Political Ritual and Social Integration

Abstract

The article is concerned with the role played by rituals in the politics of advanced industrial societies. First, after considering the disputes of the anthropologists, a working definition of ritual is offered. The central, critical part of the paper discusses a range of attempts that have been made to apply a particular theory of ritual—the Durkheimian theory—to the politics of modern societies, specifically the United States and Britain. These `neo-Durkheimian' analyses (of Shils and Young, Blumler et al., Lloyd Warner, Bellah and Verba) are criticized for using too simple a notion of social integration, and for making too narrow a selection and offering too narrow an analysis of political rituals. Their approach is further criticized for closing off a whole range of significant and critical questions about political rituals—questions which bring out their cognitive role and the cognitive dimension of the exercise of power in stratified, conflictual and pluralistic modern industrial societies. Finally, it is suggested that, once those questions are asked, one arrives at a view of many political rituals that pictures them, not as promoting value integration, but as crucial elements in the `mobilization of bias'.

Police and Public Funerals

“…In effect, Goffman argues that the emotions are aroused, but whether this indicates "shared meanings" and normative agreement of solidarity is an open question (See also Lukes, 1975). Goffman (1983: 9-10) writes plainly of this:…”

Untitled

“…They also represent an area of social cohesion, self-identification, the marking of social affiliation and the exclusion of the Other. Political rituals are unavoidable in social integration (Lukes 1975), socialisation of hierarchies, relations, and the use of power. They are used repeatedly, year after year, to define, embody, and materialise ethnic, language, and other barriers which do not allow a single person, socialised in any community, to remain unaffected or undecided.…”

Sustaining the Ivory Tower: Oxbridge Formal Dining as Organizational Ritual

“…This perspective focuses on shared meanings and approaches ritual as expressing collectively defined social definitions and benchmarked representations of reality, enabling order and routine while permitting the development of mechanisms to cope with social change (Bell, 1997;Turner, 1969 6 manipulative or coercive domination systems, with power politics at the heart of these processes. This agonistic thesis (Roth, 1995) allows for stratification of agents, whereby core elite organizational members demonstrate their power and authority through exclusive rituals, while peripheral or excluded members attempt to counter, subvert or endear themselves to this power locus (Lukes, 1975).…”