SOCIOPOLITICAL ORGANIZATION
General Categories

Social Organizational Forms
Systems of kinship and descent have organized human life for most of our history and until recently it was vitally important in everyday life in all societies. Thus, it has become an essential part of anthropology because of its importance to the people from whom we learn. Kinship is the tie that binds humans together.

There are several basic types of kinship groups: the nuclear family, the expanded family, and various types of descent groups (that is, a group of people who claim common ancestry). Nuclear families last only as long as parents and children live together; descent groups are corporate groups in that they are permanent units that continue to exist even though their membership changes. Membership is usually determined at birth and last for one's lifetime.

• Nuclear Family - a kin group consisting of parents and dependent children. It is widespread in human societies. Present in many societies, including the Inuit of northern Canada, Alaska, Siberia, and Greenland.
• Expanded Family - households with nonnuclear family members. There are two basic types:
  • Extended Family - expanded family households that include at least three generations (such as grandparents, mother and father, sisters and brothers, perhaps an aunt and uncle, and maybe a distant relative or two). Extended families living together in single households were/are important social units among such First Nations as the Hopi of Arizona.
  • Collateral household - expanded family that includes siblings and their spouses and children
• Lineage - a corporate descent group whose members claim descent from a common know ancestor and are capable of naming the connecting links back to the common ancestor. Membership in a lineage is assigned at birth and is established through either the female (matrilineage) or male (patrilineage) line or occasionally ambilineally (one has the option of chosing with which lineage to affiliate). Generally members of the same lineage reside together.
• Clan - a noncorporate descent group whose members claim descent from a common ancestor (real or mythical) but are unable to name the actual genealogical connecting links back to the common ancestor. Like membership in lineages, clans membership is assigned at birth and is established either through the female (matriclan) or male (patriclan) line. Most frequently, clan membership is dispersed, usually does not hold tangible property corporately, and tends to be more a unit for ceremonial matters. Examples of First Nations with matriclans are the Mandan and Hidatsa, among others.

Political Organizational Forms
Purely for convenience's sake, many anthropologists classify human societies into two broad groups, which do not necessarily evolve into one another: decentralized (bands and tribes) and centralized (chiefdoms and states). Below is listing of the salient features of each of the four basic kinds of political systems followed by a chart summarizing these.

Band
A band is a small group of kin-related households occupying a particular region, that come together periodically on an ad hoc basis, but which do not yield their sovereignty to the larger collective.

• Least complicated form of political organization
• Small in size, numbering less than a few hundred people
• No formal, centralized political system
• People are organized into politically autonomous extended family groups
• Families usually camp together but members of such families may frequently go off in smaller gruops for periods of time
• Most marriages are between members of the same band
• Intra-band conflicts are settled informally through gossip, ridicule, direct negotiation, or mediation
• Decisions affecting the band are made with the participation of all its adult members - emphasis on achieveing consensus rather than a simple majority
• Leaders become such by virtue of their abilities and serve in that capacity only as long as they retain the community's confidence
• Usually found among food foragers and other nomadic societies
• Probably the oldest form of political organization

Big Man
This form of organization, in which trade, reciprocity, and political leadership are intimately linked, is associated with the work of two anthropologists, Bronislaw Malinow and Marshall Sahlins, both of whom studied isolated island communities in the wouthwestern Pacific. They noted that these communities were linked, not by ties of kinship, but rather by the ties formed by entrepreneurs, who exchanged symbolic figts and acted as political and economic brokers in egalitarian, autonomous societies. The Big Man - almost always a male - is an elaborate version of a village leader, but unlike a village leader, he often has supporters in several villages and is a somewhat more effective regulator of regional political organization. Big Men combine a small amount of interest in their group's welfare with a great deal of self-interested entrepreneurialship for personal gain. A Big Man's authority is personal - one does not come to office nor is one elected and one's status is the result of acts that raise one above most other group members and attracts to the Big Man a band of loyal followers.

Tribe
A tribe is a group of nominally independent communities occupying a specific region, sharing a common language and culture, which are integrated by some unifying factor.

• Separate bands or villages are integrated by pantribal factors (e.g., lineages and or clans)
• Some degree of household autononmy is sacrificed to some larger order group in return for greater security against attacks by enemies or starvation
• Typically, though not invariably, has an economy based on some form of farming or herding
• Population densities almost always exceed one person per square mile, and may be as high as 250 per square mile
• Each tribe consists on one or more small autonomous local communities, which may then form alliances with one another for various purposes
• Political organization is informal and of a temporary nature
• Leadership is informal and not vested in a central authority
• In many tribal societies the organizing unit and seat of political authority is the clan, an association of people who believe themselves to share a common ancestry; or in age-grades; or in common-interest groups

Chiefdom
A chiefdom is a regional polity in which two or more local groups are organized under a single chief, who is at the head of a ranked hierarchy of people. An individual's status is determined by closeness of one's relationship to the chief. Those closest are officially superior and receive deferential treatment from those in lower ranks.

• The office of chief is usually hereditary, passing from a man to his own or his sister's son
• The chief is generally a true authority figure, and his authority serves to unite his people in all affairs and at all times.
• A chief controls the economic activities of his people
• Chiefdoms are typically redistributive systems - the chief has control over surplus goods and redistributes them to those in need
• In a ranked hierarchy beneath each paramount chief are several lesser chiefs; one for each district within the chiefdom, one for each town within a district, and one for each quarter of all but the smallest towns

State
The state is the most formal of political organizations with political power centralized in a government which may legitimately use force to regulate the affairs of its citizens, as well as its relations with other states. States maintain civil order and socioeconomic contrasts through a central government and specialized subsystems. The populations are divided into socioeconomic classes, or strata, and states draw a line between elites and masses with the former clearly spearated from the latter in activities, privileges, rights, and obligations. The ruling class takes no direct part in subsistence activities - instead state officials have specialized jobs to do as administrators, tax collectors, judges, advisers, lawmakers, generals, scholars, and priests. The major concerns of government officials are to defend hierarchy, property, and the power of the law. Society at large works to support the ruling class and the state decresss that a certain area will produce certain things or forbids certain activities in other zones.

	BAND	TRIBE	CHIEFDOM	STATE
Total Numbers	Less than 100	Up to a few thousand	5,000 - 20,000+	Generally 20,000+
Social Organization	Egalitarian Informal leadership	Segmentary society Pan-tribal associations Raids by small groups	Kinship-based ranking under hereditary leader High-ranking warriors	Class-based hierarchy under king or emperor Armies
Economic Organization	Mobile gatherers-hunters	Settled farmers Pastoralist herders	Central accumulation and redistribution Some craft specialization	Centralized bureaucracy Tribute-based Taxation Laws
Settlement Pattern	Temporary camps	Permanent villages	Fortified centers Ritual centers	Urban; cities, towns Frontier defenses Roads
Religious Organization	Shamans	Religious elders Calendrical rituals	Hereditary chief with religous duties	Priestly class Pantheistic or monotheistic religion
Architecture	Temporary shelters	Permanent structures Burial mounds Shrines	Large-scale monuments	Palaces, temples, and other public buildings
Archaeological examples	Paleo-Indians	Archaic peoples	Formative societies	Urban Mesoamerican civilizations
Modern examples	Inuit	Pueblos	Northwest Coast	All modern states