Anthropology › Section H · Political anthropology › Topic H.1
Colonialism and categorizing political systems
Every human community makes decisions, settles quarrels and keeps order, yet most have done so without presidents, parliaments or police. Political anthropology began by sorting this variety into types, and its history shows how much those types owed to colonial rule.
In this topic
- Politics without presidents
- Colonial rule and the 'no government' myth
- African Political Systems, 1940
- Service's four types
- Why the typology is criticised
- Power and Weber's three types of authority
- Worked example: placing a society on the spectrum
- Worked example: reading a colonial report
- Subsistence and politics: a link, not a law
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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