ATH 175 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Social Stratification
Document Summary
All systems of political organization operate to order into internal and external relationships. All political organization is linked to systems of knowledge and belief. Power: a term that describes the capacity of people to exert their will on others. Politics: the way in which power relations affect human social affairs. Power is considered not in terms of forces but as a social and cultural problem: how to deal with difference, every society must deal with others from whom one cannot escape . Politics involves the presence in the political arena of actors with alternative understandings and competing projects. Organization of internal diversity: people whose behavior is too different in some aspect can have their identities socially reclassified. Mediation use of a formally recognized third party to assist: force. Raiding short term use of force with a limited goal. Feuding ongoing, chronic hostilities between groups of neighbor or kin. Mediation, raiding, feuding, and warfare can all be engaged with each other.