Chapter 11 Flashcards
What are political organizations?
A set of customary procedures that accomplish decision making, conflict resolution, and social control-the ways in which power is distributed in a society to control people’s behaviour and maintain social order.
How do societies differ in their political organization?
1) Extent to which political institutions are distinct from other aspects of the social structure
2) Extent to which legitimate authority is concentrated in specific political roles
3) The level of political integration-size of the territorial group that comes under the control of the political structure.
What are the 4 different types of political structures?
Band societies, tribal societies, chiefdoms, state societies.
What are band societies?
Least complex, small, nomadic food collectors. Made up of around 30-50 people. High value on sharing, little individual ownership. Little role specialization, highly egalitarian. High value on getting along, least amount of political integration, political decisions embedded in wider social structure, leadership roles informal.
What is an Indian Act band?
An administrative and legal unit that manages indian reserves and first nation funds.
What are tribal societies?
Found most often among food producers. Like band societies in that they are egalitarian with respect to power, status, wealth. However, they also have pan-tribal mechanisms: clans, age grades, secret societies that cut across kinship lines and integrate all the local segments of the tribe into a larger whole. Only come into play when a threat arises.
What are chiefdoms?
Political authority resides with a single individual acting alone, or with an advisory council. Integrate a number of local communities in a more formal and permanent way. Use a system of redistribution economically.
How do self governing first nations work?
Manage their own lands and resources, develop own constitution, school boards, health and social services etc. Mostly found in the Yukon.
What are state societies?
Most formal and most complex. A hierarchical form of political organization that governs many communities within a large geographical area. Authority rests on 2 foundations; 1) State holds exclusive rights to use force and physical coercion. 2) State maintains its authority by means of ideology.
What is a nation state?
Group of people sharing a common cultural background, living in a particular geographic area, ad unified by a political structure that they all consider legitimate.
What are acephalous societies?
Societies that have no political leaders.
What are some different types of state societies?
Autocratic- Political system controlled by an absolute leader, denies democracy
Totalitarian- No limits to state authority, regulate every aspect of public and private life.
Representative democracy- Power rests with citizens.
Monarchy- Power held by single individual or family, power inherited
Dictatorship- One individual holds absolute power to make laws. Individual citizens have few freedoms, often totalitarian.
Theocracy-Ultimate power rests with a deity or God.
When did Canada’s constitution come into effect?
April 1982, countries “supreme law.”
What is the history of suffrage in Canada?
1960-First Nations could vote without giving up status (1970, Quebec)
1918-Women could vote (1940 Quebec)
What is a constitution?
Set of laws, provide basic rules and principles by which a state is structured and governed, and in many cases protects the rights of its citizens.
What are sanctions?
Any means used to force compliance with the rules and norms of a society. Can be positive (smile, award), or negative (frown, prison).
What is an oath?
A formal declaration to some supernatural power that what you are saying is truthful and that you are innocent.
What is an ordeal?
Means of determining guilt by subjecting the accused to a dangerous test.
What is a corporate lineage?
Kinship groups whose members engage in daily activities together. Capacity to control economics and marriage.
What are intermediares?
Mediators of disputes among individuals or families within a society.
What are age organizations?
Acephalous societies, people of roughly the same age pass through different levels of society together.
What are age sets and age grades?
Sets- groups of people, roughly the same age, who pass through various age grades together
Grades-Permanent age categories in society through which people pass through during the course of a lifetime ex) warriors, elders.
What is vigilantism?
Circumventing the law and punishing someone, attempting to affect justice based on ones own ideas of justice.
What are some reasons that crime rates are larger in cities?
1) Small scale societies have little or no anonymity, creating concern about negative opinion 2) Heterogenous character of cities create conflicting interests 3) Stratification of larger cities.
What are rebellions and revolutions?
Rebellion-Attempts to displace people in power
Revolution-Attempts to overthrow entire system of government.
What are 3 basic features of law? (E. Adamson Hoebel)
1) Law involves legitimate use of physical coercion
2) Legal systems allocate official authority to privileged people who are able to use coercion legitimately
3) New laws are based on old ones, predictive and regulative.
What are the 7 elements of the justice system?
Ideology, a code, policing, judgement, sanctions, preventions and institutions.
What was the October Crisis?
When the Front de Liberation du Quebec killed 8 people and captured 2 political people. First time a prime minister administered the War Measures Act.
