Human Relations Area Files to the use of political scientists (and by implications to that of jurists, economists, and other social scientists). There can be little doubt that although “the HRAF constitute a major potential resource for research and teaching in political science,” they have not been used to any great extent by political scientists. (The authors wish to acknowledge the research assistance of Mr. Michael Rothschild.)
References
1 These writings are digested in the Human Relations Area Files, produced at New Haven, in cooperation with Yale and a number of other universities. In the footnotes which follow, there is a certain time lag due to delays in incorporating material in the HRAF. See, for a recent contribution which is informed by a much greater awareness of the problems here discussed, Schwartz, Max, Political Anthropology (New York 1966)Google Scholar, though even here the references are spotty and the views often rather one-sided.
2 The interesting study by Middleton, John and Tait, David (eds.), Tribes Without Rulers (1958)Google Scholar, while more sophisticated, suffers from this difficulty too. Max Schwartz has, in Political Anthropology, offered a good review of the literature of political anthropology, including the studies of Goodenough and Leach which focus attention upon conflict and process.
3 Hoebel, E. Adamson, The Law of Primitive Man (Cambridge, Mass.), 1961, p. 181.Google Scholar
4 Leighton, Dorothea and Kluckhohn, Clyde, Children of the People (Cambridge, Mass.), 1947, pp. 105–106.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
5 Gusinde, Martin, The Yahgan: the Life and Thought of the Water Nomads of Cape Horn (trans. Shutze, Frieda, for Human Relations Area Files), p. 1025.Google Scholar
6 Ibid.
7 Op. cit., p. 802.
8 For a more detailed theoretical discussion, see Friedrich, Carl J., Man and His Government (New York, 1963), pp. 213ff.Google Scholar
9 Ibid., p. 233, for this and the preceding quotation.
10 Levi-Strauss, Claude, “The Social and Psychological Aspects of Chieftanship in a Primitive Tribe: the Nambicuara of Northeastern Mato Grosso,” Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II, vol. 7 (1945), 16–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
11 Wallace, Ernest and Hoebel, E. A., The Comanches (1952), p. 211.Google Scholar
12 Honigmann, John J., The Kasha Indians: An Ethnographic Reconstruction (New Haven, 1954), p. 84.Google Scholar
13 Karsten, Rafael, “The Head-Hunters of Western Amazonas: The Life and Culture of the Jibaro Indians of Eastern Ecuador and Peru,” Societas Scientiarum Fennica: Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum, Vol. VII, No. 1 (1935), p. 267.Google Scholar
14 Kluckhohn, Clyde and Leighton, Dorothea, The Navaho, Cambridge, Mass., 1946. p. 71.Google Scholar
15 Pospsil, Leopold J., “Kapauku Papuan Political Structure,” in Ray, Verne F. (ed.), Systems of Political Control and Bureaucracy in Human Societies (Seattle, 1958), p. 18.Google Scholar
16 Richards, Audrey I., “The Political System of the Bemba Tribe—North-Eastern Rhodesia,” in Fortes, M. and Evans-Pritchard, E. E. (eds.), African Political Systems (London, 1940), p. 111.Google Scholar
17 Firth, Raymond, Primitive Polynesian Economy (London, 1939), pp. 103–104.Google Scholar
18 Thompson, Virginia, Thailand: The New Siam (New York, 1941), p. 269.Google Scholar
19 Wagner, Gunther, “The Political Organization of the Bantu of Kavirondo,” in Fortes, and Evans-Pritchard, , op. cit., pp. 235–236.Google Scholar
20 Middleton and Tait, op. cit., 1958. Unfortunately, it, too, is entangled in difficulties resulting from the failure to distinguish power and authority. A similar attempt at classifying “stateless societies” is offered by Fortes and Evans-Pritchard in their Introduction to African Political Systems, op. cit., pp. 11–16.
21 Smith, M. G., Government in Zazzau: 1800–1950 (1960).Google Scholar
22 Max Glueckman, “The Kingdom of the Zulu of South Africa,” in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, op. cit., p. 33.
23 Smith, M. G., The Economy of Hausa Communities of Zaria, London, 1955, p. 10.Google Scholar
24 The Tallensi and the Ankole are discussed by Fortes and Orberg, respectively, in Fortes and Evans-Pritchard, op. cit., pp. 266 and 121ff. The Marquesas are described in Linton, Ralph, “The Material Culture of the Marquesas Islands,” Memoirs Bernice P. Bishop Museum, vol. 5, p. 268 (1925).Google Scholar Rothschild added the following comment here. Only in the colonial period when Tallensi chiefs were agents of the British Administration can it be said that they had judicial power based on authority. The Tallensi are one of the famous tribes of the anthropological state and their fame rests on Fortes' description of their social structure before the British came to the Gold Coast and before chiefs had pronounced judicial functions.
25 Mair, Lucy P., An African People in the Twentieth Century (London, 1934), pp. 268, 183.Google Scholar
26 Firth, Raymond, We, the Tikopoa: A Sociological Study of Kinship in Primitive Polynesia (London, 1936), p. 284.Google Scholar
27 Lambert, H. E., Kikuyu Social and Political Institutions (London 1956), p. 120.Google Scholar
28 Rattray, R. S., Law and the Ashanti Constitution (London, 1929) pp. 295–296.Google Scholar
29 Howell, P. P., A Manual of Nuer Law (London, 1954), p. 225.Google Scholar
30 Ibid., p. 22.
31 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 270. See also The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective, 2. ed. (1954), passim.
32 Hoebel, , The Law of Primitive Man, pp. 185ff.Google Scholar
33 Pospisil, Leopold, Kapauku Papuans and Their Law, New Haven, 1958, p. 248.Google Scholar
34 Ibid., p. 255.
35 Hoebel, op. cit., p. 28.
36 Pospisil, op. cit., p. 267.
37 Lambert, op. cit., p. 128.
38 Pospisil, op. cit., pp. 267–268.
39 Gusinde, op.cit., p. 984.
40 Petrullo, Vincenzo, “Composition of ‘Torts’ in Guajiro Society,” Publications of The Philadelphia Anthropological Society, Vol I. (1937), 156–158.Google Scholar
41 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 426.
42 Evans-Pritchard, E. E., “The Nuer of the Southern Sudan,” in Fortes, and Evans-Pritohard, op. cit., p. 293.Google Scholar
43 Howell, op. cit., p. 24.
44 Giraldo, Roberto Pineda, Aspectos de la Magia en la Guajiro (translated from the Spanish for the Human Relations Area Files by Muirden, Sydney), pp. 77.Google Scholar
45 Lague, C. R., Les Azande du Miam-Niam (trans. from Human Relations Area Files), pp. 20–21.Google Scholar Cf. also Evans-Pritchard, op. cit.
46 Lambert, op. cit., p. 118.
47 Grene, Man and His Pride: A study of the Political Philosophy of Thucydides and Plato. See Ch. 12, especially at the end.
48 Hoebel, op. cit., pp. 24–26.
49 Koppers, Wilhelm, Die Bhil in Zentralindien, (translated for the Human Relations Area Files by Ziolkowski, Theodore J.), p. 165.Google Scholar
50 Wagner, op. cit., p. 221. Rothschild added the following comment: “It should be noted that the council's decision was accepted only if elders from all sections of the clan or sub-clan accepted it. If there were disagreement which followed lineage lines and neither side gave in the clan would split which was, one gathers from Wagner, not an infrequent occurrence.”
51 Pospisil, op. cit., p. 255.
52 Larken, P. M., “Impressions of the Azande,” Sudan Notes and Records, vol. XIII, p. 99 (1930).Google Scholar
53 Wagner, op. cit., p. 219n.
54 Rattray, op. cit., p. 287.
55 Hoebel, op. cit., p. 293.
56 The recent work of Almond, Gabriel A. and Powell, G. Bingham Jr., Comparative Politics: A Developmental Approach (Boston, 1967)Google Scholar utilizes some of this material, as did my Man and His Government (New York, 1963), and Deutsch's, Karl W. The Nerves of Government (New York, 1964).Google Scholar
- 5
- Cited by
Comments
No Comments have been published for this article.