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A characteristic response to the imposition of state power by the conquered, oppressed, and powerless is a pattern that Peter Skalnik calls "out-witting the state." This collection of essays challenges the widespread view that the state is a natural holder of authority in society. Using examples of confrontations between European states and polities outside Europe, the authors show that the power model is not universally applicable. Examples from Africa, Oceania, Asia, and North America support this radically different conception of politics. The authors argue that this less confrontational approach to state power is not only possible but desirable. The new and different approach gives ordinary people a chance to achieve political goals without looking to the state.
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Now that nearly twenty years have passed since the collapse of the Soviet bloc there is a need to understand what has taken place since that historic date and where we are at the moment. Bringing together authors with different historical, cultural, regional and theoretical backgrounds, this volume engages in debates that address new questions arising from recent developments, such as whether there is a need to reject or uphold the notion of post-socialism as both a necessary and valid concept ignoring changes and differences across both time and space. The authors' firsthand ethnographies from their own countries belie such a simplistic notion, revealing, as they do, the cultural, social, and historical diversity of countries of Central and Southeastern Europe.
The Study of the State.
Under socialism the anthropological sciences developed under conflicting pressures: on the one hand Soviet influences, Marxist ideology and institutional changes, on the other the continued influence of national traditions and of the distinction between Volkskunde and Volkerkunde. The chapters bring out striking differences between the countries considered: the German Democratic Republic, Poland, Czechoslovakia and Hungary. They also draw attention to variation within countries, and between sub-branches of the discipline. Coverage extends from the Stalinist years to the end of the socialist era, and the topics range from folklore studies at home to fieldwork expeditions abroad.
Dr Tainter describes nearly two dozen cases of collapse and reviews more than 2000 years of explanations. He then develops a new and far-reaching theory.
The Formation of the Uzbek Nation-State is a detailed and insightful examination of the process of nation-state formation in the Central Asian region in the post-October revolution period, based on a case-study of Uzbekistan. Author Anita Sengupta examines the role of language and religion in the formation of the Uzbek nation-state and demonstrates the continuous transition involved in such a process.
The evolution of the state from earlier forms of political organization is associated with revolutionary changes in the structure of inequality. These magnify distinctions in rank and power that outweigh anything previously known in so-called primitive societies. This volume explains how and why people came to accept and even identify themselves with this new form of authority. The introduction provides a new theory of legitimacy by synthesizing and uniting earlier theories from psychological, cultural-materialist, rational choice, and Marxist approaches. The case studies which follow present a wide range of materials on cultures in both Western and non-Western settings, and across a number ...