Modern political anthropology began in 1940 with the first systematic comparative studies of how primitive societies maintained law and order. The focus was on government and the presence or absence of state institutions. Recently, interest has shifted to the study of power, to examining the manipulation of political relations, and to the task of elaborating a classification of governmental systems that will throw light on the important problems for research. First published in 1965.

Includes contributions; M. Gluckman & F. Eggan Introduction; F.G. Bailey - Decisions by consensus in councils and committees; with special reference to village and local government in India; R.W. Nicholas - Factions; a comparative analysis; P.C. Lloyd - The political structure of African kingdoms; an exploratory model; A. Southall - A critique of the typology of states and political systems; Material derived from Association of Social Anthropologists sponsored Conference on New Approaches in Social Anthropology, held at Cambridge, June 1963.

Presents a theoretically and methodologically sophisticated remapping and analysis of political-institutional power diffusion in democracies.

The book examines the kind of action that needs to be taken by world bodies in fields such as the trafficing of drugs, international terrorism, world hunger and other pressing problems, and the type of political activity through which individuals can seek to influence them.

In their analyses of the role of women in politics, political scientists had tended to neglect the family and the labour market, thus ignoring a crucial aspect of women’s political activity. Originally published in 1981, this book shows that the family and the labour market are political institutions directly relevant to the distribution of power and to economic and social development. Because the political functions of these two institutions are ignored, political systems are misunderstood with serious consequences for the implementation of policy. The studies in the book, which relate to widely different political systems and which cross disciplinary boundaries, all concentrate on the crucial activities of women. They serve to increase our understanding of the political implications of the family, of the sexual divisions of both domestic and wage labour and of the role of education in these inequalities at the time. They show the fundamental comparability of the problems posed by patriarchy as well as the diversity of their manifestations in different political and economic systems. Further, the studies show an unexpected dependence of male-dominated institutions, such as the military and high technology, on women’s traditional gender roles. Ways of empowering the powerless through law, political activity and employment are also discussed. By extending the scope of discussion, this book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of politics and of the centrality of women to political structures.