Chapter 10 Power, Politics, and Social Order
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. __________ is the term for the ability to use force in order to bring about results.
A) Power
B) Influence
C) Authority
D) Political organization
2. The headman of a tribe has declared that certain cuts of meat should be reserved for himself and his family. A
member of the tribe challenges this, and points out that meat, as well as other foods, have, according to tradition,
always been shared equally among tribe members. The member of the tribe is seeking to bring about action on the
basis of __________.
A) power
B) influence
C) authority
D) political organization
3. A band is a form of political organization associated with __________.
A) foragers
B) horticulturists
C) pastoralists
D) agriculturalists
4. The subfield of anthropology that addresses issues of social order and conflict resolution cross-culturally is called
__________.
A) political anthropology
B) legal anthropology
C) critical anthropology
D) social anthropology
5. Leadership in bands is __________.
A) informal
B) restricted to men
C) based on a person’s knowledge of food sources
D) maintained through use of power
6. In terms of traditional political organization, pastoralism is most associated with __________.
A) band organization
B) a tribal or chiefdom model of political organization
C) big-woman politics
D) no formal leadership
7. The headman in a tribe typically is __________.
A) hereditary
B) full-time
C) formally acknowledged
D) reliant on power as a means of control
8. The category of big-man/big-woman leadership is most characteristic of which cultural region?
A) Central America
B) Middle East
C) mainland Southeast Asia
D) Melanesia and the South Pacific
9. What is moka?
A) a process
B) a culture
C) a location
D) a form of political organization
10. Formal taxation most characterizes which form of political organization?
A) band
B) tribe
C) chiefdom
D) state
11. A confederacy is defined as a __________.
A) loose alliance of bands
B) temporary alliance of tribes
C) formal alliance of chiefdoms
D) larger state formed from semi-autonomous individual states
12. Which of the following is one of the trends that has increased as smaller political organizations have given way
to the state?
A) more decentralized residences
B) less surplus resources and wealth
C) less reliance on kinship relations as a basis of political structures
D) decreased responsibility of leaders
13. The two countries most centrally involved in the Tisza River pollution are __________.
A) Hungary and Romania
B) Hungary and Ukraine
C) Romania and Bulgaria
D) Romania and Ukraine
14. Cross-national review of women’s leadership roles in states indicates that __________.
A) the number of women leaders is proportional to their numbers in the population
B) many women leaders have attained a prominent position due to their relationships with men
C) women leaders are generally associated with feminist political agendas
D) countries in all world regions except Asia have had women as heads of state
15. __________ is a common aspect of social control found in states.
A) Maintenance of social relationships
B) Norms
C) Informal enforcement
D) Professional law enforcement
16. The use of a physically painful procedure for determining guilt or innocence is called __________.
A) jury trial
B) trial of endurance
C) trial by ordeal
D) feuding
17. The number of people in prison per 100,000 people in a country is referred to as the __________ rate.
A) social control
B) incarceration
C) social justice
D) policing
18. __________ imprisons more people than any other country in the world.
A) Russia
B) The United States
C) China
D) Mexico
19. Cultural anthropologists who focus on revealing how legal systems discriminate against certain groups are
referred to as __________.
A) applied anthropologists
B) clinical legal anthropologists
C) critical legal anthropologists
D) legal pluralists
20. The major religion of people of the Central Asian states is __________.
A) Buddhism
B) Islam
C) Confucianism
D) Christianity
21. The biological determinist (or Darwinian) view explains high rates of warfare among the Yanomami by
emphasizing __________.
A) how warfare contributes to land acquisition and higher nutritional status of the winners
B) women’s role in starting wars through their demand for meat
C) that successful warriors have more wives and thus have greater “reproductive success” than other men
D) the role of meat availability in regulating nutritional status and group size
22. The historical view of high rates of violence among the Yanomami emphasizes __________.
A) the unbalanced sex ratio (scarcity of women) as a motivation for conflict
B) how high rates of warfare are a response to “protein hunger”
C) the role of the increased presence of Westerners in the region
D) its adaptive role in keeping population growth rates down
23. Which of the following is a trend that has led to the need to distinguish nations from states as the two terms are
defined in the text?
A) increasing sedentism
B) increasing population density
C) large-scale migrations
D) the broader scope of organized warfare
24. Which country has the highest population of Kurds?
A) Armenia
B) Iraq
C) Syria
D) Turkey
25. Cultural anthropologists have shown that war is __________.
A) inevitable
B) necessary
C) not a cultural universal
D) part of evolution
TRUE/FALSE
26. A kente cloth is a symbol of royalty among the Kayapo of Brazil.
27. Band leaders have authority and influence but no power.
28. The form of political organization typically found among horticulturalists is the band.
29. Big-man and big-woman leadership is most closely associated with a form of exchange called redistribution.
30. In chiefdom forms of political organization, a combination of achievement and ascription is typically the basis of
leadership.
31. Militarism, as defined in the text, refers to any organized violence initiated by a political entity.
32. Capital punishment is most commonly used in tribal forms of political organization.
33. Prisons are the oldest form of social control.
34. In the premodern period, warfare was a more effective way to gain domination over new regions than it is now.
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35. Anthropologist Robert Carneiro is pessimistic about the future of world peace and about anthropology’s ability
to contribute to world peace.
ESSAY
36. Define power, authority, and influence.
37. Discuss two differences between the political organization of bands and states.
38. Summarize the characteristics of the big-man/big-woman political systems, including where examples are found.
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39. Summarize the cause of the Tisza River crisis, its environmental effects, and the political reactions to it.
40. Summarize some of the observations made about the issue of gender in the leadership of contemporary states.
41. Define social norm and law; give an example of each.
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42. Describe the goals of critical legal anthropology and an example of research done from that approach.
43. Summarize Chagnon’s central argument about violence among the Yanomami, as well as one of the alternative
explanations for it described in the text.
44. Discuss the issue of anthropologists’ involvement in local issues as it is raised in the example of Stuart Kirsch’s
work in Papua New Guinea. What were two of the ways Kirsch supported activism in the local community?
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45. Summarize the characteristics of the Kurdish people, and discuss why they qualify as a nation according to the
definition in the text.