-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims
Marc AbClks
Anthropologists were first prompted to take an interest in
politics by following up evolutionist theories. Their research was
chiefly focused on remote societies with political systems
different from those prevailing in modem societies on the state
model. Studies conducted all over the world provided material for
monographs, com- parative analyses and more general reflections on
archaic forms of power. Today, political anthropology has to take
into account the ever increasing interdependence of those societies
and our own and the transformations which are affecting tra-
ditional political processes (Vincent, 1990). Like other
anthropological disciplines, it is also being drawn to explore the
mysteries of the modem world, the workings of power systems in the
framework of a modem State and the crises that can make it fragile.
This renewal is not confined to an extension of the empiri-
bols. Far from presupposing a clear-cut and virtually
pre-established division between what is political and what is not,
anthropologists are seeking to gain a better understanding of the
way in which power relationships are inter- woven, their
ramifications and the practices to which they give rise.
Investigations shed light on roots of political action that do not
neces- sarily correspond to our empirical perceptions, which tend
to focus on the formal expressions
Marc Abtlts is Director of Research at the Centre National de
Recherche Scien- tifique. He is head of the Laboratory of
Anthropology of Institutions and Social Organizations, 59 rue
Pouchet, 750 17 Paris (France) and teaches at the Ecole des Hautes
Etudes en Sciences Sociales. He is the author of many articles and
books on political anthropology. In parti- cular, he has published
Anthropologie de IEtat (1990). La vie quotidienne au Parlement
europien (1992), En attente dEurope (1 996). and Politique ef
insti- tutions: ilimenfs danthropologie (1 997).
I cal field; it gives rise t i hitherto unasked ques- tions and
entails a reappraisal of concepts and methods.
Having started from a comparative stand- point which led to the
construction of taxo- nomies of political systems, anthropology has
progressively moved towards modes of analysis focusing on the
practices and codes of power and revealing its forms of expression
and stag- ing. This approach has always laid stress on the close
links between power, ritual and sym-
of power and the slowly turning wheels of insti- tutions.
Stress has often been laid on the contrast between traditional
societies in which the political sphere is embedded and the modem
world in which the auto- nomy of politics is mani- fested in the
organization of the states and their many institutions. This is
prob- ably why for a long time the anthropological approach was
confined to exotic
societies, where the absence of familiar land- marks encouraged
researchers in their eagerness to identify those roots of political
action by engaging in long-term in-depth projects. The counterpart
to this preference for far-off places and the exotic was the
creation of boundaries between universes perceived as having
different ontological properties. Two contrasting approaches were
thus adopted; one appropriate to the understanding of societies in
which it is difficult to separate the political from other
~ _ _ _ _ _ _
ISSJ 153/1997 0 UNESCO 1997. Published by Blackwell Publishers,
108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 IJF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA
02148, USA
-
320 Marc AbelLs
aspects of reality, and the other applicable to contemporary
society, where politics as an insti- tution is clearly
circumscribed. This implicitly set limits to the work of
anthropologists, and gave sociologists and political scientists a
monopoly of research on modernity. The division of labour has
certainly had some posi- tive effects, since it has enabled the
different disciplines to delve very deeply into the areas assigned
to them.
Power and representation
At the same time, the boundary that had been created could not
resist for long a twofold movement: on the one hand, the curiosity
which anthropologists felt about their own societies led them to
expand their areas of investigation; on the other, political
scientists became increas- ingly fascinated by dimensions of
politics, such as rites and symbols, which had thus far remained
outside their fields of investigation (Sfez, 1978). If we look at
the development of anthropological research since the 1970s, a
whole new field of issues emerges, linked with the growing interest
in developed Western societies. We have only to note the
significant increase in work focused on Europe to gauge what has
changed. With hindsight, it is possible to discern more clearly the
degree of develop- ment of the whole set of issues involved.
Anthropologists began by giving prominence to difference, taking
more interest in the periphery than the centre, preferring to study
traditional rural societies or urban minorities which had preserved
their specific features, as though implicitly they still had to
keep their distance from their subjects.
It is true that the modem state appears to be very remote from
the archaic structures and faltering institutions which attracted
the atten- tion of the first anthropologists. With its com- plex
civil service, dense bureaucratic fabric and deployment of
hierarchies, the functioning of the state in our societies bears
little resemblance to the much more diffuse workings of politics in
the exotic world. There is a real disparity of scale between the
contemporary state phenom- enon and the systems that
anthropologists have described, in particular in categories such as
segmentary societies or chiefdoms which point
to very different situations. And yet if we look at things from
the point of view of the approach adopted, we see them in a quite
different light. If we understand anthropology as being the study
of the power processes and systems run- ning through our
institutions and the ways in which the roots and forms of political
action are represented in our societies, it is then pos- sible to
obtain a clearer understanding of what this sort of investigation
can teach us about our own universe and to determine its prime
objec- tives.
Like the anthropologists who tackled the question of power in
African societies, we can regard politics as a dynamic phenomenon,
as a process, freeing it to some degree from a taxonomic approach
centred on the concept of systems. The definition of politics
proposed by Swartz, Turner and Tuden, whereby it involves processes
resulting from the choice and attain- ment of public objectives and
the differential use of power by the members of the group concerned
by these objectives (1966, p. 7), clearly highlights the
combination of three fac- tors - power, determination and the
achieve- ment of collective objectives - and the existence of a
sphere of public action. Like all definitions, this one can be
criticized, but it has the advan- tage of spelling out what is at
stake in any political undertaking. A significant oversight will,
however, be noted in the propositions of these anthropologists. The
territorial dimension is ignored, whereas authors as different as
Max Weber and Evans-Pritchard have laid stress on this basic
ingredient of politics. We should remember Webers celebrated
definition of the state as the having a monopoly on legitimate
violence on a given territory, and the charac- terization in
Evans-Pritchards The Nuer of political relations as the relations
which exist, within the limits of a territorial system, between
groups of persons who live in clearly defined areas and are
conscious- of their identity and their exclusivity (1940, p.
19).
A coherent anthropological approach that is concerned not to
reify the political process should, in our opinion, combine three
spheres of interest: in the first place an interest in power, in
how it is acquired and in how it is exercised; an interest in the
identities which are asserted in a given temtory and in the areas
of influence into which it is broken down; and an interest
~
0 UNESCO I997
joshmaiyoHighlight
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 32 1
in the representations and practices which shape the public
sphere. It is easy to see that these different spheres are closely
interlinked. It would be difficult to contemplate a study of power
which disregarded the territory on which it was exercised; it is
likewise difficult to think of the public sphere and the preserve
and action of the politician in isolation from each other. From an
analytical standpoint, however, it may be necessary to envisage
these three dimensions separately and successively as we look at
con- temporary societies and the state.
In order to think about politics in our state- based societies,
we have to rid ourselves of the stubborn illusion that a political
system is an empire within an empire. Then, at a second stage, we
must endeavour to combine the separ- ate pieces, in this case the
institution on the one hand and society on the other. Foucault,
who, in his work on madness, sex and prison, was confronted with
the omnipresence of norms and systems, proposed a method of
analysis aimed at overcoming this essential difficulty: Analysis in
terms of power should not postu- late, as initial facts, the
sovereignty of the State, the form of the law or the global unity
of a domination; these are only the terminal forms (1976, p. 120).
It is important to look beyond the most immediate facts represented
by the law and the institution and to consider the power
relationships and strategies that are forged within the systems.
The traditional instruments of political theories prove
inappropriate: We use ways of thinking about power which are based
either on legal models (what is the legit- imacy of power?) or on
institutional models (what is the State?) (Dreyfus and Rabinow,
1984, p, 298).
Rather than concretizing power by treating it as a mysterious
substance, whose real nature we should endlessly seek to track
down, Fou- cault states that the question of how power is exercised
has to be posed. Thinking of power as an act, as a mode of action
on actions (1976, p. 3 16), requires from anthropologists an
exploration of its roots in the heart of society and of the
patterns it produces. Analysing power where it is exercised offers
the advantage of setting the state in perspective on the basis of
real-life political practices. Trying to take into consideration
the exercise of power and its roots in a complex soil in which
society and culture
are inextricably bound up can, in fact, enable us to understand
politics better, not as a separate sphere but as the
crystallization of activities modelled by a culture which provides
its own code for the behaviour of human beings.
It is from this angle that the analysis of political phenomena
in our societies should be approached, by rediscovering the theme
of interweaving which has guided anthropology from its beginnings
and in its subsequent devel- opments. In order to study power in
the imma- nence of the social sphere, and to understand from the
inside how some people govern others, we have to give an account of
the conditions in which that power and governing capacity emerged.
The capacity can be satisfactorily summarized in the democratic
context by the expression representativeness. We disagree here with
Foucault on two points: on the one hand, he explicitly rejects the
question of rep- resentation as a metaphysical aspect of the basis
and nature of power, with two blunt questions: What is power? Where
does power come from? (1984, p. 309); and on the other hand, he
rejects, as reflecting a legalistic attitude, any question about
the legitimacy of power. We have stressed the positive contribution
made by Foucaults view of power as a relationship and as action on
possible actions, but we do not consider that there is any need to
reject ques- tions about representation and legitimacy. That
rejection could embroil us in a problem area where power is thought
of as a pure dynamic relationship between abstract capacities to
act, whose roots in what Foucault calls the social nexus are no
longer discerned. For anthropol- ogists, power and representation
are like two aspects of the same reality, and refusing to ask
questions about the legitimacy of power in order to avoid being
legalistic would be tantamount to throwing out the baby with the
bathwater.
Returning to political representation, the two questions of how
power is acquired and how it is exercised are clearly
indissociable. With regard to the first question, everything in our
societies is centred on the idea of election in both its practical
impact and in the symbolic content we confer on it. In most Western
democracies, engaging in politics means, at some time or other,
standing for election to an office that will make it possible to
reach a position of power. Moreover, to a large extent,
0 UNESCO 1997.
-
322 Marc Abel&s
an election is regarded as a mysterious process that has the
effect of transforming individuals into public figures. From one
day to the next, people who were ordinary citizens are called upon
to personify the interests of the com- munity and speak on its
behalf. This quality of representativeness gives them the right to
act on the actions of other people and exercise their power over
the group. Bourdieu regards this alchemy of representation as a
real circular pattern in which representatives form the group which
forms them: spokespersons with full powers to speak and act on
behalf of the group and to act on the group . . . become the
substi- tutes for the group which then exists only by proxy (1982,
p. 101). The delegation which takes place from the group to the
individual is, in fact, a constituent part of the collective ident-
ity. By their existence representatives mediate between these two
terms. Bourdieu interprets the phenomenon of representation in
terms of letting go, of the transfer of wills to a third party
which sets itself up as a unifying power and as the guarantor of
collective harmony. In this theoretical perspective, analysing
represen- tation involves deconstructing the mechanisms which
result in individuals becoming subjected to power and its symbols.
The aim is to engage in a critique of this transfer by bringing to
light the roots of the illusion. Anthropology does not purport to
engage in a criticism of politics; it aims rather at understanding
how power emerges and is asserted in a given situation.
Political institutions and networks
The fieldwork carried out by anthropologists in developed
Western societies gave prominence first to the study of politics in
restricted com- munities: village politics accordingly became a key
theme, and the subject of local power, its reproduction and its
ramifications, came to the forefront. Anthropologists circumscribed
their aims by not going beyond the bounds of the locality, which
was defined as being the ideal field for their investigations.
There was accord- ingly an implicit separation between the periph-
ery, the chosen field of ethnologists, and the centre, which was
bound up with national and state policy and which it was left to
other disci-
plines to study. Political anthropology was con- fined to
micro-universes and the image of auth- entically insular
autochthonous powers, in the closed world of the village community,
pre- vailed. As far as history is concerned, promin- ence was given
above all to the long term, which might appear relevant in
situations where there was a real gap between local forms of
politics and the surrounding context. Anthropol- ogists were almost
exclusively interested in the traditional aspects of political
life. Curiously, although the work of Africanists (Gluckman, 1963;
Balandier, 1967) had laid stress on the need to think in terms of
dynamics and change, the anthropologists working on Europe seemed
to remain on the sidelines of modernity, in an extension of
ancestral history.
This trend has nevertheless given rise to new perspectives on
phenomena that were hitherto little known - witness the monographs
on patronage and power relationships in the Mediterranean world
(Boissevain, 1974; Schneider, 1976; Lenclud, 1988). Another theme
dear to anthropologists drawn to the exotic, that of the modes of
devolution and transmission of political roles, has mobilized
researchers; in-depth surveys have been conduc- ted on the
construction of legitimacies and on the relations between power,
kinship and matri- monial strategies (Pourcher, 1987; AbClbs,
1989). This work has the advantage of showing how veritable
dynasties of elected representa- tives are established and
reproduced, in accord- ance with a logic which does not always
tally with a superficial view of democratic systems. It also
reveals that political representation brings into play a whole
series of informal networks, which must constantly be taken into
account in the elaboration of individual strategies.
The work of anthropologists consists, in fact, of reconstructing
this relational pattern, since their autochthonous informants give
them only a partial and sometimes biased view of things. The
reconstruction can be brought about through very detailed
investigations based on intensive observation of local political
life. It also entails meticulous work on archival docu- ments. The
analyses carried out in rural areas clearly show how positions of
eligibility are transmitted over the long term within networks
where kinship links and matrimonial strategies are closely
intertwined. The overall relational
0 UNESCO 1997
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 323
patterns which can be revealed and which war- rant the name of
networks should be considered as ideal types, in the sense in which
Max Weber uses the term, or, to use another expression dear to that
author, thought pictures (Weber, 1965).
However, the ideal type produced in this way will probably not
reflect all the facets of a situation, which is often more complex
than it appears, at least at first sight, even if the ethnological
approach offers a good means of discerning the main contours of
these relational patterns. The fact that networks are not fixed
entities should not be underestimated. The idea is not to list all
the ties which unite one individ- ual to others in the very general
context of local life. Political networks should be considered as
an essentially dynamic phenomenon: we are dealing here not with
groups which can be identified to a greater or lesser degree, but
with a set of potentialities that are capable of becom- ing
actualized according to the practical situ- ations which arise.
Voting is one of the points in time when this relational system is
actualized. A candidate for political representation can very
consciously use his or her relational potential by displaying the
signs that are most likely to evoke that potential in the eyes of
the com- munity. This strategy can be observed in cases where the
candidate is very closely connected with the leading figures of the
network. How- ever, even if there are no apparent signs, the
inhabitants of the voting community spon- taneously attribute
membership of one or other of the patterns to one of the
candidates. Accord- ingly, far from the network being an inert
reality, it is a factor which can be brought into play by the way
others see it; the members of the local society are, in a manner of
speaking, the depositaries of a memory which restores links that
have become partially blurred. In stressing the very high degree of
temtorializ- ation of political practices, the idea is not to
minimize the national factor or, obviously, the role of the
parties, especially in the selection of candidates for
parliamentary seats.
Political representation is a phenomenon which takes on its full
meaning in the long term. Talking politics is, in one way or
another, a way of situating oneself in relation to certain divides
which go back to the remote past but whose traces have still not
faded. The
example of French political life, marked by the major founding
events which were, in addition to the French Revolution, the
separation of Church and State, and the Resistance, is sig-
nificant; these conflictual vicissitudes still have a lasting
influence on the collective imagination. When, at the end of the
last century, relations between the Church and the Third Republic
grew increasingly bitter, the political networks organized
themselves on either side of this line. Over the years, the
ideological antagonism was to become gradually less sharp, but even
today it is still the background to a good many elec- toral bouts;
even in situations where there is an outward show of disregard for
politics, any candidate is immediately identified by reference to
this ancestral bipolarity. The founding event leaves its mark and
the behaviour of the electors is very much conditioned by this
memory, which is handed down from generation to gener- ation.
The ceremonial of politics
Showing accordingly appears to be a consub- stantial dimension
of the political order. This order operates in the sphere of
representation: power exists only on stage, according to Balandier
( I 980). Whatever the regime adopts, the protagonists of the
political game claim to have a mandate from society as a whole.
Legiti- macy, whether founded in immanence or trans- cendence, is a
quality assumed by power. It is up to this power to project an
image of coher- ence and cohesion to the community it embodies.
Power represents: this means that an individual or a group stands
as a spokesperson for the whole. However, power also represents in
that it creates a picture of the universe from which it emerged and
whose permanence it ensures.
Anthropologists have succeeded in explor- ing the symbols and
rituals of power in remote societies and it should come as no
surprise that the modem world offers ample material for their
analyses. The political drama takes on more familiar forms these
days, but it still does not abolish the gap between the people and
those who govern. Everything suggests, on the con- trary, that this
gulf between the world of public figures and the daily lives of
ordinary citizens
0 UNESCO 1997.
-
324 Marc AbPles
is tending to widen. The public arena of media societies does
not conflict with that of tra- ditional parties in bringing the
sphere of power and civil society closer together. A whole set of
rituals draws a magic circle around those who govern, making them
unassailable at the very time when media commodities enable us to
capture their image with unequalled ease. In order to penetrate
these modem symbolizations of politics, it is worth considering the
ritual construction of political reality (Kertzer, 1988, p. 77) and
analysing the workings of political liturgies (Rivibre, 1988) and
the ceremonial mise en sctne of power. This can shed light on the
contemporary public arena for anthropol- ogists.
The ceremonial is inseparable from a glo- bal concept of
representativeness. It is a concept which anchors legitimacy in the
temtory: in order to build and subsequently maintain this
legitimacy by the reactivation of rites which appeal to the nation
and its memory, which exalt a system of common patriotic values
through the flag, medals and references to the nation which
punctuate speeches. It is not very surprising, therefore, that
those who govern engage in these practices whose use may appear
dubious to the outsider. These rituals offer material for a twofold
political operation: firstly, an expression of strong cohesion
among those who are governed, who display their attachment to
common values and symbols and to a com- mon history; and secondly
the reaffirmation of the collective consent given to the
established power and those who personify it. In very dif- ferent
societies, the important rites surrounding the enthronement of the
sovereign also take the form of a tour of the territory by the new
monarch, each stopping-place being the occasion for ceremony and
reinforcing the link between the governors and the governed. As
Geertz (1983) has shown, the ceremonial forms in which monarchs
take possession of their kingdoms display significant variations,
such as the peaceful and virtuous procession through England when
Elizabeth Tudor assumed power in 1559, or the splendid caravan of
Hayam Wuruk in fourteenth-century Java.
Other major rituals form an essential part of political life:
these are political meetings and street demonstrations. These rites
punctuate cir- cumstances in which political life takes a more
agitated turn. Street demonstrations provide an opportunity for
brandishing a very specific form of symbolism; while the rites
mentioned above refer to consensual values, street demonstrations
brandish symbols of antagonism. To start with, the people, with
their slogans and banners, are in the street, where they shout and
heckle and there is always an undercurrent of violence. They are
demonstrations of force which are ordered in accordance with a set
scenario: improvisation is only allowed within a protocol for
action which should not depart from the collectively acknowledged
rules.
The same observation could be made about another rite of
confrontation - the political meeting: now battered, transformed
and per- haps subjugated, political meetings are neverthe- less
still the preferred weapon of political debate and of electoral
campaigning, notes Pourcher (1990, p. 90). Both camps engage in a
demonstration of power. And there are no surprises. On the
platform, there are speakers and dignitaries chosen according to
the place, circumstances and their ranking order in the movement.
In the meeting hall there is the audi- ence which has sometimes
been brought in from a vast surrounding area. Everything depends on
the relationship that is established between this community, whose
task is to applaud and to call out names and slogans, and those
officiat- ing, who must constantly fan the flames of popular
enthusiasm. The succession of announcements, promises or threats
which are greeted with applause or booing make the meet- ing a
carefully produced show. The staging, the decor, the music, the
postures, all play a part in building up the candidates distinctive
ident- ity. The meeting has to represent a highlight, where every
possible means is used to create both a sense of communion around
the speaker and the firm determination to confront and beat all the
other candidates, who are por- trayed to the participants as
adversaries.
What political meetings and demon- strations have in common with
consensual ritu- als is that they require a physical presence on
the part of the protagonists. They are likewise localized, are
broken down into a large number of sequences and combine words and
non-ver- bal symbols, such as gestures and the manipu- lation of
objects of symbolic value, all in a production which integrates
action and speeches
0 UNESCO 1997
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 325
Crowd awaiting Pope John Paul I1 in Warsaw, June 1979.
FahiadSygma
in accordance with a traditional framework. Another analogy can
be seen in the religious dimension of these ceremonies, which all
refer back to a transcendence (the nation, the people, the working
class), a transcendence alluded to in the speeches of those
officiating or through the interplay of the symbols used on such
occasions. Also of note is the truly religious dimension of the
relationship that is established between those officiating and the
faithful. In this case, we are indeed dealing with rites in the
full meaning of the term. On the one hand, we have splitting-up and
repetition, while on the other we have dramatization: everything
contributes to producing a thought trap. Simi- larly, we find the
four ingredients - sacredness, territory, the primacy of symbols
and collective values - all at work.
Nowadays, the political spectacle is insep- arable from the
growth of the mass media. It is chiefly through television that
people partici- pate in history as it is being made. Electoral
campaigns, the actions and gestures of those who govern, and
major political happenings only take on their full dimension when
they are retransmitted on our television screens. The production of
images for the general public is creating a new form of theatre. An
electoral campaign has a full impact only if its main actor can be
relied on to go down well on television. Major meetings are
organized in such a way that the message can be echoed on tele-
vision immediately; during the French Presiden- tial campaign,
FranGois Mitterrand made his appearances at 8.00 pm sharp, so as to
benefit from live transmission on the evening news (Pourcher, 1990,
p. 87). The very style of these meetings has eventually come to be
modelled on television broadcasts. The fact is that polit- ical
life now has to follow the rules of the media game. Modern public
figures set out above all to be good communicators: eloquence on
television is synonymous with simplicity; emphasis is placed as
much on form as on
0 UNESCO 1997
-
326 Marc Ab&s
content. Knowing how to sell a political pro- duct is
all-important.
One of the most conspicuous effects of media inflation is that
all events become ordi- nary. The repetition of images, the
omnipres- ence of well-known faces and speeches produce a dulling
effect. The possibility of channel-hop- ping from one programme to
another tends to make the political scene just one feature among
many others of a multifaceted show, where a football match or
variety show will be more attractive than a political event. If
politics is to make itself felt, dramatic art is required. At
election time suspense has to be maintained through opinion polls
and confrontations between antagonists, all culminating with the
evening the results come in. Elections increas- ingly resemble
television series in which per- sonalities confront each other
rather than ideas. The contempt shown by American television
networks for the Republican convention in 1996 is significant: what
was chiefly involved was the candidate Bob Doles lack of charisma
and his inability to win over an audience. In France, the contest
between Jacques Chirac and Edouard Balladur during the 1995
Presidential election particularly caught the attention of
television viewers, since it brought face to face two friends of
thirty years standing and ended with a spectacular reversal of
fortune when the candidate who had long been predicted to be the
loser finally won.
Television has become a mode of expression which makes it
possible not only to broadcast events but also to create them. The
journey which Pope John Paul I1 made to his country of origin in
1979, one year after assuming office, offers an example of a com-
munication exercise that succeeded beyond all expectation. Even
before the Popes journey took place, it had become a symbolic issue
which brought two contradictory interpretations face to face. On
either side, a historical refer- ence was put forward to guide the
public in its reading of the event: the assassination of Saint
Stanislas and, in the other camp, the creation of the communist
state. The Popes visit dealt a very severe blow to the regime. The
rite rocked the very foundations of its legitimacy, as a speech,
however critical, could never have done. It displayed an image of
what another type of political community (in this case, that
uniting the Pope and the faithful) might be like, and suggested
another possible legitimacy. In short, the rite gave substance to
an alternative. From this example, it is possible to gauge the
extraordinary impact of an occasion which com- bines a ritual, a
political act and a media event. It is clear that, far from being
exceptional, this type of public demonstration forms an integral
part of political action. Acting and communicat- ing merge at
certain critical moments to estab- lish a relationship between
governors and gov- erned in a mode different from that of the
ballot paper. We are dealing with a real test of legitimacy.
Through the Popes actions and words, his journey to Poland produced
a strong message which destabilized the communist authorities, even
though it remained in the domain of symbol and ritual. We are
dealing with what Augt (1994, p. 94) described as an expanded
ritual arrangement. This arrange- ment is characterized by the
distance between the transmitter and the receivers: it aims not
only at reproducing the existing situation, but also at making it
evolve.
This message, whose geo-political effects were considerable,
could have an impact only if it fitted in with an overall dramatic
staging of the event. John Paul 11s return to Poland took on the
dimensions of a world event by being totally suited to the universe
of television. It was presented to viewers as an exceptional
occasion, for which the normal programme schedules were disrupted.
The journey was handled as if it were a narrative, with different
episodes and a progression. The public was held spellbound and,
sitting in front of their tele- vision sets, identified with the
pilgrim. This presentation of the Pope as a traveller (Dayan, 1990)
illustrates the power of the media. The fact is that representation
has become an essen- tial ingredient of political action. The
journey of John Paul I1 was not only a pilgrimage; it took on the
sense of a reconquest. It was not merely the reflection of a power
relationship, which was, when all is said and done, unfavour- able
to the Vatican. We remember Stalins sally: How many divisions has
the Pope? In both its performance and its orchestration, the Popes
visit to Poland produced a new situation.
While representation and action, spectacle and life, are often
contrasted, the image is seen more and more clearly as a
constituent dimen-
0 UNESCO 1997
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 327
sion of real contemporary politics. Politics abides by the rules
of the game of communi- cation. If we compare the power of the
tele- vision screen and the media with the firmly rooted rites of
the ancestral political scene, we find that the former gives pride
of place to innovation. In order to be present on the scene,
without a real message, the medium of the message must be
constantly renewed. On the other hand, political ritual always
brings into play a tradition, and it takes on its full dimen- sion
by explicit or implicit reference to that tradition. Another
characteristic distinction is that modem communication tends to lay
heavy stress on individuality. Viewers in front of their television
sets expect to see a face appear, they are attentive to a voice or
an inflection: a good leader is a person who has managed to
construct this difference with the assistance of market- ing and
audio-visual experts. With rites, how- ever, the persons
officiating will tend to keep in the background in order to let the
symbols speak, or to set their action in a system of values which
goes beyond their persons and reaches out to a more all-embracing
collective history. The dominant feature here is the system of
values and symbols reactualized by the ritual. One last notable
aspect of modem political communication is its deterritorialized
character. A leader can immediately communicate the message of his
or her choice to the whole planet; there is no longer any need to
move crowds. Everybody experiences politics sitting in an armchair.
Here again is a contrast with the ritual practices to which we have
referred and which give a stage setting to the aspect of
territory.
All these observations highlight a sort of hiatus between modem
political communication and the various aspects of the rituals
which have hitherto prevailed in traditional societies: the sacred,
tradition, the relative obscurity of individuals who are mainly
there to express collective values, and the emphasis on territory.
This is the case at first sight, at least, since it can be observed
that the new forms of political communication do not mechanically
replace practices which have preserved their vitality intact:
inaugurations and commemorations have not disappeared, and
demonstrations and polit- ical meetings still occupy a large place
in polit- ical life. Far from finding that there is a real
contradiction between the functioning of ritual and the use of
the media, we should rather ask whether the latter do not foster
the emergence of new forms which combine old referents with modern
procedures. The question is particularly interesting in connection
with the representation of power; in the staging of power, the
combi- nation of heterogeneous contents and symbolic forms, drawn
from different historical contexts and periods, has been
highlighted (Balandier, 1985; Rivikre, 1988; AugC, 1995).
From postnational to multicultural
The interest anthropologists take in the subject of political
arenas in the societies of centralized states is now leading them
to give thought to the way in which those arenas are being reor-
ganized and the changes in scale that this entails. The fact that
actors on the political scene can at one and the same time play a
leading local role and participate in the govem- ment of the
country prompts questions about links between spheres of political
action and about the historical construction of local ident- ities
which, far from being a stable and perma- nent factor, have been
reordered many times over the years. Anthropological study of
polit- ical arenas, which sets out to place the field in a ramified
whole, embracing powers and values, also offers a means of seeing
the state from below (AbClCs, 1990, p. 79), starting from the
temtorialized practices of the local protagonists, whether they be
politicians, man- agers or ordinary citizens. The need to take a
pluridimensional view of the strategies and forms of involvement of
all those who, from near or far, participate in the political
process, in no way implies giving up the localized approach in
which ethnographic methods have been tried and tested. However, it
is important to replace the illusion of a microcosm and of
enclosure by study of how the universes studied by ethnologists
come into being.
In addition, describing the facts of power in non-Western
cultures not only helps us to think about how politics fit into
reference sys- tems different from our own, it also prompts us to
reflect, from a comparative standpoint, on
0 UNESCO 1997
-
328 Marc Abelts
the coherence of our own conceptions. The work done by L. Dumont
and E. Gellner is very convincing on this point. While both of them
began with an interest in thought systems very different from our
own, they subsequently came up with a new angle on the concepts at
the root of modern political organization. Dumont did not consider
that his far-reaching study on castes in India was an end in
itself. In highlighting the impact of the hierarchical principle in
this universe, he set out to define the holistic ideology which
enhances the social totality and which he contrasted with the indi-
vidualism dominant in our societies. Having studied the conditions
in which individualism emerged and the conceptual nature of this
Homo aequalis which triumphed in the nine- teenth century, Dumont
looked into the contrast between the French and German concepts of
the nation-state, which prompted him to ask questions about modem
forms of democracy and totalitarianism. The path taken by this
anthropologist, and his preoccupations, are in some ways
reminiscent of Gellner, whose first work on Morocco was an
extension of tra- ditional studies on segmentary systems. His
reflection then led him to tackle the thorny problem of nationalism
in modem states in a book which is one of the most important
contri- butions to the intelligibility of highly topical issues.
This rewarding to-and-fro movement between the nearby and the
remote has given rise to a real renewal of issues, which is
inseparable from developments at the end of this century.
Political anthropology has therefore broken free of the limits
which it had explicitly set itself, in terms of both space and
time. It is now undergoing new developments which mirror the
burning issues of the day. It should not be surprising to find
anthropologists mobilized by contemporary issues. It is sufficient
to gauge the changes that have occurred during the last quarter of
the twentieth century to realize that the whole concept of politics
goes well beyond references to modes of government and embraces a
whole set of processes which culmi- nate in the destructuring and
recomposition of historical forms which appeared to be unshake-
able. Various events have left their mark on the recent situation
including, in the first place, the collapse of a system which, as
well as exerting
pressures, was an essential factor in the balance of world
forces. The bankruptcy of socialism and the Soviet empire
destabilized the world order and reintroduced contingency at a
global level. One of the consequences of this situation was the
fragmentation of certain geo-political units whose intrinsic
fragility had not always been seen for what it was. On the fringes
of Russia and of the former Yugoslavia, the pro- cess of structural
decomposition of the state has reintroduced conflict in the very
heart of a continent which seemed to have abolished it by
substituting the all too familiar balance of terror. War no longer
seems to be the business of developed countries, yet it has
reappeared with its train of horrors, and the whole question of the
nature and foundations of political com- munities has arisen
again.
For a long time, the figure of the nation- state was dominant
and circumscribed political practices. It is this model which is
called into question in the context of the post-Cold War situation
and of the conflicts w3ich this has brought to the Balkans and the
former Soviet Union, as well as in the context of increasing
economic interdependence in multinational groupings. European
construction is a good illustration of the emergence of these new
polit- ical arenas. States are engaged increasingly in a process of
large-scale negotiation, and no country can refuse to budge from
its position. The question of the further division of political
areas of action or their recomposition can there- fore be seen as
coming to the fore. These pro- cesses are bound to give rise to
in-depth reflec- tion on political affiliations and identities.
Terms such as territory, nation and ethnic group (Amselle, 1990)
have never before had such resonance. They take us back to
phenomena which have often been underestimated by a political
discourse which was obsessed with the rising power of centralized
political organiza- tions, seen as the triumph of rationality and
progress.
The affirmation of distinctive group charac- teristics and the
establishment of relations between infra-national territorial
levels and the European authorities will not necessarily con-
tribute to a weakening of the state, but may involve it in more
complex arrangements. The movement may lead to competition between
dif- ferent community levels, as in France, or con-
Q UNESCO 1997
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 329
versely, as in Germany, confirm the existing balance between the
Federal state and the regions. In any event, this development is
prompting researchers to think again about the location of
politics, which was long associated with the pre-eminence of the
bench-mark nation-state. Gellner (1983, p. 11) defined the
principle of nationalism as a principle which asserts that
political unity and national unity must be congruent. However, it
is the congru- ence which now creates the problem. Another question
pertinently raised by B. Anderson (1983) concerns the nature of the
ties which bind the members of the same nation. Anderson stresses
the imaginary character of this com- munity. Imagined as being
limited and sover- eign, the nation takes the place of the control
exercised by religious communities and dynastic kingdoms which had
marked earlier periods.
From different standpoints, Gellner and Anderson both take us
back to the need for in-depth reflection on political affiliations
and identities. It is probably no coincidence that this issue marks
a rewarding meeting between anthropologists and historians: the
production of a common tradition (Hobsbawm and Ranger, 1983) and
the symbolic construction of the nation have been the subject of
far-reaching research, giving rise to such studies as that of M.
Agulhon (1 979; 1989) on the figure of Mari- anne and the symbolism
of the republican nation in France. In this case, the historian
high- lights the vicissitudes which marked the con- struction of a
political community and the images it has generated. One of the
lessons that can be drawn from these analyses is that pre- eminence
of a national representation of the political link is inseparable
from a pattern and a balance whose lasting nature can by no means
be relied upon. The patriotic memory remains an essential factor:
analysing the way in which the symbolic and the political are
interwoven in commemorative events, such as the building of the
memorial dedicated to the American combatants in Vietnam and the
controversy to which it gave rise among veterans (Bodnar, 1994, pp.
3-9), or the reburial of the Hungarian leaders eliminated by the
Russians during the events of 1956 (Zempelini, 1996), makes it
possible to gain a clearer understanding of how representations of
a common citizenship and a divided country are crystallized.
The questions that crop up everywhere on the concept of
citizenship clearly indicate that this is a peculiar historical
instance of the relationship between the individual and the
community. This concept is founded on the idea of the nation and is
inseparable from a type of political sphere of action whose
specificity anthropologists are well placed to demonstrate. At the
same time, this political sphere is now undergoing far-reaching
transformations, and this new historical factor cannot be
underesti- mated. It is the duty of anthropology to analyse its
consequences. Anthropologists have always been concerned to set the
modem form of the state in perspective by showing historical and
geographical variations in the exercise of poli- tics. However,
this work is being carried out in a hitherto unprecedented context,
marked by the intensification of relations between different parts
of the world. Globalization is one of the most significant
phenomena of this latter end of the century. It is bound up with
technological transformations and increasing economic inter-
dependence. The planet has shrunk and the sense of strangeness
which surrounded peoples once described as exotic has disappeared
for ever. The rapid circulation of information and images help to
erase the mythical dimension which used to be attached to these
other societies and which was the prime subject of ethnological
scrutiny. The reign of communi- cation has come, and the media and
tourism offer ready access to this other world, which used to
provide so much material for anthro- pology. Otherness is no longer
identified with remote places: it forms part of our everyday lives.
There is one essential political issue which, moreover, comes to
the fore. It concerns intercultural relations, the promiscuity and
plu- rality of cultures which operate within given political arenas
and the institutions of power. This question is one for
anthropologists to the extent that, as Balandier wrote, The
knowledge of acculturations which come from outside seems to be
capable of contributing to a better understanding of
self-acculturating modernity (1985, p. 166).
One of the objectives of political anthro- pology is to give an
account of the effects of globalization on the workings of the
institutions and organizations which govern the economy and
society. Transnationalism is certainly a fea-
0 UNESCO 1997
-
330 Marc AbPlks
ture of contemporary capitalism, but it also gov- erns power
relations and cultural referents. We see the emergence of new
supranational insti- tutional patterns, such as the European Union,
in which representatives of different political cultures and
traditions come together to work on the harmonization of
legislation and the con- struction of an all-embracing project.
These trends raise several questions for anthropol- ogists. One
question relates to the effects of this permanent confrontation
between different identities (McDonald, 1996) and between
heterogeneous languages and administrative traditions in a common
political undertaking (Bellier, 1995). Other questions concern the
invention of forms of co-operation in a wider bureaucratic
framework (Zabuski, 1995) or the practical and symbolic effects of
deterritorializ- ation and changes of scale in these new places
where power is exercised (AbClks, 1992; 1996).
The case of national administrations, in which homogeneity of
thinking and action may seem to be guaranteed by the fact that
there is only one language and that civil servants have benefited
from the same type of training, appears to contradict this type of
assertion. It might be thought that a bureaucracy, backed by a
strong body of concepts and values which it helps to reproduce,
would be relatively exempt from external developments. In fact,
this is by no means the case; a demonstration is given in the
analyses of Herzfeld (1992) of the modem Greek bureaucracy, where a
language, meta- phors and stereotypes constitute the ingredients of
a true rhetoric. The latter, far from being the simple expression
of a pre-established system, can be seen as an essential feature of
the state process. In addition to the constant recourse to
stereotypes and the use of a language which reifies and acts as a
fetish, there is a whole symbolic pattern which defines peoples
respect- ive positions. However, the terminology that circulates in
the bureaucratic machine draws on meaningful resources which refer
back to historical strata as varied as ancient Greek democracy and
the Ottoman Empire. Closer to home, we might mention public service
in France and the upheavals that the institution has experienced,
tom as it is between the old republican concepts and the need to
integrate a liberal outlook in the context of competition within
Europe. This prospect has a direct impact
on the everyday practice of civil servants. Henceforward, the
game is played in an arena which extends beyond the strict national
frame- work. The use of the ideas and vocabulary of management,
which cobble together French and English, and the frequent
references to Brussels, clearly illustrate this intellectual
remodelling. There can be no doubt that some- thing has changed at
the very heart of the state and national framework; borders that
were hitherto impervious are being shaken by this speeded-up
circulation of ideas. Does this mean that a uniform and hegemonic
global model is being imposed?
An answer in the affirmative would appear to be borne out by our
second example, namely that of international firms established in
coun- tries freshly converted to the market economy. In fact,
matters are more complex: in the coun- tries of Eastern Europe, it
can be seen that the injection of a corporate culture made in the
USA does not entail the immediate replacement of the old order by a
new one. Re-appropriation and reinterpretation are concepts that
correspond more closely to a process which calls into ques- tion
the issues of power and brings into play cognitive factors
referring back to earlier his- tory. The twofold task of
decontextualization and recontextualization which operates in
organizations cannot be reduced to a phenom- enon of assimilation
which would result in stan- dard copies of the dominant paradigm
spreading all over the world. Social scientists have the task of
analysing how institutions construct the representations and
conceptual procedures which govern the practicalities of their
negoti- ations and decision-making, and play a decisive role in
their functioning.
The dialectics of political and cultural issues in the
transnational universe of today require new analyses, in which the
contribution of anthropology takes on its full dimension, without
thereby invalidating the specific contri- butions of political
science and the sociology of institutions. The power processes
experienced by institutions in increasingly complex social and
cultural organizations are likely to be better understood by an
approach that is concerned with reporting on intersecting
relationships of power and meaning in a fast-changing universe.
This is the challenge which anthropology has to face in the light
of developments in the
0 UNESCO 1997.
-
Political anthropology: new challenges, new aims 33 1
modern world. Taking up this challenge does not mean denying a
tradition which has enabled us to know more about societies that
are remote from our own, it means broadening a field of
research to grapple with the problems of our contemporaries.
Translated f r o m French
Ref etences
ABBLEs, M., 1989. Jours tranquilles en 1989. Ethnologie
politique dun departemenr francais. Paris: Odile Jacob.
ABBLEs, M., 1990. Anthropologie de IEtat. Paris: Armand
Colin.
ABBLEs, M., 1992. La vie quotidienne au Parlement europeen.
Paris: Hachette.
ABBL~s, M., 1996. En attente dEurope. Paris: Hachette.
AGULHON, M., 1979. Marianne au combat. Limagerie et la
symbolique republicaines de 1789 a 1880. Paris: Flammarion.
AGULHON, M., 1989. Marianne au pouvoir. Paris, Flammarion.
AMSELLE, J.L., 1990. Logiques metisses: anthropologie de 1
identite en Afrique et ailleurs. Paris: Payot.
ANDERSON, B., 1983. Imagined Communities: ReJecrions on the
Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: New Left Books.
AucB, M., 1994. Pour une anthropologie des mondes conremporains.
Paris: Aubier.
BALANDIER. G.. 1967. , , Anthropologie politique. Paris:
PUF.
BALANDIER, G., 1980. Le pouvoir sur sdnes. Paris: Balland.
BALANDIER, G., 1985. Le DPtour. Pouvoir et modernite. Paris:
Fayard.
BELLIER, Y., 1995. MoralitC, langues et pouvoir dans les
institutions europtennes, Social Anthropology, 3-3, p p .
235-50.
BOISSEVAIN, J., 1974. Friends of Friends. Oxford: Blackwell.
BOURDIEU, P., 1982. Ce que parler veut dire. Paris: Fayard.
BODNAR, J., 1994. Remaking America. Public Memory, Commemoration
and Patriotism in the Twentieth Century. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
DAYAN, D., 1990. Prksentation du pape en voyageur. TCICvision,
exgrience rituelle, dramaturgie politique, Terrain, 15, pp.
13-28.
DREYFUS, H.; RABINOW, P., 1984. Michel Foucault. Un parcours
philosophique. Paris: Gallimard.
EVANS-PRITCHARD, E.E., 1940. The Nuer. Oxford: Clarendon
Press.
FOUCAULT, M., 1976. La volonte de savoir. Paris: Gallimard.
GELLNER, E., 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford:
Blackwell.
GEERTZ, C., 1983. Local Knowledge. Further Essays in
Interpretive Anthropology. New York: Basic Books.
GLUCKMAN, M., 1963. Order and Rebellion in the Tribal Societies.
London: Cohen & West.
HEKZFELD, M., 1992. The Social Production of Indifference.
Exploring the Symbolic Roots of Western Bureaucracy. Chicago:
University of Chicago Press.
HOBSBAWN, E.; RANGER, T., 1983. The Invention of Tradition.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
KERTZER, D.I., 1988. Ritual, Politics and Power. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
LENCLUD, G., 1988. Des idtes et des hommes: patronage tlectoral
et culture politique en Corse, Revue FranGaise de Science
Politique, 38- 5, pp. 770-82.
MCDONALD, M., 1996. Unity and Diversity: Some tensions in the
construction of Europe, Social Anthropology, 4-1, pp. 47-60.
POURCHER, Y., 1987. Les Maftres de granit. Les notables de
LozPre du XVIIIe si2cle a nos jours. Paris: Olivier Orban.
RIVI~RE, C., 1988. Les liturgies politiques. Paris: PUF.
SCHNEIDER, J.; SCHNEIDER, P., 1976. Culture and Political
Economy in Western Sicily. New York: Academic Press.
SFEZ, L., 1978. LEnfer et le paradis. Paris: PUF.
SWARTZ, M.; TURNER, V.; TUDEN, A., 1966. Political Anthropology.
Chicago: Aldline.
VINCENT, J., 1990. Anthropology and Politics. Tucson: University
of Arizona Press.
WEBER, M., 1965. Essais sur la thkorie de la science. Paris:
Plon.
ZABUSKY, S.E., 1995. Launching Europe. An Ethnography of
European Co-operation in Space Science. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
ZEMPLENI, A., 1996. Les marques de la nation sur quelques
0 UNESCO 1997.
-
332 Marc AbNbs
propri6t6s de la patrie et de la nation en Hongrie
contemporaine. In Fabre, D. (ed.), LEurope entre culture et
nations,
Paris: Editions de la Maison des Sciences de 1Homme.
8 UNESCO 1997.