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Some Thoughts on the Relation of Political Theory to Anthropology*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2014

Carl J. Friedrich  and
Morton Horwitz
Carl J. Friedrich
Affiliation:
Harvard University
Morton Horwitz
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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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
American Political Science Review , Volume 62 , Issue 2 , June 1968 , pp. 536 - 545
Copyright
Copyright © American Political Science Association 1968

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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

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25 Mair, Lucy P., An African People in the Twentieth Century (London, 1934), pp. 268, 183.Google Scholar

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30 Ibid., p. 22.

31 Friedrich, op. cit., p. 270. See also The Philosophy of Law in Historical Perspective, 2. ed. (1954), passim.

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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

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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