Exam 14: Politics and Power

Many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been powerful voices against the exercise of state power. These organizations can be seen as exercising what particular form of response to the state?

What do we call the potential of a person or a group to contest and change norms, values, institutions, and structures of power?

In Egypt, people view the decisions of the official Egyptian Personal Status courts with great suspicion, and they often turn to the traditional Al Azhar Fatwa Council for guidance on important matters of daily life, even though their decisions are not legally binding. The Fatwa Council is an example of what kind of social response to the state?

The ability or potential to bring about change through action or influence is referred to as power. In the study of human social organization, anthropologists examine power because:

Although the Nazi regime did use violence, the regime was also able to gain the cooperation of much of the populace who saw Nazi actions and programs as necessary and even reasonable. What is this kind of consensus an example of?

Anthropologist Carolyn Nordstrom works in war zones to describe the real and messy experiences of war. In her account, an individual health-care provider in Mozambique, targeted by the military forces that terrorized local villages, managed to hide and survive until they had moved through the area. The provider then worked to help others. Discuss how this contradicts common notions of war. How do survivors of war push back against military force? How does Nordstrom's work directly challenge the long legacy of Western philosophers who argue that human nature is innately violent?

Discuss how alternative structures are used to circumvent state power, and provide an example to illustrate your points.

When a civil society prepares for war, this preparation includes production of weapons and the glorification of war. What is this process called?

Even very powerful institutions do not completely dominate people's lives and thinking. Individuals and groups with relatively little power can contest powerful institutions, such as the state, because:

Earlier anthropological analysis considered small-scale human groups in comparative isolation. We now understand that in the modern world, all bands, tribes, and chiefdoms must function how?