Week 7 · Chapter

Chapter 7 — Political Organization, Power, and Inequality

Cultural Anthropology Free sample edition

The module's primary reading · ~25–35 minutes · Objective 5 (analyze political organization and social control: distinguish power from authority, use the band, tribe, chiefdom, and state model and the egalitarian, rank, and stratified scheme as models rather than rankings, and describe law and dispute resolution), Objective 4 (compare how societies make a living and exchange goods: the subsistence strategies as a model, generalized, balanced, and negative reciprocity, redistribution, and market exchange, the obligations a gift creates, and documented cases such as the kula and the potlatch) · Read it first this week; the lecture, the slides, the tutorial, and the quiz all build on it.

In plain language

Every group of people has to decide who makes the calls and how order is kept. Anthropologists call those arrangements political organization (the way a group arranges leadership, decision-making, and keeping order). This week you will learn to tell power (making others act) from authority (power people accept as rightful). You will meet two classroom models for comparing groups, and you will see how people keep each other in line and settle disputes, with or without a court. By the end, you will be able to read who holds authority in a setting you know and say where that authority comes from.

Why you already care about this

Picture a campus hiking club (an illustrative scene). It has 30 members and 4 officers, and the members elected the president by a show of hands. Before a trail cleanup, she tells 12 volunteers where to stand, and they go. Nobody argues, because they chose her.

Now picture one member who blocks the supply closet until the others agree to his plan for the day. He also makes people act. Yet nobody thinks he has the right to do it, and the next week they talk about him behind his back. Two people moved the group, and the group treated them very differently. This week asks why, and it gives you the discipline's words for the difference.

By the end of this chapter you will be able to:

tell power from authority and name the legitimacy that turns one into the other;
sort a description of a group into band, tribe, chiefdom, or state, using Service's model as a model and never as a ladder;
use Fried's scheme to say whether a setting has equal or unequal access to prestige and to basic resources;
name the informal means of social control and set law beside them as one form among several;
tell negotiation, mediation, and adjudication apart in a real or illustrative dispute;
read the market's governance and work its counts and percentages, including the coded tally's redistribution entries.

Carry this sentence with you: power moves people; legitimacy makes them call it right.

Where we are

Already covered: Week 1 gave you the anthropological perspective, and Week 2 defined culture, norms, and symbols. Week 3 taught two-column field notes, Week 4 heard the market's talk as language, Week 5 asked how people get their food, and Week 6 sorted the ways goods move.
This week: power, authority, and legitimacy; band, tribe, chiefdom, and state as Service's model; egalitarian, rank, and stratified societies; social control and law; three routes of dispute resolution; and the market's governance.
How they connect: Week 6 named redistribution, goods collected at a center and given out again; this week asks who holds the authority to run that center.
Where we're going next: Week 8, the Midterm Review and Exam, reviews Weeks 1 to 7 and adds a short look at how anthropology's own ideas about culture changed.

Week 2 called the market's bell a symbol and waiting for it a norm, a shared expectation for how people should behave. Week 3 recorded the bell in a field note, and Week 4 heard the vendors call it "the bell", their own term for the manager's 8:00 a.m. signal that selling may begin. Week 6 coded 4 of the market's 50 exchanges as redistribution through the "Pantry" crate. This week you meet the person who rings the bell and loads the crate, and you ask what gives that person the right to do it. The running fieldwork site is still the same illustrative, unnamed weekly neighborhood farmers' market of 24 stalls.

1. Tell power from authority: why people follow

Think about two people who can make you change your plans. A referee can stop a game and send a player off. A loud stranger can block a hallway until you walk around. Both make you act, but only one of them has a right to do it that everyone in the game accepts.

The course uses three linked terms for that difference.

Power is the ability to make others act, even against their will, whether or not they accept it as rightful.
Authority is power that people accept as rightful, such as an elected officer's right to make decisions for a group.
Legitimacy is people's acceptance that a use of power is rightful; legitimacy is what turns power into authority.

Every group arranges these in its own way. Political organization is the way a group arranges leadership, decision-making, and the keeping of order among its members. A club, a workplace, a village, and a country all have one.

Worked example — reading the hiking club (illustrative). Ask three questions of each person who moved the group.

Did the person make others act? The president sent 12 volunteers to their places. The member at the closet kept the group waiting. Both used power.
Did the group accept it as rightful? The members elected the president, so they accepted her direction. Nobody accepted the closet blockade.
What does the concept call it? The president's power is authority, and the election is the source of its legitimacy. The member at the closet had power without authority.

In words: both people moved the group, but only the president's power came with the group's acceptance, so only hers was authority.

Authority does not always need a title. Picture a busy restaurant kitchen (illustrative). The head cook has the official title, yet when the dinner rush hits, the line cooks turn to one dishwasher who has worked there for 9 years and knows where everything goes. People follow her because they respect her, and that respect is a kind of legitimacy. It gives her influence, a softer kind of authority that rests on trust rather than an office.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Name one person whose directions you follow without being forced. Where does that person's legitimacy come from: an election, a job title, age, skill, or something else?
(b) Describe a time someone made you act when you did not accept their right to do it. What would have made their power feel rightful?

Misconception check. Students often use power and authority as synonyms, as if anyone in charge has authority. That is tempting, because everyday speech uses the two words loosely. But power is only the ability to make others act, and authority is power people accept as rightful. The cure: before calling someone an authority, ask what makes the group accept that person's power, and name the legitimacy.

2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state

Think about how decisions get made in groups of different sizes. A few friends planning a camping trip talk it over, and whoever knows the trail best leads. A large city runs on elected officials, written laws, and a police force. Both are ways of deciding, but the tools are very different.

Anthropologists compare those tools with a classroom model associated with Service (1962), Primitive Social Organization. The title uses the period's wording, which this course quotes only as a title and never uses in its own voice. The model sorts political organization into four types.

A band is a small, mobile group whose leaders guide by influence rather than by holding an office.
A tribe is villages linked by kin groups or associations, with leaders who cannot force others to obey.
A chiefdom is a hereditary office that holds authority over several communities, often with redistribution through the chief.
A state is a society with a central government that has the power to tax, make law, and enforce it.

Together they make up band, tribe, chiefdom, and state, a classroom model of four types of political organization, associated with Service's work of 1962; it is a tool for comparison, never a ladder of progress, and real communities mix features.

The four types in Service's model of political organization, with how leaders lead and what reach each type has
Type	How leaders lead	Reach
Band	By influence, with no office	One small, mobile group
Tribe	By respect, with no power to force	Several villages linked by kin groups or associations
Chiefdom	From a hereditary office, often redistributing goods	Several communities
State	Through a central government that taxes, makes law, and enforces it	A whole territory

Worked example — sorting four descriptions (illustrative). Each description below was written for this course and describes no real people. Ask of each one: who leads, how, and over how many communities?

About 30 people move camp several times a year. When they plan a hunt, they follow whoever knows that ground best, and no one can give orders. Leadership is by influence in a small, mobile group, so the model calls it a band.
Several villages are tied together by kin groups. A respected elder speaks at gatherings, but if people disagree, she cannot make them obey. Leaders cannot force others, and kin groups link the villages, so the model calls it a tribe.
One office, passed from parent to child, oversees 5 communities. The officeholder collects part of each harvest and gives it out again at feasts. A hereditary office reaches several communities and redistributes goods, so the model calls it a chiefdom.
A central government collects taxes, writes laws, and keeps courts and police to enforce them. The power to tax, make law, and enforce it marks a state.

In words: the four types differ in who leads and how far that leadership reaches, not in how good or how advanced a society is.

Here is the honesty note: the model is a tool for comparing, and real communities mix features of more than one type. A present-day community is never placed "on a path" by this model, and no type is earlier or better than another.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a group you belong to that has no official leader, such as a study group or a group of friends. How do decisions get made, and which type's description does that sound most like?
(b) The third description above includes redistribution. Why might collecting goods and giving them out again need someone with a recognized office?

Misconception check. Students often read the four types as steps on a ladder, with the state as the most advanced and the band as the earliest. A second wrong turn reads a chiefdom as a small state. Both are tempting, because the list moves from small to large. But the model compares how leadership works, not how advanced anyone is, and a chiefdom's hereditary office is not a central government with the power to tax, make law, and enforce it. The cure: name the feature that sets each type apart, and never say "more" or "less" advanced.

3. Compare access to prestige: egalitarian, rank, and stratified

Think about a pickup basketball game at a park (illustrative). Anyone who plays well can end up calling the plays, and the next day someone else might. Now think about a club that has 1 president's seat and 5 members who want it. Only one of them can hold the seat at a time.

Those two settings differ in how many places of honor there are for the people able to fill them. Fried (1967), The Evolution of Political Society, used that difference, and a second one about resources, to compare whole societies. Societies differ in how access to prestige and to resources is distributed.

An egalitarian society is a society with as many positions of prestige as people able to fill them, so people of the same age and gender have equal access to prestige and resources.
A rank society is a society with fewer positions of prestige than people able to fill them, so prestige is unequal even where access to basic resources is not.
A stratified society is a society in which people have unequal access to basic resources, such as land or the means to make a living.

The everyday settings in this section are only anchors. Fried's scheme describes whole societies, and the course teaches it as a model, like Service's.

Worked example — reading three settings with Fried's two questions (illustrative). Ask of each setting: are positions of prestige open to everyone able to fill them, and is access to basic resources equal?

The pickup game. Anyone able to call the plays may end up doing it, so there are as many places of prestige as people able to fill them. That matches the egalitarian type.
The club with 1 seat. 5 members are able and willing, and 5 − 1 = 4 of them cannot hold the seat this year. Prestige is limited, though every member still uses the same meeting room. That matches the rank type.
A farming town where a few families own all the farmland (illustrative). Everyone else must rent land or work for the owners to make a living. Access to a basic resource is unequal. That matches the stratified type.

In words: the first two settings differ in prestige, and the third differs in basic resources, which is the line Fried drew between rank and stratified societies.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Think of a group you know where honors are limited, such as team captains or club officers. How does the group decide who gets them?
(b) Think of a setting where some people can use a resource and others cannot, such as a parking lot or a practice field. Is that a difference in prestige or a difference in resources?

Misconception check. Students often think egalitarian means everyone is the same, with no differences at all. That is tempting, because "equal" sounds like "identical". But an egalitarian society means equal access to prestige and resources for people of the same age and gender; people still differ in skill, age, and role. The cure: when you hear egalitarian, ask about access, not sameness.

4. Keep order without a referee: social control and law

Back at the park, the pickup game has no referee and no rulebook (illustrative). Yet the players keep order. A player who calls too many fouls gets teased. Others talk about him on the walk home. Next week, nobody picks him for a team.

That is social control at work. Social control is the ways a group keeps its members within its rules: informal means such as gossip, ridicule, shunning, and the threat of supernatural sanction, and formal law.

Informal social control works through gossip (talk about a person behind their back), ridicule (teasing or mocking), shunning (leaving a person out), and the threat of supernatural sanction (the belief that unseen powers will punish a wrongdoer).
Law is formal social control: rules that a recognized authority makes and enforces, with set consequences for breaking them.

Worked example — sorting four ways the park keeps order (illustrative). Ask of each one: who enforces it, and is it written and backed by a recognized authority?

The teasing after a bad foul call. Players enforce it with mockery. That is ridicule, an informal means.
The talk on the walk home. Players enforce it by talking behind his back. That is gossip, an informal means.
Not being picked next week. Players enforce it by leaving him out. That is shunning, an informal means.
The park's posted closing time, enforced with a fine by the city. A recognized authority makes and enforces it with a set consequence. That is law.

In words: 3 of the 4 ways the park keeps order are informal, and only 1 is law, so most of the order on the court is kept by the players themselves.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) Describe one unwritten rule in a group you belong to. How does the group let someone know they broke it?
(b) Think of a rule that is both a law and a social expectation, such as waiting in line. Which keeps people in line more often, the law or the looks from others?

Misconception check. Students often think law is the only form of social control, so a group without courts or police has no order. That is tempting, because law is the form most written down. But gossip, ridicule, shunning, and the threat of supernatural sanction keep order in every group, including groups that also have law. The cure: before you say a group has no rules, look for the teasing, the talk, and who gets left out.

5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication

Picture two neighbors who share a fence (illustrative). A storm knocks it down, and the repair costs 600 dollars. Each neighbor thinks the other should pay more. Their neighborhood association has a volunteer who helps with disputes, and it has a board that can make rulings on shared property.

Anthropologists sort the ways people settle disagreements into routes. Dispute resolution is the ways people settle a disagreement, which this course groups into three routes.

Negotiation is a route of dispute resolution in which the parties settle the disagreement themselves, with no third party.
Mediation is a route of dispute resolution in which a third party helps the parties reach their own agreement but does not decide for them.
Adjudication is a route of dispute resolution in which a third party hears the sides and decides the outcome.

Worked example — the fence dispute three ways (illustrative). Ask of each route: who makes the final decision?

Negotiation. The two neighbors talk over the fence and agree to split the cost: 600 ÷ 2 = 300 dollars each. They decided it themselves.
Mediation. The association's volunteer sits with both of them and asks questions until they agree on the same split. The volunteer helped, but the neighbors decided.
Adjudication. The association's board hears both sides and rules on the split. The board decided, and the neighbors follow its ruling.

In words: the three routes differ in who decides, the parties themselves, the parties with help, or a third party.

People have built many forms of dispute resolution. Early twentieth-century accounts describe Inuit (the older outsiders' label, "Eskimo", is given once here) communities in parts of the Arctic settling some disputes through public song contests, judged by the audience. A public song contest is a documented form of dispute settlement in which, according to early twentieth-century accounts, Inuit communities in parts of the Arctic settled some disputes through songs performed before an audience that judged them. Notice the past tense and the time of the accounts. Inuit are a living people who speak for themselves, and their ways of settling disputes have changed over time, as every community's have.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) In a public song contest, the audience judged. Which of the three routes does that remind you of most, and what feature of the contest makes it hard to fit into only one?
(b) Recall a disagreement you saw settled by a third party, such as a coach, a manager, or a teacher. Did that person help the sides agree or decide for them?

Misconception check. Students often think every dispute must end in a court or a judge to be settled for real. That is tempting, because courtroom dramas are the most visible kind of dispute. But negotiation and mediation settle many disputes with no one deciding for the parties, and communities have built public forms, such as song contests, that have nothing to do with courts. The cure: ask who made the final decision before you name the route.

6. Read the market's governance

Walk back into the running fieldwork site before opening time. The market (Dataset A, illustrative, constructed for this course, not a real place) has 24 stalls. The market manager assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, and rings the opening bell, and the vendors' association votes on the market's rules.

The running site's governance (Dataset A, illustrative): who does what at the market, and the Week 7 concept each role shows
Who	What they do	Week 7 concept
The market manager	Assigns stall locations, collects a weekly stall fee, rings the opening bell	Power, accepted as authority
The vendors' association	Votes on the market's rules	The source of legitimacy
The vendors, among themselves	Talk about anyone who sells before the bell	Informal social control (gossip)
The manager, with the "Pantry" crate	Loads pooled unsold goods into a van for a food pantry	Redistribution through a center

Worked example — reading the market's governance. Walk the reading in order, then work the counts.

Power. The manager's stall assignments make each vendor set up where the manager says, which is the ability to make others act.
Authority and legitimacy. Vendors accept the assignments and the fee as rightful, so the manager's power is authority. The association's vote on the rules is where that acceptance, the legitimacy, comes from.
The bell as the manager's signal. Field-note entry 3, 8:00 a.m., market office, records the manager ringing a hand bell, vendors calling out "Bell's rung!", and the first sales beginning within a minute.
Before the bell. Field-note entry 1, 7:40 a.m., north row, records that no money changes hands though two shoppers are already waiting.
Informal social control. In the illustrative interview, the vendor says, "You sell before the bell, people talk." Gossip, not a fine, keeps the rule.
The manager in the field notes. 2 of the 10 field-note entries show the manager acting: entry 3, the bell at 8:00 a.m., and entry 9, loading the "Pantry" crate at 9:20 a.m. The share is 2 ÷ 10 × 100 = 20 percent.
Redistribution needs authority. 4 of the 50 coded exchanges were redistribution, unsold goods pooled in the "Pantry" crate and passed on by the manager. The share is 4 ÷ 50 × 100 = 8 percent.

In words: 20 percent of the field-note entries show the manager acting, and every one of the 4 redistribution exchanges ran through the manager, so the person with authority is also the center that goods pass through.

The dispute and its three routes (illustrative). Week 2 met two vendors who disagreed about whether bagging a regular's order before the bell counts as selling early. The notes do not record how the dispute ended, so the three routes below are illustrative possibilities, not findings.

Negotiation. The two vendors settle it themselves, perhaps by agreeing that a bag may be packed but not paid for before the bell.
Mediation. A third vendor helps them talk it through until they agree.
Adjudication. The vendors' association decides by a vote, and both vendors follow the result.

Here is the reading in plain words. The manager holds authority, not only power, because the vendors accept a set of rules their own association votes on. The bell signals the rule, gossip enforces it between visits, and the "Pantry" crate shows that redistribution runs through the person with the authority to collect and give out.

A limitation of this reading: one two-hour visit and one interview are a thin record. A fieldworker would need more visits, and the vendors' own words about the association, before saying how settled the manager's authority really is.

Pause and think. Choose one option and answer it in two or three sentences:

(a) If you were the third vendor asked to mediate the bagging dispute, what question would you ask each vendor first, and why?
(b) Suppose the manager began assigning the best stall locations to friends. What might happen to the manager's legitimacy, and how would you see it in the field notes?

Misconception check. Students often read the market manager as a chief and the market as a chiefdom, because the manager collects goods and gives them out again. That is tempting, because redistribution through a center is a feature the model gives chiefdoms. But Service's types describe whole societies, and the manager holds a job at one market, not a hereditary office over several communities. The cure: use the types to compare societies, and use power, authority, and legitimacy to read a single setting like the market.

Key terms

Political organization — The way a group arranges leadership, decision-making, and the keeping of order among its members. (first used: 1. Tell power from authority: why people follow)
Power — The ability to make others act, even against their will, whether or not they accept it as rightful. (first used: 1. Tell power from authority: why people follow)
Authority — Power that people accept as rightful, such as an elected officer's right to make decisions for a group. (first used: 1. Tell power from authority: why people follow)
Legitimacy — People's acceptance that a use of power is rightful; legitimacy is what turns power into authority. (first used: 1. Tell power from authority: why people follow)
Band — In Service's model, a small, mobile group whose leaders guide by influence rather than by holding an office. (first used: 2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state)
Tribe — In Service's model, villages linked by kin groups or associations, with leaders who cannot force others to obey. (first used: 2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state)
Chiefdom — In Service's model, a hereditary office that holds authority over several communities, often with redistribution through the chief. (first used: 2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state)
State — In Service's model, a society with a central government that has the power to tax, make law, and enforce it. (first used: 2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state)
Band, tribe, chiefdom, and state — A classroom model of four types of political organization, associated with Service's work of 1962; it is a tool for comparison, never a ladder of progress, and real communities mix features. (first used: 2. Use Service's model: band, tribe, chiefdom, and state)
Egalitarian society — In Fried's scheme, a society with as many positions of prestige as people able to fill them, so people of the same age and gender have equal access to prestige and resources. (first used: 3. Compare access to prestige: egalitarian, rank, and stratified)
Rank society — In Fried's scheme, a society with fewer positions of prestige than people able to fill them, so prestige is unequal even where access to basic resources is not. (first used: 3. Compare access to prestige: egalitarian, rank, and stratified)
Stratified society — In Fried's scheme, a society in which people have unequal access to basic resources, such as land or the means to make a living. (first used: 3. Compare access to prestige: egalitarian, rank, and stratified)
Social control — The ways a group keeps its members within its rules: informal means such as gossip, ridicule, shunning, and the threat of supernatural sanction, and formal law. (first used: 4. Keep order without a referee: social control and law)
Law — Formal social control: rules that a recognized authority makes and enforces, with set consequences for breaking them. (first used: 4. Keep order without a referee: social control and law)
Dispute resolution — The ways people settle a disagreement, which this course groups into three routes: negotiation, mediation, and adjudication. (first used: 5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication)
Negotiation — A route of dispute resolution in which the parties settle the disagreement themselves, with no third party. (first used: 5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication)
Mediation — A route of dispute resolution in which a third party helps the parties reach their own agreement but does not decide for them. (first used: 5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication)
Adjudication — A route of dispute resolution in which a third party hears the sides and decides the outcome. (first used: 5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication)
Public song contest — A documented form of dispute settlement in which, according to early twentieth-century accounts, Inuit communities in parts of the Arctic settled some disputes through songs performed before an audience that judged them. (first used: 5. Settle a dispute: negotiation, mediation, adjudication)

Summary

Power makes others act; authority is power people accept as rightful.
Legitimacy is the acceptance that turns power into authority.
Band, tribe, chiefdom, and state are a model, never a ladder.
A chiefdom's hereditary office is not a state's central government.
Fried's scheme asks about access to prestige and to basic resources.
Gossip, ridicule, shunning, and supernatural sanction keep order alongside law.
Negotiation, mediation, and adjudication differ in who decides.
At the market, 4 of 50 exchanges, 8 percent, ran through the manager's "Pantry" crate.

Check your understanding

Work these before looking at the answers — they are ungraded, and the answers (with reasoning) are at the bottom of the page.

An illustrative community garden has 40 plots and a volunteer coordinator whom the gardeners elect each spring. The coordinator assigns plots, and gardeners from 6 of the 40 plots leave extra squash in a shared bin that the coordinator takes to a shelter. What share of the plots gave to the bin, what form of exchange is the bin, and where does the coordinator's authority come from?
Two roommates argue over the thermostat (illustrative). Name the route of dispute resolution in each case. First, they agree to keep it at 70 degrees on weekdays. Second, their resident assistant listens and then sets the rule for them. Third, a friend helps them talk until they find a deal they both accept.
A classmate says, "A chiefdom is a small state, because a chief is in charge of several villages." Using this week's concepts, explain what is wrong with that claim.
Another classmate says, "Egalitarian societies have no leaders and no differences at all, so nobody stands out." What is missing from that statement?

Answers (worked reasoning — read after attempting)

The share is 6 ÷ 40 × 100 = 15 percent of the plots. The bin is redistribution, because goods are collected at a center and given out again by the person in charge of that center. The coordinator's authority comes from the gardeners' election each spring, which is the source of legitimacy. This is a fresh garden, not the market.
Keeping 70 degrees on weekdays is negotiation, because the roommates settle it themselves. The resident assistant setting the rule is adjudication, because a third party decides. The friend who helps them find a deal is mediation, because a third party helps but the roommates decide.
The claim reads a chiefdom as a small state. In Service's model, a chiefdom is a hereditary office that holds authority over several communities, often with redistribution. A state has a central government with the power to tax, make law, and enforce it. The difference is the kind of leadership, not size, and neither type is more advanced.
It reads egalitarian as "everyone is the same". In Fried's scheme, an egalitarian society has as many positions of prestige as people able to fill them, so people of the same age and gender have equal access to prestige and resources. People still differ in skill, age, and role, and leaders can still guide by influence.

Next up in this module: the Readings & Resources page, the lecture tutorial, the practice set, and the quiz — and next week, the midterm review uses each school of thought as a lens on power, exchange, and the market.

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