Social Control and Vengeance in Plateau Tonga Society

Colson, Elizabeth

doi:10.2307/1156280

“…Much has been written about structural conditions and the initiation or expansion of conflict (Coleman, 1957;Beals and Siegel, 1966;Evans-Pritchard, 1940;Gluckman, 1954;Colson, 1953), but there is also some attention to the question of the level of conflict associated with particular structural arrangements (e.g., Hibbs, 1973). Much has been written about structural conditions and the initiation or expansion of conflict (Coleman, 1957;Beals and Siegel, 1966;Evans-Pritchard, 1940;Gluckman, 1954;Colson, 1953), but there is also some attention to the question of the level of conflict associated with particular structural arrangements (e.g., Hibbs, 1973).…”

Section: Social Structural Hypothesesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The cross-cutting ties, or multiple loyalties, hypothesis is probably the most widely cited structural hypotheses about conflict (Guetzkow, 1955;Coleman, 1957;Gluckman, 1954;LeVine and Campbell, 1972: Chapter 4;Colson, 1953).…”

Section: Cross-cutting Tiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Cross-Cultural Theory of Political Conflict and Violence

Ross¹

1986

Political Psychology

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.It is difficult to conceive of a human community where there is no conflict among the members or between persons in the community and outsiders. At the same time, the degree to which conflict is overt varies widely. This paper examines structural and psychocultural hypotheses to account for this variation, and then tests them using multiple regression with data from a worldwide sample of 90 preindustrial societies typically studied by anthropologists. While the statistical results provide some support for both explanations for internal and external conflict, more interestingly, the two are integrated to form a general theory of conflict behavior. Our argument is that pyschocultural dispositions determine a society's overall conflict level, while its structural features shape whether the targets of aggression lie within the same society, in other societies, or both. The common psychocultural roots of both internal and external conflict are harsh socialization patterns, low warmth and affection directed at children, and high protest masculinity. The structural roots of internal and external conflict differ. Internal violence is associated with weak cross-cutting ties, strong localized male groups (in uncentralized societies), and polygyny; while external conflict and warfare are found in societies which are high on socioeconomic complexity, where polygyny is absent, and in uncentralized societies with martial endogamy and weak cross-cutting ties. The theoretical aspects of this theory are elaborated on, drawing on anthropological and psychoanalytic theory.

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“…9;Lee 1979;Woodburn 1979). Stateless agricultural people behave similarly, except that their more sedentary lifestyle breeds less reliance on avoidance and more on gossip and thirdparty settlement (e.g., mediation) (Colson 1953;Gulliver 1963;Jones 1974). In both types of society, people may kill one another, perhaps even at high rates, but typically it is because of the absence of third parties who can interrupt episodes of violence once in motion.…”

Section: Stateless and Centralized Societiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

From Warre to Tyranny: Lethal Conflict and the State

Cooney¹

1997

American Sociological Review

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JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review.Following Hobbes, many social theorists have claimed that the state reduces the amount of violence in human societies. Are they right? I review the crosscultural and cross-national evidence on the impact of the state on the most common form of extreme violence-lethal conflict (i.e., war, rebellion, homicide, and execution). Drawing on the sociology of conflict management (Black 1993), I argue that the relationship between the state and lethal conflict is not negative as Hobbesian theory predicts. Rather, it appears to be U-shaped. A combination of materials from anthropology, criminology, and political science suggests that rates of lethal conflict tend to be high when state authority is absent and also when it is extremely strong or centralized. Between these extremes, in less centralized states, lethal conflict typically declines. theoristss have long argued that the state JLreduces violence among those subject to its jurisdiction. Hobbes ([1651] 1909) provided an early and eloquent statement of this idea, contending that in the absence of a strong central authority, violence pervades social life. Weber's ([1922] 1968:54) influential definition of the state emphasizes its ability to successfully monopolize the legitimate use of violence, a capacity that would seem to depend partly on the state's ability to restrict violent behavior. Elias ([1939] 1982) nominates the state as a primary source of the long-term civilizing process that decreases violence in everyday life. And Koch's (1974) experience as an ethnographer in New Guinea leads him to stress the importance of thirdparty modes of conflict management, like those provided by state legal systems, as violence-controlling mechanisms in human societies.But are these authors correct? Does the state diminish violence in human affairs? If the state did not exist, would life be more violent? Neither the literature on the state nor that on violence contains a sustained empirical analysis of these issues, even though the "many-sided problem of order" remains a prominent topic of theoretical discussion (Wrong 1994). In this paper, I seek to fill the void, reviewing the available information in light of ideas developed in the sociology of conflict management, a broad field dedicated to describing and explaining the handling of human conflict (Black 1976(Black , 1984(Black , 1993; also see Horwitz 1990).The argument I advance is that the Hobbesian thesis is only partially correct. Anthropological evidence suggests that the state tends to reduce the amount of violent conflict in human societies. But pol...

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“…Indirect ties open communication, bridging social gulfs that might otherwise preclude discussion and bargaining. Vengeance structures generally lack linkages of this kind (see "Vengeance" above; see also Colson, 1953;Cooney, 1988, chap. 3;Nader, 1965;Peters, 1975, pp.…”

Section: Respondent 25mentioning

confidence: 99%

New Directions in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control

1990

Critical Issues in Social Justice

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A Continuation Order Plan is available for this series. A continuation order will bring delivery of each new volume immediately upon publication. Volumes are billed only upon actual shipment. For further information please contact the publisher. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataNew dlrections jn ttle study of justice, law. and socIal control I prepared by the School of Justice STud1es, ArIzona State University.Tempe. A"'12cna.p. em. --(Critical lssues in social justice)Includes blbllographical references.ISBN 978-1-4899-3610-3 ISBN 978-1-4899-3608-0 (eBook)

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Social Control and Vengeance in Plateau Tonga Society

Cited by 84 publications

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A Cross-Cultural Theory of Political Conflict and Violence

A Cross-Cultural Theory of Political Conflict and Violence

From Warre to Tyranny: Lethal Conflict and the State

New Directions in the Study of Justice, Law, and Social Control

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