Deck 12: Political Systems

Question 1

The best examples of pantribal sodalities existed among societies in

A)Melanesia.
B)Polynesia.
C)The Great Plains of North America.
D)Southern Europe.
E)Papua New Guinea.

Answer 1

The Great Plains of North America.

Question 2

The __________ society has village heads.

A)Qashqai
B)San
C)Kapauku
D)Yanomami
E)Basseri

Answer 2

Yanomami

Question 3

In nonstate societies,

A)professional armies conduct warfare.
B)political institutions are separate from economic institutions.
C)social control is maintained mostly through physical coercion.
D)economic, political, and religious activities are often interrelated.
E)all political power is based on religion.

Answer 3

economic, political, and religious activities are often interrelated.

Question 4

In a(n) __________, most leaders will acquire their positions because of their personal backgrounds or abilities, rather than heredity.

A)tribal society
B)feudal state
C)imagined community
D)chiefdom
E)agrarian, preindustrial state

Question 5

__________ is the most important factor in determining an individual's power and prestige in a state.

A)Personality
B)Socioeconomic class
C)Speaking ability
D)Anthropomorphism
E)Physical size

Question 6

An age set is

A)a village council.
B)a pantribal sodality that represents a certain level of social achievement.
C)all men and women related by patrilineal descent from a human apical ancestor.
D)all men and women related by matrilineal descent from a nonhuman apical ancestor.
E)a group including all men or women born during a certain span of time.

Question 7

The __________ was prominent in Polynesian chiefdoms.

A)narket principle
B)redistribution principle
C)generalized reciprocity
D)balanced reciprocity
E)negative reciprocity

Question 8

Foraging economies are usually associated with a __________ sociopolitical organization.

A)band
B)tribe
C)state
D)chiefdom
E)complex chiefdom

Question 9

According to Weber, the basis of social status is.

A)wealth.
B)age.
C)prestige.
D)intelligence.
E)power.

Question 10

A "big man" is a

A)person who holds a permanent political office
B)hereditary ruler
C)person of influence and prestige
D)leader who avoids excessive displays of generosity
E)leader who has tremendous power because he is regarded as divine

Question 11

For much of human history, people lived in societies characterized by a __________ sociopolitical organization.

A)band
B)tribe
C)chiefdom
D)state
E)complex chiefdom

Question 12

The Basseri and the Qashqai

A)were nomadic foraging groups in Iran.
B)enjoyed a symbiotic relationship existed between the Basseri, who were nomadic pastoralists, and the Qashqai, who were horticulturalists.
C)differ in leadership because a Basseri "big man" (tonowi) could enforce his decisions, whereas the Qashqai village head could only lead by example.
D)differ in authority structure with the Qashqai featuring a more complex and hierarchical structure than the Basseri.
E)were two of the age sets in Melanesian society.

Question 13

In foraging bands, the leaders

A)retain their power by maintaining strong ties with the commoner class.
B)inherited privileged access to strategic resources.
C)maintain control by conquering foreign territories.
D)have no means of forcing people to follow their decisions.
E)are the dominant males in the largest, most powerful descent groups.

Question 14

The primary difference between a village head and a "big man" is that

A)a big man can enforce his decisions.
B)a big man has supporters in multiple villages.
C)a village head is a band leader, while a big man is a tribal leader.
D)a big man's high status is ascribed, while a village head's high status is achieved.
E)village head is a permanent political office, while big man is a temporary position.

Question 15

Kin groups with members who are related to a common ancestor are

A)bands.
B)sodalities.
C)age sets.
D)secret societies.
E)descent groups.

Question 16

__________ was not traditionally used by the Inuit to handle disputes.

A)Blood feuds
B)Song contests
C)Killing an offender
D)Courts of law
E)Kin ties

Question 17

Social scientists use the term __________ to refer to the socially approved use of power.

A)authority
B)influence
C)prestige
D)stratification
E)endogamy

Question 18

In band societies, __________ determines the amount of respect or status that an individual enjoys.

A)rank ascribed at birth
B)culturally valued personal attributes
C)the individual's possessions and their monetary value
D)the amount of labor that the individual can extract from his or her spouse and children
E)genealogical relationships to apical ancestors

Question 19

A big man's position does not depend on

A)hard work.
B)inherited status.
C)generosity.
D)personal charisma.
E)accumulation of wealth.

Question 20

Big man accumulate wealth because

A)big men are chiefs who are trying to make their achieved status more permanent by engaging in conspicuous symbolic displays of wealth.
B)the term big man refers to the liminal state that a Kapauku youth enters before marriage, during which he accumulates wealth in order to fund the wedding and pay the brideprice.
C)big men typically are war leaders and as such they must maintain a supply of "grievance gifts" to compensate the families of warriors who die under their command.
D)to become a big man, an individual must wear a tonowi shell necklace, which is imported from the coast and is therefore quite expensive by Kapauku standards.
E)big men do not keep the wealth they accumulate but rather redistribute it to create and maintain alliances with political supporters.

Question 21

The Igbo Women's War is an example of

A)hegemony working to eliminate resistance.
B)social stratification.
C)religious control.
D)shame and ridicule as a method of resistance.
E)women achieving status in a tribal society.

Question 22

List the ways anthropologists distinguish between a chiefdom and a state.Determine if this is a useful distinction., and analyze if this is an easy-to-make distinction.

Question 23

Shame and gossip are the only methods of social control in band-level societies.

Question 24

Describe to what extent modern foragers serve as the basis for reconstructions of social, political, and economic organization among ancient hunter-gatherer bands.Justify your answer.

Question 25

Identify the factors responsible for the variable development of political regulation and authority structures among pastoralists.

Question 26

Chiefdoms differ from states in that

A)chiefdom status systems are based on differential access to resources.
B)chiefdoms lack socioeconomic stratification and stratum endogamy.
C)chiefdoms lack ascribed statuses.
D)chiefdoms have permanent political regulation.
E)chiefdoms have full-time religious specialists.

Question 27

In nonstate societies, relationships based on kinship, descent, and marriage are essential to sociopolitical organization.Discuss two ethnographic cases that illustrate this point.

Question 28

__________ represents social status based on talents, actions, efforts, choices, and accomplishments.

A)Ascribed status
B)Achieved status
C)Situational status
D)Negotiated status
E)Ethnicity

Question 29

States require specialized functions including

A)a judiciary.
B)fiscal support.
C)population control.
D)enforcement.
E)All the above are correct.

Question 30

The internalization of a dominant ideology is

A)a method of chiefly redistribution.
B)the way that pantribal sodalities are formed.
C)a resistance method practiced in small-scale societies.
D)a form of fiscal control.
E)called hegemony.

Question 31

__________ is not typical of state societies.

A)A primarily foraging-based subsistence strategy
B)Class stratification
C)Boundary maintenance systems
D)Intensive agriculture
E)Fiscal systems

Question 32

List the major implications of food production.Describe how reliance on food production affects the social, economic, and political organization of societies.

Question 33

Describe some of the ways in which social order is maintained in band and tribal societies.

Question 34

Contrast two of the following: (a) band leaders, (b) village heads, (c) big men, (d) chiefs.Discuss how these political figures attain - and keep - their leadership positions.Discuss the extent to which they can they enforce their decisions, and relate how permanent their political roles are.

Question 35

Technology is transforming Thailand, and one result is that people now

A)have less political power.
B)avoid the Internet.
C)do much less farming.
D)produce less food.
E)travel frequently between provinces.
Essay Questions

Question 36

A __________ features differential access to resources based on social stratification.

A)chiefdom
B)band
C)clan
D)tribe
E)state

Question 37

List the three dimensions of social stratification as defined by Weber.Discuss the basis of each dimension, and answer how stratification differs from status systems in nonstate societies.

Question 38

Ascribed status is a

A)status that a person has little or no choice about occupying
B)status that a person chooses
C)status that a person earns, as when a successful law student becomes a lawyer
D)position of dominance in a society
E)status based on standardized test scores

Question 39

Describe at least two methods of social control and two methods of resistance.Give examples.

Question 40

The nuclear family and the band are the two basic social groups typically found in forager societies.

Question 41

States are complex systems of sociopolitical organization that aim to control and administer everything from conflict resolution to fiscal systems to population movements.

Question 42

An age set is an example of a pantribal sodality.

Question 43

Band leaders occupy official offices and are able to force other band members to obey their commands.

Question 44

Since bands lack formalized law, they have no means of settling disputes.

Question 45

A fiscal system includes the judges, laws, and courts that resolve conflicts.

Question 46

Most bands and tribal groups in the world today are isolated from other human societies.

Question 47

About one-third of Thailand's population lives in rural areas.

Question 48

A big man has supporters in many villages, while a village head has supporters only in his own village.

Question 49

The Yanomami are one of the few tribes completely isolated from the national government.

Question 50

Big men are found in tribes, chiefdoms, and archaic states.

Question 51

Of the specialized subsystems characteristic of states, the religious subsystem is the most important.

Question 52

In tribal societies, the village head leads by example and through persuasion; he lacks the ability to force people to do things.

Question 53

In chiefdoms, stratum endogamy ensured that only chiefs belonged to the elite social stratum.

Question 54

In chiefdoms, individuals were ranked according to seniority, but everyone was believed to have descended from a common set of ancestors.

Question 55

Status in chiefdoms and states is based primarily on differential access to resources.

Question 56

The elites of archaic states enjoyed restricted access to sumptuary goods.

Question 57

Population control in states refers to police and military forces.

Question 58

The best known chiefdoms arose in Papua New Guinea and Melanesia.

Question 59

Chiefs occupied formal offices and administered or regulated a series of villages.