Political Anthropology: Manipulative Strategies

Author(s): Joan Vincent

Reviewed work(s):
Source: Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 7 (1978), pp. 175-194
Published by: Annual Reviews
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Ann. Rev. Anthropol. 1978. 7:175-94
Copyright 0 1978 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved

POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY: *9612

MANIPULATIVE STRATEGIES

Joan Vincent
Department of Anthropology, Barnard College, Columbia University,
New York, NY 10027

The approach to the study of politics to be reviewed in this essay is charac-

terized essentially by a focus upon individual actors and their strategies
within political arenas. In its earlier formative phase, the approach which,
following Cohen (41) we shall call action theory, was associated with a
range of theoretical frameworks, among them those built around transac-
tions, symbolic interaction, systems analysis, methodological individualism,
game theory, interaction theory, and political clientelism. Today action
theory relates most closely to dialectical theory and the general sociology
of Marx and Weber (24, 35, 51, 98, 130).
Action theory in political anthropology differs from behavioralism in
social psychology and from the behavioral approach in political science,
although it has sometimes been confused with both. In these disciplines,
analysis begins with the individual and his motives, proceeds to emphasize
choice, and concludes by inferring structural limitations from behavior.
Action theory in anthropology begins by locating the individual within the
framework of both formal and interstitial social organization and then
proceeds to the analysis of political action and interaction. Within political
anthropology itself, the approach differs from evolutionary and structural
anthropology by virtue of its attention to processes, to political formations
other than categories and corporate groups and, above all, by its underpin-
ning in a particular mode of fieldwork (50, 80, 85) that resulted in a
distinctive form of finely grained political ethnography (25, 43, 46, 71, 76,
80, 118).
Deriving explicitly from social anthropology, the action approach within
political anthropology developed largely in conjunction with the analysis of
175
0084-6570/78/1015-0175$0 1.00
176 VINCENT

"social change" in the Third World. In Africa, an emphasis was laid on the
contemporary social situation in which political actors met in face-to-face
encounters (59, 60, 62). A coherent body of literaturedeveloped around the
theme of the village headman and the conflict of roles arising out of his
intercalary position in the colonial administrative structure (16, 111). In
India, the problem of relating the village to its wider administrative and
political context, and the task of studying national political parties, elec-
tions, and structuralchange inspired both a comprehensive systems analysis
of political action within the nation-state (6-8) and a conceptual tool kit for
the elaboration of principles of competitive political behavior in discrete
arenas (11-13, 15). In Latin America, where emphasis had long been placed
on the national context and historical conditions (126, 127), the marginali-
zation of rural communities and the role of cultural brokers were major
interests (128). It was argued that the anthropologist had a "professional
license" to study the interstitial (85, 129), supplementary, and parallel
structures in complex societies-the peripheral grey areas surrounding Le-
nin's strategic heights of sovereign power (129).
From this common concern with the substantive conditions of societal
change, two themes emerged which came to dominate this approach within
political anthropology: 1. the face-to-face encounters of particularindividu-
als and 2. the particular setting of these encounters within encapsulated or
closed communities. Both themes were brought together in Bailey's Strata-
gems and Spoils: A Social Anthropology of Politics (12). By the 1960s,
political anthropology, which had been dominated by the synchronic study
of political structures in a state of assumed equilibrium, saw the develop-
ment of a theory "which could deal with faction, party, and political maneu-
ver" (46, p. 190).
During these years a series of related concepts was developed. Some
concerned the political forms generated out of the coalescence of individual
actors: among these were quasi-group, action-set, clique, gang, faction,
coalition, interest group, and party. Others related to modes of political
behavior:choosing, maximizing, decision-making, strategizing, interacting,
transacting, manipulating, career-building,spiraling, recruiting, excluding,
maneuvering, competing, fighting, dominating, encapsulating. Still others
related to the context (both spatial and temporal) of political action: chief
among these were event, situation, arena, field, political system, environ-
ment, and power structure.
Criticisms that the exploration of political manipulations in such mi-
crocosmic settings worked only within the confines of formal sociology
(130) were met with the observation that this kind of analysis could equally
well be applied to powerful, "high level" groups. It was also argued that
political relations are, after all, simply between men and only "alienated
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 177

thinking ... persuades us, fetishistically, that we have relations with reified
'things' or 'forces' " (130). Nevertheless, tensions developed among practi-
tioners between those who considered the multistranded political relations
of the locality to form a viable closed system for analysis [beyond which the
limits of naivete were reached and analysis left to other disciplines (9)] and
those who considered the analysis of a wider political economy necessary
even to begin to understandthe forms that local level politics took (106, 108,
126-128). At its widest extent this involves viewing encapsulated politics as
a reflection of national dependency relations within a global economic
system (4, 76, 92, 114, 130).
This development, too, is bound to have its critics. Yet, as Worsley
puts it:
This is not to say thatwe cannotdescribea flowerwithout,everytime,havingto recite
or constructa philosophyof Natureor a theoryof biology.It is not to say thatwe must
alwaysstudythetotalmacro-structure of a society(a diseasethataffectsLatinAmerican
Marxists,for instance).But it is to say that the analysisof situationshas alwaysto be
informedby an awarenessof the world within which situationsand encountersare
located,and morethanthat, requiresan explicitconceptualization of whatthat world
looks like (130, p.10).

The history of action theory in political anthropology has been of a move-

ment toward a more and more explicit statement of this position.
In the pages that follow we first trace the roots of the action approach
and note certain misgivings about it. We then review recent developments
in the field and assess the degree to which these misgivings have been laid
to rest. Finally, through a consideration of three major themes in the work
of action theorists-political leadership, factionalism, and power-brokerage
-we suggest certain shifts that have occurred, and are occurring, in the
utilization of this approach.

THE ROOTS OF THE APPROACH

The approach to political anthropology through the manipulative ploys of

individuals contains its own dialectic: the manipulation of "symbols" and
the manipulation of "materialresources." Underlying both is what has been
called "the Malinowskian impulse": "early programmatic exhortations to
record ordinary day to day activities ... and to search for explanations by
the way of evident facts of observable behavior before invoking the weight
of the past to account for the actions of the present" (50, p. 7).
The roots of the approach may be traced back to the formative influences
of Mair, Leach, and Firth in the late 1930s. Completely absent from what
is generally taken to be the seminal classic in the field of political an-
178 VINCENT

thropology, African Political Systems, published in 1940, action theory is

sometimes assumed to have emerged in opposition to the structural-func-
tionalism so well represented in that volume (118). In fact, the approach
has been traced back by its practitioners (34, 68) to Spencer and Marrett.
Thus Marrett is reported as having observed in 1912:
Even wherethe regimeof customis most absolute,the individualconstantlyadapts
himselfto its injunctions,or ratheradaptstheseto his own purposeswith moreor less
consciousandintelligentdiscrimination. The immobilityof customis, I believe,largely
the effectof distance.Look more closely and you will see perpetualmodificationin
process;and, if the underlyingdynamicbe partlydue to physicaland quasi-physical
causes... thereis likewiseat workthroughoutthe will to live,manifestingitselfthrough
individualsas they partlycompeteand partlycooperateone with the other(68, p.31).
For fieldwork training, Marrett, the "office-bound" Oxford don, sent his
students (including Max Gluckman) to Malinowski at the London School
of Economics, and it was there that the individual-action-orientedapproach
to politics was formulated. Appearing early in the work of Mair and Leach,
it was later given expression by Firth in his 1954 essay, "Social Organisation
and Social Change" (54). Not, however, until the publication of Nadel's
The Theory of Social Structure in 1957 (86) and Firth's Essays on Social
Organisation and Values in 1964 (56) were its theoretical underpinnings
made apparent. What strikes one in retrospect is the extent to which both
were dialogues with Weber and Marx. Both marked, as major works often
do, the end of one era and the beginning of another.
In America, Chapple and Arensberg's delineation of interaction theory
was a contemporaneous trend (3, 38) but, whereas the Harvard scholars
explored the microsociology of emergent structures and industrial relations,
those at the London School of Economics were concerned above all with
Third World Societies and social change. Given their expertise in empirical
field research, an emphasis on individual choice and action, and strategies
of manipulation, the emergence of a distinctive approach within political
anthropology now appears almost inevitable. The appointment of Mair as
Reader in Applied Anthropology in 1956 (before this she had been Reader
in Colonial Administration) gave institutional recognition to the study of
complex society, the impact of governmental policies, and social change (80,
92).
From 1934 to the present, Mair has reiterated the necessity of studying
individuals within a "constitutional" framework (80). Changes in society
imply "changes in the rules that govern social relationships-rules about
the ownership of property, the right to exercise authority, the duty to
cooperate with particular people in particular circumstances" (79, p. 21).
Roles allow players room for maneuver, a freedom of choice which they use
to further personal interests. Mair asks what they may be expected to aim
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 179

at in the choices they make. Her answer is power, the ability to control the
actions of others. It can be obtained both by holding officeand by possessing
wealth. This is a general phenomenon.
Whateverkindof societywe are lookingat, we see peoplefacingalternativecoursesof
action and choosingwhich they will follow. They may be choosingbetweenequally
legitimatealternatives;
theymaydecideto breaka ruleor neglectan obligationandtake
theconsequences, or hopeto evadethem.Theymakethechoicein accordancewiththeir
calculationof relativeadvantages-one advantagebeingalwaysthat approvalof one's
neighborswhichis gainedby conformingto the rulesthat are generallyaccepted(79,
p. 28).

Leach took a somewhat different tack. As early as 1940 after field re-
search in Kurdistan, he began questioning anthropology's emphasis on
social forms: "interest tends to be so exclusively on the abstract concept of
social structure, that the co-existence of a formal material structure is
sometimes forgotten" (69, p. 47). He concluded that, since "structural
pattern affects the interests of different individuals in widely different ways
... there can never be absolute conformity to the cultural norm, indeed the
norm itself exists only as a stress of conflicting interests and divergent
attitudes" (69, p. 62). In a study often considered a classic, The Political
Systems of Highland Burma (70), Leach toyed, like Mair and Firth, with
the relationship of "customary" rules to regularities of social behavior.
Finally, after a decade of excursions into structuralism, fieldwork in a
Singalese village reinstated his earlier materialism leading him to ask once
more: "Why should I be looking for some social entity other than the
individuals of the community itself?" (71, p. 300).
Few anthropologists have been willing to follow Leach this far. Black, a
notable exception (25), surpasses the mentor since Leach, having ultimate
recourse to explanations in terms of environmental adaptation, fails to make
the materialist dialectic. Leach's model, in all its manifestations, while
further establishing choice-making individuals and their purposive actions
within political anthropology, remains essentially consensual, equilibriated,
and overly concerned with "rational" man.
It was under the cover, as it were, of Firth's formulation of social orga-
nization that action theory in political anthropology finally emerged. Thus
in 1968 an anonymous reviewer of the field (whom we may take from
internal evidence to be Bailey) wrote of a political anthropology that viewed
political activity as essentially competitive. "Sometimesreferredto as 'social
organisation,' he noted, "this is best perceived by considering the actors
not to be so many faceless automata, moving to and fro at the behest of
structural rules, but as manipulators choosing within a range of possible
tactics and asking themselves not only what they ought to do, but also what
they can do" (109, pp. 19-20; emphasis added).
180 VINCENT

Firth distinguished between two aspects of social action: structure and

organization. "The structure provides a framework for action. But circum-
stances provide always new combinations of factors. Fresh choices open,
fresh decisions have to be made, and the results affect the social action of
other people in a ripple movement which may go far before it is spent" (56,
p. 35). Structure and organization are complementary, standing respec-
tively for form and process in social life. Structure involves role-playing;
organization involves both roles and more spontaneous, decisive activity
which does not follow simply from role-playing. Social organization is
ordered activity. The translation of the acts of individuals into the regulari-
ties of social process Firth sees as the greatest problem in anthropology-
a perception in marked contrast to those who, following Simmel and Durk-
heim, consider it to be that of social order.
Many of the ideas crystallized by Firth can be seen to have contributed
to the yet amorphous action theory of political anthropology. Processes,
contradictions, choices, above all, the purposive goal-oriented actions of
individuals, characterizedthe developing field from the beginning. Here we
would note that in the work of all three contributors considered here-
Mair, Leach, and Firth-a complementary stress on structure (constitu-
tion) and organization was always present. Critics of this view of society
point to its tendency to foster a consensual equilibrium model of political
society, overly dependent on notions of "rational" man (2). Dangers of
"methodological individualism" (77); its tendency to sink into ethnome-
thodology (108) and a microsociology devoid of any concept of level (52,
53, 130) have also been noted. Finally, its neglect of history-a result,
perhaps, of its initial Malinowskian impulse-has also been remarked.
"However much men think and act for themselves, as Marx observed in
The Eighteenth Brumaire, they do not make (history) under circumstances
chosen by themselves, but under circumstances directly encountered, given
and transmitted from the past" (130).
The major contribution of this approach for political anthropology, as it
developed, lay in its focus on purposive action.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE APPROACH

Out of the beginnings sketched in the previous section there developed in
the late 1950s in the work of Bailey (6-15) and Turner (116) and in the early
1960s in the writing of Boissevain (29) and Cohen (39) action theory in
political anthropology. From initial field research into economic and politi-
cal change, they moved toward a more explicit concern with structural
principles ordering action [i.e. of systems (7), nongroups (31, 33, 34), "invis-
ible organisations" (41), and conflict (1 16)] to comparison and thence to
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 181

processual and developmental or historical analysis (13, 35, 40, 117). Their
adoption of a common terminology, a fair degree of cross-referencing to
each other's work and, above all, their overall impact on political an-
thropology made for a coherent and incrementally growing body of concep-
tualization and theory.
While all provided finely grained ethnographies, Bailey also contributed
a tool kit, as he put it, for general discourse on the principles of routine
competitive political action (12). Boissevain presented the field with a tax-
onomy of noncorporate political action-sets (34) and recently began to
relate the emergence of particular political forms to historical processes of
political development (35). Cohen (with a somewhat restricted view of the
role of political anthropology) began to delineate informally organized
interest groups in complex society which, since they do not operate openly,
engage in the manipulation of symbols or "mystification"(41). Turner (with
perhaps the most ambitious view of the possibilities of political an-
thropology) moved from the analysis of phases of processual conflict per se
to an analysis of a broad sweep of historical materials within the framework
of an anthropological approach (117).
It does not seem necessary to spell out here details of the contributions
of these four eminent political anthropologists (nor, given limitations of
space, to account for neglect of others). Of the two aspects of manipulation
noted in the preceding section-the manipulation of "rules" and of "mate-
rial resources"-only the former received much consideration. Indeed, so
extensive has this been that subtopics may be delineated under "the manipu-
lation of symbols," Cohen's umbrella phrase for "rules, culture, norms,
values, myths, and rituals" (41, p. 10). Symbols, as Cohen observes, while
they can be said to be "phenomenon sui generis existing in their own right
and observed for their own intrinsic values ... are nearly always manipu-
lated, consciously or unconsciously, in the struggle for, and maintenance of,
power between individuals and groups" (41, p. xi).
Much current attention is focused on the manipulation of legal rules (for
reviews see 44, 45, 84). With our brief, we note that Gluckman (63) on the
manipulation of judicial processes appears to be better known than Leach
(72), suggesting the primacy of situational over positional analysis in the
political anthropology of law. The adoption of economist Hirschman's
analysis of "exit" and "voice" (66) is paralleled by the work of anthropolo-
gists and political scientists influenced by Bailey at Sussex (97, 103) and may
be related to a renewed interest in Weber's politics of access and exclu-
sion. Leach, on the other hand, notes how the malleability of law preserves
the powerful and further incapacitates the underprivileged.The best politi-
cal ethnography of law remains historian E. P. Thompson's Whigs and
Hunters.
182 VINCENT

Ethnicity is another current focus for political anthropologists interested

in the manipulation of symbols and the presentation of self. Consideration
of ethnicity as a social phenomenon to be studied in terms of individual
strategies [the approach taken in the Barth (21) and Cohen (42) collections]
has given way to analyses of the structuring of ethnicity (121) and the
relation of emergent ethnicity to economic and political development (40,
119). This trend reflects the more general movement within action theory
away from situational and transactional analysis toward positional and
historical frameworks. In the study of ethnicity, too, we observe another
characteristic of the field in general: a concern with competitive intraclass
phenomena and a neglect of interclass conflict. The literature on the politi-
cal manipulation of ethnicity is now sufficiently large to call for an indepen-
dent review: astute observations on its shortcomings are contained in
Hansen (65).
Cohen's own work on the manipulation of symbols attempts to reconcile
what he perceives as two opposing camps in social anthropology: action
theorists and thought structuralists. Although both camps include estab-
lished practitioners of the "holistic" study of the interdependence between
power relations and symbolic action who can now afford to concentrate on
only one variable, Cohen deplores the fact that "their disciples tend to
become one-sided and thus lose track of the central problem of the disci-
pline, the dialectical interdependenceof power and symbol" (41, pp. 45-46).
Those who concur in Cohen's observation on trends may not agree with his
prescription.Turner recently presented a model interrelatingthe manipula-
tion of symbols and the struggle for power which is considerably more
embracing (117). It also permits the incorporation of a range of structural
elements-position, status, and class-which have been somewhat ne-
glected. This study of the Hidalgo insurrection in Mexico (117, pp. 98-155)
may.be used to display the working definitions adopted (with a few idiosyn-
cratic variations) by scholars working within this genre.
Turner provides an extended case history of the insurrection, a sequence
of social dramas (36, 116) taking place in a series of arenas (12, 88, 90, 111,
112) in an expanding socialfield (59, 60, 111, 112). Arenas are frameworks
-whether institutionalized or not-which manifestly function as settings
for antagonistic interaction aimed at arriving at publicly recognized deci-
sion with respect to prizes and values (117, p. 133; 12, 111, 112). Social
dramas are units of aharmonic or disharmonic process arising in conflict
situations; harmonic processual units are termed social enterprises(117, p.
34-35). A political field, "the totality of relationships between actors ori-
ented to the same prizes or values" (117, p. 127) is constituted by "purpos-
ive goal-directed group action, and though it contains both conflict and
coalition, collaborative action is very often made to serve the purposes of
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 183

contentious action" (117, p. 128). Political fields overlap and interpenetrate:

some are organized and purposive; others contain much that is arbitrary
and accidental. This important notion allows for the manipulation of the
ambiguous so important for successful political action. Turner adds to
Bailey's tool kit the concept of the "primary political process" (in the
Mexican case, the power of myth) which so influences political behavior
that it "acquires a strange processual inevitability over-riding questions of
interest, expediency, and even morality, once it gains truly popular sup-
port" (1 17, pp. 110-11, 122-23). One is reminded of a bon mot of Elias:
"Underlying all intended interactions of human beings is their unintended
interdependence" [quoted in (27), p. xxvii].
As anthropologists, Turner notes, we are interested in interdependencies,
concatenations of facts, events, relationships, groups, social categories, and
so on. When characterizing a political field "relations of likeness such as
classes, categories, similar roles, and structural positions" are of prior socio-
logical importance. When successive arenas are to be characterized,system-
atic interdependencies in local systems of social relations, going from
demography, to residential distribution, religious affiliation and genealogi-
cal and class structure become significant. Corporate groups, factional
quasi-groups and the ego-centered networks of leaders are also important
aspects of arena analysis (124, 125).
On the national level, fields, category, class structure, cultural universals,
and church, state, sect, and party are the subjects of inquiry. At the regional
and township level, arenas, corporate groups, alignments cutting across
class boundaries, cultural specificities and patterns of local hierarchies, and
factionalisms have greater analytical relevance. The challenge is to grasp,
coherently express, and analyze the interdependence of field with arena.
Turner provides a paradigm that moves the anthropologist beyond the
confines of transactional analysis and game theory (18). The latter he con-
siders "an excellent tool for interpreting some kinds of gentlemanly compe-
tition" but "impotent before those social changes that shake the very
premises and foundations of the social order" (117, p. 141). Turner con-
cludes with the potent observation that "in historical practice, it is, as
Weber would agree, the educated middle classes that in their competition
whether violent or peaceful, like to introduce rules to which both parties
subscribe. But the politics of class struggle does not go according to com-
monly accepted rules" (117, p. 141) -a maxim he proceeds to demonstrate
in an analysis of the abortive nineteenth century Mexican insurrection.
The interested reader may care to turn back a few pages to the criticisms
leveled against action theory during an earlier phase in its development to
see how adequately Turner's framework of analysis sets at rest earlier
misgivings about this approach within political anthropology.
184 VINCENT

If the contribution of African Political Systems to the study of politics was

the delineation, in 1940, of non-State political structures, the contribution
of action theory since 1960 has been to delineate forms of competitive
political organization. This is as important for the study of parapolitics and
the "grey areas" of modem, industrial capitalist and socialist states as it is
for the study of encapsulated communities and marginal politics in prein-
dustrial nations. A fear has been expressed that the "microscope" of action
theory is "so powerful in disclosing the details of face-to-face political
interaction that it is powerless, or out of focus, to reflect the wider structural
features of society" (41, p. 41). (This fear would be less well grounded were
as much attention paid to the last two chapters of Stratagems and Spoils
as to the first seven; or were the contributions of Latin American and
European scholars more widely recognized).
In the section that follows, we shall review three core problems in the field
of political organization: political leadership and patronage, factionalism,
and power-brokerage.This entails making explicit [as Worsley requested
(130)] the fact that most work in political anthropology has been done in
the rural sectors of Third World countries. Most followed upon, or was
concomitant with, the penetration of industrial capitalism into these periph-
eral regions of an European-dominated political and economic world sys-
tem.

LEADERSHIP, FACTIONALISM, AND BROKERAGE:

CASE STUDIES
An approach within a discipline is well on the way to becoming established
when reevaluationsof its earliest efforts begin to appear. Barth's early study
of the manipulative strategies of power-holders, Political Leadershipamong
the Swat Pathans (17), has been subjected to three such critiques. Although
its intellectual ancestry invoked Weber and de Jouvenal, Barth's study
epitomized, above all, a transactional approach to politics. His analysis
treated what he perceived to be the acephelous political organization of a
Swat valley in Pakistan. His argument was, briefly, that against the formal
frameworks of society, the network of kinship and locality ties, dyadic
relations linked paired individuals in relations of dominance and submis-
sion. Primary political groups developed around single leaders who were
aligned, along with their followers, into a larger political system. All rela-
tionships implying dominance were dyadic and contractual in nature. Polit-
ical action was the art of manipulating dyadic relations to create corporate
political followings.
Paine's criticism (94), a comment from within the fold of transactional-
ism, was of Barth's general model of society (20) and its neglect of power
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 185

as a variable of exchange. Attention to the different contexts of power,

dependent upon the positions of actors in the power structure, could lead
to a perception of the strategies of underdogs as well as the powerful. Paine
also comments on the "market philosophy" and "normative morality" of
transactional theory.
Ahmed's critique (2) is also launched, although in a differentsense, from
within since he representsone of those specters that haunt the anthropolo-
gist, a "native" of the society being studied. Ahmed's monograph attempts
to restore to political ethnography the Swat state. He maintains that Barth's
work is ethnocentric in its reliance on the notion of "social contract" and
related concepts central to the understanding of Western democratic capi-
talist society but inapplicable to preindustrial Swat. Ahmed argues further
that Barth's work was reductionist and synecdochic-Swat man being seen
through the eyes of the Khan. He also comments on the short duration of
Barth's field research (in Swat and elsewhere) and his "thin" ethnographic
data-a not inconsequentialmatter since action theory rests on high caliber
political ethnography.
Asad (5) lays bare the theoretical assumptions underlying Barth's model
of politics in Swat (18). It consists of:

a number of closely interconnected theoretical elements: (1) rules (legal, moral and
prudential);(2) individual motivations (specific purposes and general strategies); (3) the
formation of fluid interest groups through multiple dyadic transactions (as in a free
market place); (4) the systematic compulsion to expand one's control of resources in
order to survive (as in a self-regulating capitalist system); (5) a dynamic equilibrium
underlying the concrete manifestations of political strength and weakness (5, p. 80).

To the question "Who defines and applies the rules of the game?" the
answer, for Asad, is clearly a dominant class of landowners who exploit the
landless. The agrarian class structure is the fundamental political fact.
Opportunities and disabilities are structured by an individual's class posi-
tion. Small landowners are being progressively eliminated; the class struc-
ture, based on the ownership of land, is revealed in the historical process
of polarization.
Asad's own study (4) of the Kababish Arabs of the Sudan, where a
princely dynasty dominates and exploits a mass of pastoralists, is an ad-
vance on the "consensual model" of Barth and his fellow transactionalists.
It arrivesat the ratherunhappy conclusion, however, that although political
relationships are based on domination and exploitation, the subordinate
majority simply do not see it as such-and so the contradiction is sustained.
Asad does not explore mechanisms of mystification (25, 41, 51); nor does
he sufficientlyappreciate,as both Marx (82) and Black (25) have remarked,
the extent to which particular circumstances have shaped the particular
186 VINCENT

persons with whom he is concerned. The Kababish princely dynasty arose

in direct response to colonial pressures and was maintained in a familiar
manner, as Wolf has pointed out in a more general analysis (129) as a tool
of central government policy.
Black's own work on Luristan (25) demonstrates how local leaders ma-
nipulate their structural position to control the masses while at the same
time profiting from privileged access to scarce resources. Questioning the
tenacious legend that Middle Eastern societies are basically egalitarian,
Black suggests that this "myth was inadvertently created in the first in-
stance (or at very least fostered) by a number of British-trainedanthropolo-
gists who, carried away by their enthusiasm for unraveling social structure
in the abstract, remained relatively insensitive to the analytical potential in
structural studies of quantitative data gathered in the related domains of
ecology and economics" (25, pp. 617-618; cf 50, 80, 86). The materialist
view that the social structure is primarilya set of practical rules for organiz-
ing human beings to exploit a particular range of resources by means of a
given technology permits Black to demonstrate how 3 percent of the Luri
maintain themselves as an elite excluding others from access to scarce
resources. "Luristan presents a perfect marxist paradigm of capitalist ex-
ploitation" (25, p. 628).
The difficulties in the way of challenging an "establishment" of this
nature has been demonstrated by Dalton (47) in a study of political broker-
age in the Sawknah oasis. In the face of challenges from younger, technolog-
ically oriented men, long established "tribal" groupings maintained
themselves in power through coercive sanctions reinforced by patronage
allocations from the Libyan government. A reexamination of other studies
of local level leadership (19, 30, 57, 75, 91, 102, 106, 110, 114, 115, 119)
might lend itself to similar conclusions. [For an interesting Latin American
development see Dennis (49).]
A large body of literature revolves around competition for followers (23,
28, 30), the study of patron-client relations, and clientelism (37, 104, 123).
Again a distinction is to be observed between those who emphasize the
reciprocal and transactional nature of such relations (17, 19, 93, 101) and
those who emphasize positional attributes and lopsidedness (26, 67, 71, 72,
79, 80, 129). Again there is apparent, too, a shift in focus from the "particu-
lar persons"-patrons, clients, brokers- to the "particularcircumstances"
under which factionalism occurs.
Several studies have been made of what political entrepreneurs can do
with the manipulation of symbols and material resources; this has been
recognized as a promising avenue of advancement for action theory (41, 81,
109). Paine has made a useful distinction between "big men" and "patrons"
 POLITICAL ANTHROPOLOGY 187

(93), in my own workseen to be a matterof institutionalization (119). The

"bigman"conceptwas excellentlydelineatedby Sahlins(100) and Oliver
(91). Historicalanalysessuggestthe emergenceof patron-clientrelationsin
Europewith the breakupof the Roman Empire,nearanarchyproducing
feudalism.Mair has suggestedthe emergenceof Africanclientelismwith
insecurity(80). Ahmed'swork suggeststhat feudalismmight betterhave
approximatedpoliticalrealityin Swat than Barth'sdyadiccontract(17).
The most creativestep in recent years has been the questioningof the
conditionsunderwhich patronage,regionalelites, and coalitionsemerge
and maintainthemselves(105). Not insignificanthas been the perception
thatthe community-nation matrixis less usefulthana transnationalmatrix
in this analysis(106).
The authorityof a local patron or big man is derivedfrom personal
powers;leadershipis a creationof followership(100). Aroundhimself,as
he competes,he gathersa following,structurally,a faction.Sincethe acqui-
sitionof spoilsinvolvesthe manipulationof resources,flexibilityis required;
factionstendto be quasi-groupsor coalitionswhosemembersare recruited
on diverseprinciples(26, 32, 33, 34, 55, 58, 83, 87-90). Whatmust not be
lost sight of, however, is the power of the faction leader, despite an
egalitarianethos, and his disproportionateprofitfrom greateraccess to
scarceresources.
Althoughthe literatureindicatesthat factionsare ephemeral,the leader-
shipof successivefactionsremainsin the handsof the samefamilies.Atten-
tion to processesof consolidationof powershiftsthe focusfromindividual
actorsto families."Differentialaccessto resources... leads to differences
in the capacityfor maneuver,a differentialcapacity which is, in turn,
reflectedin differentialpatternsof marriagechoice" (129). Families,not
individuals,are the units of class analysis.
Factionsemergewhenthe environmentprovidessomenew kindof politi-
cal resourcewhichexistinggroupscannotexploit(12, 37, 87). Oftenthey
alignthemselvesalongthe linesof historicallyderivedcleavagesandso may
be viewedas "processeswhichparticipatein movementin time"(51).These
are globalprocesses.For example:an increasein intravillagefactionalism
since independencehas been noted throughoutthe Indian subcontinent.
Robinson'sstrikingmonograph(99) describeshow, with independence,
leadersin a Sri Lankavillagelost accessto urbanpowerholders.The vac-
uum was filledby politicalpartyfactions(cf 23, 89; 34, 75). Alignments
followedthe divisionswithinthe ruralpopulationthat had developeddur-
ing the previouscentury:the wealthysupportedthe "capitalist"party,the
underprivileged, the opposition.Subsequentlythe villagewasdismembered
by revolution.Theadoptionby villageyouthsof Maoistgoalsrevealedboth
188 VINCENT

the extent of State penetrationinto the countryside,accompaniedby the

increasedmarginalization of the village,andthe availabilityof globalpoliti-
cal forcesfor adoptionand manipulation.
Factionalismis an intraclassphenomenon(37) and not necessarilythe
most importantorganizingfeatureof the arenasin whichit is to be found
(89). Real powerresideselsewhere.Factionalismthus appearsas an emer-
gent phenomenonaccompanyingthe marginalization of ruralcommunities
duringcertainphasesin the developmentof Statecapitalismand the global
economy.
The study of brokeragebringsout developmentsin action theorymost
clearly. Paine's review (93) of writingsof Mediterraneanists and Meso-
americanists,alongwithcontributionson the CanadianArctic,accentuates
purposiveaction:the acquisitionof accessto, and controlof, resourcesnot
otherwiseavailable.Appreciatingthat analysis must be intersubjective,
cross-cultural,and developmental(130), Boissevain'sFriendsof Friends
(34) providesa primer.
The earliestworkon brokersby Wolf(126-128) andGeertz(61) focused
on individualswho connectedlocal with nationalaffairs.Multifacetedca-
reerswererelatedto the changingpoliticaleconomyof the locality,region,
and state (1, 70, 73, 107, 110, 120). Brokerswere usuallylocatedin small
towns-as werethe marginalmen of Paine'svolume(93), Euro-Canadian
missionaries,storekeepers, and officials"in-between"and "on-the-edge-of"
overlappingstructures,locatedat the frontierof economicexpansion(6).
The antagonismof town and country(the small town a node in a field
of tensionsgeneratedby emergentcontradictions)has been the subjectof
severalstudies(36, 92, 96, 114, 122).One that adoptsdialecticaltheoryto
capturethis phasein the transformation of ThirdWorldsocietiesis Bond's
analysisof a Zambianruralcenter.Dialecticaltheoriesinsiston the reality
of conflict without reconciliation.Only they, it has been argued, "take
seriously... power,violence,decision.Othermodelsprovidefor 'happen-
ings';but not for actions,decisionsor victories"(78, p. 57). At one level
Bond'sethnographyanalyzeslocalcompetitionbetweenan establishedelite
and the "NewMen"who challengeit. At anotherlevelit exploresthe rural
population'sincreasingsubordinationand dependencyon new national
politicalelites.
The emergenceof rural capitalism(95, 119, 122) and the actions of
manipulativeelites invite more attentionto materialresources[cf Leys
(74)]. Thodenvan Velzen,who earlierdescribedTanzaniankulacksand
levellers(113), recentlystudieda coalitionof civil servantsand wealthy
farmerswho rakedoff nationalinvestmentfunds intendedfor agricultural
development(114). A similar occurrenceat the internationallevel was
analyzedby Gonzalezin the DominicanRepublic(64). Therethe Develop-
 POLITICALANTHROPOLOGY 189

mentAssociationservedas an arenain whicha committeeof powerfulmen

with multifacetedcareersexploitedrelationswith AID andwith theirlocal
clientsfor theirown advancement.This exampleof the marginalization of
the poor by power brokers within their own society illustrates,too, the
usefulnessof smallgroupanalysiswithinthe settingof the globaleconomy.
Long (76), who analyzesthe circumstancesunderwhichdifferenttypes
of brokeremergein Peru to occupy strategicpositionsbetweenlocal, na-
tional, and regionaleconomies,suggeststhat an "actor-orientedperspec-
tive" and detailedcase studiesare requiredto complement"dependency
theory"which in itself is insensitiveto class analysis[cf Worsley(130)].
Insightcan be obtainedinto the mechanismsby whicheconomicsurplusis
extractedand the extentto which it is investedin local production.Bois-
sevainalso appreciatesthe need to shift gearsin actiontheoryin orderto
analyze political relationshipsand processesbeyond the communityat
regional,national,and supranationallevels (35). Although the study of
forcesandmovementin andbetweenfieldscharacteristic of actiontheory[as
in the work of Turner(117), Bond (36), and Long (76)] goes a long way
toward this, Europeanists,Boissevainnotes, have increasingly"had to
becomehistorians"(35, p. 15;cf 48). They turn now to "theoreticalpara-
digmsin whicheconomic,politicalandhistoricalelementsaregivengreater
prominence"(35, p. 15). BoissevainnominatesMarxand Elias;elsewhere,
as we have seen, Weber'sinsightsare increasinglyutilized.
An interestingstudy over time of postindependencebrokeragein the
Republicof Ireland(22, 35) indicateshow parochialpoliticshavecome to
re-encapsulateruralcommunitiesin a mannernot unique,Bax suggests,to
Ireland.Elsewherein Europeas the welfarestate develops,more political
fields are created in which brokers can operate. Class consciousness
flourishes.Historicaldepththus adds to perceptionsof the frequencyand
salienceof brokerage.
This is even more evidentfrom Blok's historicalaccountof the violent
peasantentrepreneursof Sicily, 1860-1960 (27). The emergenceof the
Mafia is related to State efforts to check landlordism and emancipate the
peasantry. Upwardly mobile themselves, they combine with landowners
and local notables to hold others in check-by violence. Blok treats modes
of production in Sicily and the rise and fall of specific interest groups; the
penetrationof marketforces and the encapsulatingnation-state.He also
makesextensiveuse of Bailey'sconceptualtool kit. One reviewerhas com-
mentedmost aptly:
It is worthnotingthe conceptualeclecticismof Blok'sanalysis:althoughprefacedwith
tantalizingextractsfromMarxand BarringtonMoore,the authordrawsfreelyfromF.
G. Bailey(the brokermodel,the encapsulatingstate,leaders,followersand resources)
NorbertElias (the processof state formation)Eric Wolf (approachesto patron-client
190 VINCENT

relations and peasant revolutions) and others. This range of sources ... is worth noting
since there are those who insist that, for example, Marx and Bailey cannot both be right
at the same time-indeed such a view is increasingly the topic ofjournal articles... (75a,
p. 339).
At such a point this reviewof actiontheoryin politicalanthropology-
an approachthroughthe analysisof individualactorsand their strategies
in politicalarenas-most honestlyrestsin the lap of Marx,Bailey,and the
dialectic.We have seen how in the variousphasesof its development,the
action approachwithin politicalanthropologyhas movedfrom the study
of the manipulativestrategiesof a rathernarrowrangeof politicalactors
(i.e. the men in the middle) to a greaterclarificationof the particular
circumstanceswithin which they operate.This has opened the door to
regional,national,and transnationalinquiriesto supplementthose long
madeinto politicsat the local level.This wideningof the arenahas,in turn,
fosteredthe furtherdevelopmentof fieldsanalysisand the adoptionof an
analyticalunitwhichis madeup not of the interactionof localizedindividu-
als alonebut alsoof menin movementandof actionsandenterpriseswhich
aredependentfor theirsuccesson operationsacrossspaceandoverconsid-
erableperiodsof time. Politicalsituationsand encountersthat have long
characterizedthis approachwithinpoliticalanthropologyare now meshed
with a concernwith emergentrelationsof dominationand exploitation
withina modemworldsystem.The immediateway aheadsurelylies in the
fleshingout of interdependencies betweenintraclassandinterclasspolitical
action.This in itself will lead the fieldinto the observationand analysisof
politicaloccurrencesundermoreand morevariedcircumstancesand over
greaterlengthsof time.
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