Anthropology and Political Science: A Convergent Approach

By Myron J. Aronoff and Jan Kubik

What can anthropology and political science learn from each other? The authors argue that collaboration, particularly in the area of concepts and methodologies, is tremendously beneficial for both disciplines, though they also deal with some troubling aspects of the relationship. Focusing on the influence of anthropology on political science, the book examines the basic assumptions the practitioners of each discipline make about the nature of social and political reality, compares some of the key concepts each field employs, and provides an extensive review of the basic methods of research that “bridge” both disciplines: ethnography and case study. Through ethnography (participant observation), reliance on extended case studies, and the use of “anthropological” concepts and sensibilities, a greater understanding of some of the most challenging issues of the day can be gained. For example, political anthropology challenges the illusion of the “autonomy of the political” assumed by political science to characterize so-called modern societies. Several chapters include a cross-disciplinary analysis of key concepts and issues: political culture, political ritual, the politics of collective identity, democratization in divided societies, conflict resolution, civil society, and the politics of post-Communist transformations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Berghahn Books
• Release date: Nov 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780857457264

Myron J. Aronoff

Myron J. Aronoff is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Anthropology, and Jewish Studies at Rutgers University and Visiting Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Michigan. He is the recipient of the 2013 AIS-Isreael Institute Lifetime Achievement Award.

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Anthropology & Political Science

Anthropology &

Anthropology has a history of sometimes troubled relations with neighboring disciplines, yet at the same time there have been major efforts both within anthropology and within various related disciplines for cross-fertilization and for advancing interdisciplinary work. Anthropology has been cited as a source of inspiration for new perspectives and new scholarly developments by scholars in history, literary criticism, sociology, political science, economics, demography, gerontology, legal studies, education, women’s studies, art history, music, and other fields. This series addresses the need for works that examine the intersection of anthropology and these other academic fields.

Anthropology & Law

James M. Donovan and H. Edwin Anderson, III

Anthropology & Mass Communication: Media and Myth in the New Millennium

Mark Allen Peterson

Anthropology & Political Science: A Convergent Approach

Myron J. Aronoff and Jan Kubik

Anthropology & Philosophy: Dialogues on Trust and Hope

Edited by Sune Liisberg, Esther Oluffa Pedersen, and Anne Line Dalsgård

ANTHROPOLOGY & POLITICAL SCIENCE

A Convergent Approach

Myron J. Aronoff & Jan Kubik

Published in 2013 by

Berghahn Books

www.berghahnbooks.com

© 2013, 2015 Myron J. Aronoff and Jan Kubik

First paperback edition published in 2015.

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Aronoff, Myron Joel.

      Anthropology and political science : a convergent approach / Myron J. Aronoff

    and Jan Kubik.

            p. cm. — (Anthropology &)

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-85745-725-7 (hardback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-78238-669-8 (paperback : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-85745-726-4 (ebook)

      1. Anthropology—Methodology. 2. Political science—Methodology. I. Aronoff,

    Myron J. II. Kubik, Jan. III. Title.

    GN33.A76 2012

    301—dc23

2012001691

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Printed on acid-free paper.

ISBN: 978-0-85745-725-7 hardback

ISBN: 978-1-78238-669-8 paperback

ISBN: 978-0-85745-726-4 ebook

In loving memory of Rita and to Martha with love

CONTENTS

List of Tables

List of Figures

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Introduction

Chapter 2

Methods: Ethnography and Case Study

Chapter 3

Beyond Political Culture

Chapter 4

Symbolic Dimensions of Politics: Political Ritual and Ceremonial

Chapter 5

The Politics of Collective Identity: Contested Israeli Nationalisms

Chapter 6

Democratization in Deeply Divided Societies: The Netherlands, India, and Israel

Chapter 7

Camp David Rashomon: Contested Interpretations of the Israel/Palestine Peace Process

Chapter 8

What Can Political Scientists Learn about Civil Society from Anthropologists?

Chapter 9

Homo sovieticus and Vernacular Knowledge

Chapter 10

Conclusions

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

TABLES

Table 2.1. Location of ethnographic studies in the studies of power and politics

Table 2.2. Five types of ethnography

Table 2.3. Three dimensions of the ethnographic subject

Table 3.1. Types of symbols

Table 3.2. Logos versus Mythos

Table 3.3. Characteristics of traditional rituals, secular rituals, and ceremonies

Table 3.4. Dimensions of rhetoric

Table 3.5. Custom and invented tradition

Table 4.1. Ideal type classical distinctions between traditional and modern societies

Table 5.1. Types of nationalism

Table 6.1. Cultural and political forms of accommodation and control in fissured societies

Table 8.1. Legal transparent civil society (ideal type of civil society) and incomplete civil societies (secondary groups)

Table 8.2. Extreme flaws undermining linkages among civil society and other polity domains

Table 8.3. Civil society attributes, their non-civil counterparts, and hybrid solutions

Table 8.4. Early split within Solidarity: revolutionaries versus reformists

Table 8.5. Cultural affinity between civil society and the Cieszyn culture

Table 8.6. Unemployment in the Bielsko Voivodship, June 1993

Table 9.1. Summary of the analysis based on two ethnographies

Table 9.2. Selected results of the parliamentary elections 21 October 2007

FIGURES

Figure 4.1. Rituals of rebellion

Figure 4.2. Rituals of confirmation

Figure 4.3. Transformative ceremonies/ceremonial revolutions

Figure 8.1. Civil society and other domains of the democratic polity

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Were we to attempt to acknowledge all of those to whom we are indebted it would require far more space than our publisher permits and would exhaust the patience of our readers. Therefore, we shall keep the list short with apologies to those omitted. Aronoff pays tribute to his intellectual mentors—professors Max Gluckman, David C. Rapoport, and M. G. Smith. He also thanks the participants in the extraordinary 1974 Burg Wartenstein conference on secular ritual (Moore and Myerhoff 1977) who profoundly influenced his understanding of ritual. Kubik owes special debt to Andrzej Paluch, friend and first mentor in anthropology; Professor Alex Alland, without whom there would be much less anthropology in his life; Professor Joan Vincent and Professor Morton Fried, who stoked his love for political anthropology; and Marian Kempny, a friend and fierce interlocutor who is sorely missed. Special thanks go to our many informants and interviewees. Those quoted are named in the endnotes. However, they are only a small minority of the hundreds from whom we have learned.

The invaluable suggestions for revisions by the two official readers for the press, Edward Schatz and Nadav Shelef, allowed us to improve the manuscript in dozens of major and small ways. We are grateful to them for revealing their names and thus making it possible to acknowledge their most wonderful critical work. All remaining imperfections are, of course, of our own doing. We owe a special debt to Karen Stase-vich for her careful reading and extremely helpful editing of the entire manuscript. Deepta Janardhan, Kristyn Manoukian, and Parag Shende provided many hours of indispensable assistance during the final stages of editing. We are particularly grateful to the wonderful staff of Berghahn Books, in particular to Marion Berghahn, Ann Przyzycki DeVita, Melissa Spinelli, and Kristine Hunt.

Among the many colleagues who commented on various drafts of our work at conferences, symposia, etc., we list those whose comments have resulted in revisions. We are most appreciative of their input and absolve them of any responsibility for remaining errors. Our sincere gratitude to these most valued colleagues: Rudy Andeweg, Yael Aronoff, Yossi Beilin, Michael Bernhard, Indrani Chaterjee, Jose Ciprut, Hans Claessen, Eric Davis, Grzegorz Ekiert, Charles Enderlin, Leela Fernandez, John Gillis, David Guterman, Steve Hanson, Ehud Harari, Aldona Jawłowska, Arie Kacowicz, Robert Kaufman, Marian Kempny (in memoriam), Michael Kennedy, Grazyna Kubica, Joanna Kurczewska, Richard Lau, Arend Lijphart, Amy Linch, Julie Livingston, Anna Malewska-Szałygin, Radek Markowski, Marina Mogilner, Cas Mudde, Tim Pachirat, Robin Wagner Pacifici, Ami Pedahzur, Jeremy Pressman, Jean Rosenfeld, Edward Schatz, Anna Seleny, Shaul Shenhav, Andrew Spath, Gadi Taub, Dan Tichenor, Michael Warner, Jacek Wasilewski, Lisa Wedeen, Leszek and Iwona Werpachowscy, Dvora Yanow, Eviatar Zerubavel, and Yael Zerubavel.

We gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint revised versions of the following previously published material:

For Myron J. Aronoff:

Camp David Rashomon: Contested Interpretations of the Israel/Palestine Peace Process, Political Science Quarterly, vol. 124, no.1 (Spring 2009), pp. 143–167. Reprinted pp. 31–55 in Daniel Byman and Marylena Mantas, eds., Religion, Democracy, and Politics in the Middle East. New York: The Academy of Political Science, 2012.

Democratizations in Fissured Societies: The Makings of Citizenship, pp. 253–286 in Jose V. Ciprut, ed., The Future of Citizenship. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2008.

The politics of collective identity: contested Israeli nationalisms, pp. 168–189 in Jean E. Rosenfeld, ed. Terrorism, Identity, and Legitimacy, London and New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2011.

For Jan Kubik:

Ethnography of Politics: Foundations, Applications, Prospects, pp. 25–52 in Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power, Edward Schatz, ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Hybridization as a condition of civil society’s portability, pp. 107–29 in Building Civil Society and Democracy in New Europe. Sven Eliaeson, ed. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008.

How to study civil society: the state of the art and what to do next. East European Politics and Societies, 19 (1), 2005, pp. 105–20.

The Role of Decentralization and Cultural Revival in Post-Communist Transformations: The Case of Cieszyn Silesia, Poland. Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 27 (4), 1994, pp. 331–55.

The Power of Symbols Against the Symbols of Power. The Rise of Solidarity and the Fall of State Socialism in Poland (pp. 243–49). College Park: Penn State University Press, 1994.

Rebellious Civil Society: Popular Protest and Democratic Consolidation in Poland, 1989-1993. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 1999 (with Grzegorz Ekiert).

PREFACE

The central vision of this book is succinctly expressed in the subtitle—a convergent approach. We are trained in social and cultural anthropology (specializing in political anthropology) and political science (with a concentration on comparative politics). Throughout our professional careers we have worked in the interstices between the two. But we have always strived to build bridges between them by combining concepts and methodologies from both. This convergent (or hybrid) approach has often drawn from political science the choice of research topics like political parties, party systems, regime change, processes of democratization, civil society and the state, and some concepts developed to analyze them. Our central concern with legitimacy is a traditional topic in political theory (philosophy). Our conceptual focus on culture—the symbolic and semiotic dimensions of politics, e.g., the importance of symbol, myth, rhetoric, and ritual—derives from anthropology. This discipline provides us also with the key methods used in the empirical studies presented in the book: various types of ethnography (most based on participant observation) and the extended case study. These anthropological methods par excellence are employed to produce a greater understanding of some of the most challenging political issues of the day. We also suggest how anthropologists can provide political scientists with more nuanced understandings of the range of factors or variables that are essential to develop context-sensitive interpretations of political phenomena. Anthropological insights can also help make better coding decisions, e.g., in identifying preferences in game theoretical analyses.

In this work we tend to emphasize the contributions of anthropology slightly more than those of political science. This is likely because we have spent most of our professional careers with our primary affiliation (i.e., our lines) in political science departments—impelling us to demonstrate to our colleagues the added value of anthropology. However, we are no less convinced that anthropologists can benefit as well from this convergent approach. For example, the importance of comparison, of midlevel generalization leading to midrange theory, the need to deal with causation even if to specify the nature of mutual causality, and the importance of specifying the nature of systematic data collection are all potentially important contributions of political science. Our goal is to demonstrate the value of this convergent approach without staking a claim for a new discipline. Such a goal is not only beyond our aspirations, but would most likely be counterproductive. We illustrate our approach through the cross-disciplinary analysis of a number of key concepts and issues: political culture, political ritual, the politics of collective identity, democratization in divided societies, conflict resolution, civil society, and postcommunist transformations.

When we began thinking about this book—at least ten years ago—political science and anthropology were on diverging trajectories. The practitioners of the former were increasingly enamored by formal methods borrowed from economics, and many relied heavily on sophisticated statistical tools coming from econometrics. But at the same time a rebellion was brewing in political science. The adherents of qualitative methods embarked on the task of taking stock of their own approaches and developing explicit codification of their methodology. This led to the veritable boom in the study of qualitative research techniques (Brady & Collier 2004; Collier 1993; George & Bennett 2004; Gerring 2001; Goertz 2006). The related field of historical methods has also entered a period of fruitful self-examination and systematization (Goodin & Tilly 2006; Mahoney & Rueschemeyer 2003; Pierson 2004). And finally, at least since mid-2000s, a similar movement commenced to examine both the philosophical foundations and the technical specifications of interpretive methods (Bevir 2010; Yanow & Schwartz-Shea 2006) as well as political ethnography (Schatz 2009; Wedeen 2010). This sea change was largely inspired by the Perestroika movement (Monroe 2005).

Chapter Summaries: Part 1

In chapter 1, but in several other places as well, we examine the different assumptions routinely made by the practitioners of each discipline regarding the nature of reality (ontology) and the nature of knowledge, i.e., how we understand reality—especially the limits to our understanding and criteria for validating our knowledge (epistemology). We explore key concepts of each field and their methods of research, and discuss the divergent, ancient intellectual roots of anthropology and political science as well as the more contemporary origins of both sub-fields. We review the troubled courtship between the two, pointing out some of the problematic aspects of the relationship. We discuss also, among other differences, how political anthropology challenges as an illusion the autonomy of the political, assumed by political science to characterize so-called modern societies.

In our discussion of the centrality of ethnography (chapter 2) we analyze the significance of the cultural dimension of social/political reality and the consequences of the recent turn from macro- to microlevels of analysis in political science. This shift is related to the increased interest in understanding the behavior of politicians—through their own eyes—while they engage in politics. We note the utility of ethnography for several research programs—comparing ontology, epistemology, and methodology. This allows us to distinguish five types of ethnography: positivist, interpretive, postmodern, global, and paraethnography. In the empirical chapters we demonstrate the utility of each type of ethnography for specific research tasks. For example, interpretive ethnography based on participant observation of semiotic practices is premised on: (1) constructivism (the interpretation of actions meaningful to actors), (2) ontological realism and an epistemology that focuses on actual actions of real people, rather than variables, and (3) microscale observation of actual settings and the reconstruction of relevant mechanisms. By relying on this type of ethnography we challenge the concept of Homo sovieticus, a hypothesized type of human being ostensibly found often in the countries that emerged from communism. This approach to ethnographic research is also indispensable for understanding such pressing contemporary issues as the politics of identity—an issue we explore in depth in chapter 6.

Chapter 3 examines political culture—the core concept employed in this book. We trace the intellectual roots and evolution of the concept as well as the different traditions and approaches existing in the broad and diverse field of cultural studies. The debate between proponents of Homo economicus and Homo sociologicus is elucidated. Approaches that theorize the workings of cultural factors as constraints of human behavior are contrasted with those that view them as resources that can be deployed in achieving behavior’s goals. We compare the social-psychological approach favored in political science with the semiotic interpretive approach (especially semiotic practices) associated with anthropology, but recently finding adherents also among political scientists, including us. We do not, however, discuss all approaches that theorize the relationship between political and cultural in political science. Richard Wilson (2000) provides a useful review of most of them. In particular, we do not engage the culture theory approach that has some following in political science but differs significantly from ours. It builds upon the work of anthropologist Mary Douglas and has been developed by political scientists Michael Thompson, Richard Ellis, and Aaron Wildavsky (1990). It postulates a universal division of polities (and other political phenomena) into four ideal-type subcultures (fatalistic, individualistic, egalitarian, and hierarchical [collectivistic]) based on two criteria (grid and group). Analysis focuses on the contestation within polities between competing subcultures and explains change in terms of their different competencies and biases.¹

Major concepts employed in the analysis of political culture—symbol, myth, rhetoric, and ritual—are explicated. We elucidate the central concept of legitimacy and discuss the relationship between legitimating discourses and hegemony. Important concepts of cultural analysis such as ideology and utopia, collective memory, and custom and invented tradition are introduced and examined. We conclude: The concept of political culture is critical if not indispensable for several research concerns central to political science, including legitimacy, consent, coordination, collective identity, conflict resolution, and even rebellion.

In chapter 4 we analyze political ritual in what at the time was the dominant Israel Labor Party: a state funeral (orchestrated by the leader of the party whose success ended the long period of Labor Party dominance) held for the reburial of remains reputedly of the fighters and followers of the leader of the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire, and the revolutionary impact of the appearances of Pope John Paul II during his visit to Poland. However, prior to the analysis of these cases we engage in a critical review of the scholarly distinction between traditional and modern societies. We contend that concepts developed for the study of the former need to be modified when applied to the latter. This point is illustrated by the application of Max Gluckman’s notion of rituals of rebellion to explain symbolic behavior in a contemporary political party in Israel and to shed light on revolutionary changes in Poland. We stress the importance of illustrating the difference in the social conditions as well as the similarities of the symbolic practice.

Brief Discussion of Research Techniques

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men’s lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me.

—Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1854

Because we consider explication of the techniques of research so important, in the spirit of reflexive anthropology, we discuss below how we obtained the data analyzed. After this brief introduction to our methodology, we introduce specific analyses of several issues built on our own case studies (chapters 5 through 9). Although this work is the result of collaboration, each of the authors carried out independent research for the respective chapters. Therefore we identify ourselves individually when discussing the nature of our research methods.

Aronoff

I had no formal training in fieldwork methods in the department of social anthropology and sociology at the University of Manchester, where I arrived in 1965 as a doctoral candidate in political science from UCLA. My knowledge of fieldwork was acquired primarily through the intensive (almost Talmudic) reading of classic texts in graduate seminars, the periodic colloquia of professors and fellow graduate students who gave presentations upon returning from the field, and the anecdotes and gossip in bull sessions in the common room and pubs. When I departed for Israel, Professor Max Gluckman (my supervisor) gave me only one fieldwork instruction: Keep your eyes and ears open and your mouth shut tight. Another of my professors, A. L. (Bill) Epstein, edited The Craft of Social Anthropology (1967) that was published when I was in the middle of my first fieldwork in Israel.

At each stage of my career my methodology has evolved from conventional ethnographic fieldwork to more unorthodox techniques leading to paraethnography.² My first study was a traditional ethnography. I lived with my wife and infant daughter in the town I studied, participating in the life of the community from October 1966 through the summer of 1968 (including the war of June 1967). My second major research project involved eight years of participant observation of the national institutions and local branches of the Israel Labor Party during the period I taught at Tel Aviv University (1969–1977) (See M. Aronoff 1977 and 1993). Whereas I regularly attended meetings of major institutions, when I asked my informants (a few of whom had become friends) about the possibility of my attending the closed meetings of the standing committee, they all replied that the leaders would never permit it. So I simply asked the secretary who composed the list of invitees to put me on the list—which she did. Since I had spent so much time hanging around party headquarters, she apparently assumed I belonged there. The ritual aspects of these meetings discussed in chapter 4 were crucially important to understanding the workings of the party as well as the broader theoretical implications we discuss.

My third major research project was even more unconventional since it was an ethnography of Israeli society, culture, and politics in the period from 1977 to 1990, which was a period of major cultural and political transformation and polarization (M. Aronoff 1989). Based largely on fieldwork in Israel during 1982–1983 and 1987–1988, I utilized a wide range of methods including participant observation of selected meetings of the Ministerial Committee on Symbols and Ceremonies, the Knesset plenary, parliamentary committees, and the delegates’ dining room (the best place to meet with parliamentarians without having to make appointments), the activities of several peace movements (particularly Peace Now), the major settlers movement (Gush Emunim or Bloc of the Faithful), academic conferences, theater performances, movies, television programs (e.g., a documentary series on the 1981 election campaign), and the first Palestinian uprising (intifada). I interviewed more than a hundred political, religious, cultural, and educational leaders. I also examined the archive in the prime minister’s office of more than twenty years of the meetings of the Ministerial Committee on Symbols and Ceremonies, from which I selected for analysis two major decisions of this fascinating committee (see chapter 4).

The research for chapter 5 and the data on Israel in chapter 6 are the culmination of forty years of the study of Israeli society, culture, and politics rather than any one specific trip to the field. I spent two wonderful sabbatical years at the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study and many extended vacations visiting my in-laws and friends in the Netherlands. I speak fluent Dutch and have followed developments in the Netherlands since my first visit in 1960—although much more systematically during one summer conducting research for this comparative case. Rudy Andeweg and my dear friend Hans Claessen were my expert informants. My two trips to India were grossly insufficient to provide the depth of understanding of this complex and fascinating continent. I was forced to rely almost exclusively on the work of specialists under the expert guidance of our former colleague Leela Fernandez.

I have employed what we call in chapter 2 ethnographic problematization and framing to the analysis of works of fiction (M. Aronoff 1999a). This form of paraethnography best describes the method employed in the analysis of the Camp David peace negotiations in chapter 7. It is based on the analysis of all academic works on the subject published in English and Hebrew, several of which are by participants in the negotiations, published interviews of the participants, and original interviews of thirty of the main Israeli and Palestinian leaders and participants in the negotiations and a couple of key US mediators conducted by my daughter, Professor Yael Aronoff, and myself. Some of these were quite extensive. For example, former prime minister Ehud Barak generously spent three hours with us. His tendency to answer his critics and the questions he thought we should ask took more the form of a monologue rather than a dialogue. It provided important insights in understanding his negotiating style and personality. It is noteworthy that several top Israeli and Palestinian negotiators (as well as two important American mediators) were trained as academics, which gave their publications and our interviews with them the added value as expert, albeit not disinterested, participant observers.

Kubik

My infatuation with anthropology began in the mid-1970s at the Jagiellonian University in Krakow. I studied sociology and philosophy, but I was increasingly attracted to cultural anthropology, a discipline that was not institutionally practiced in Poland. My main interest was in the sociology of art and culture, so somewhat naturally I was reading anthropological studies to which we had rather spotty access under the restrictions of state socialism. I was, however, a member of a small group that formed a unit devoted to the study and teaching of social/cultural anthropology in the Institute of Sociology at the Jagiellonian. Eventually, I was lucky to obtain a fellowship to study anthropology at Columbia in New York. My doctoral dissertation—conducted from a distance, as I was unable to return to Poland in the 1980s—was written on the basis of meticulous studies of all available sources (mostly underground periodicals) that provided descriptions of various ceremonies and street demonstrations in Poland during the late 1970s. But it was also based on my personal experience of many events in which I participated, particularly the game-changing visit of John Paul II to his native country in May 1979. I had experienced these events in the late 1970s not as an ethnographer, but in the mid-1980s I was reworking my memories within an ethnographically tuned frame of mind. I was also confronting my personal recollections with the existing written accounts and massive pictorial documentation. This kind of intellectual work seems to be akin to at least some elements of the method recently labeled paraethnography (see chapter 2).

As soon as state socialism was gone, I went back to Poland to conduct a long-term study of the initial phase of postcommunist transformations. I chose a small town in the region I knew well, not far from the town where I was born. The centerpiece of my work was an extensive ethnographic study based on participant observation of the local elite. Initially, I spent nine months in Ustroń (October 1990–June 1991), one of the major towns of the region (population about 15,000). During that visit I was accompanied by my wife and our two small sons (ages 4 and 2 when we arrived). There were several additional visits (mostly in the summers of 1992, 1993, and 1994). I also relied on the works of and countless conversations with Grazyna Kubica (2011) and Marian Kempny (2005), both anthropologists and good friends, also born in the region.

My natives were usually well educated, often having college degrees. On an average day I would hang around, following them as they engaged in their daily duties, observing their actions, listening to their arguments, and discussing with them the momentous changes we were experiencing together. I also tried to live a normal life in my neighborhood, talking with neighbors, store attendants, teachers, students of local schools, and other members of several local communities. The material gathered during these months constitutes the empirical backbone of my analyses in chapters 8 and 9.

In chapter 9 I contrast my findings from Cieszyn Silesia with the data gathered by my colleagues in another region of Poland, Podhale. The British anthropologist, Frances Pine, conducted a long-term ethnographic study in a single village while the Polish anthropologist, Malewska-Szałygin (2008) supervised a group of researchers (mostly students), who visited several villages of the region and spent a considerable amount of time talking to people in the market square in Nowy Targ, from 1999 to 2005, mostly during summer research trips. The main method was an open-ended conversation, mostly with males, based on a questionnaire that was designed to remind the researchers to provoke verbal responses to such questions as: What is the state? How would you explain it to your grandchild? During the six-year period, 356 conversations were recorded. In 2001, the researchers changed the method and allowed their respondents more control over the flow of conversations; researchers’ questions and provocations were limited to a minimum. The discourse was now definitely coproduced by the respondents. Some conversations, during the final stages of the project, were carried out at the open-air marketplace. It turned out that in this specific space, people (mostly men) were much more willing to talk about politics than in their homes. Also, in many cases the researchers could now record animated, multivocal conversations, instead of dialogues between themselves and individual respondents.³ All natives in Malewska-Szałygin’s study came from villages surrounding Nowy Targ and were poorly educated. About a half had only elementary education, a large portion finished vocational schools, only about one-tenth went to technical high schools (but most never took final exams). No members of the local elite were invited to participate in the project.

Chapter Summaries: Part 2

The politics of collective identity is both ubiquitous and universal. In chapter 5 we outline the constructionist approach that is based on the notion that human sociability and politics are expressed and facilitated through the cultural construction of bonds of collective identity. This process entails political competition among groups that, while pursuing conflicting interests and values, negotiate their internal and external social boundaries by publicly communicating and demanding respect for specific cultural constructs—visions of collective identity. The outcome of this competition determines their relative social and political centrality or marginality. Two of the most important forms of collective identity, particularly in the post–Cold War era, are ethnicity and nationalism. We examine the cultural and political dimensions of the dynamic relationship—particularly tensions and competition—between attachments to ethnicity and to the state.

In our analysis of contested types of Israeli nationalisms we move beyond the conventional dichotomized categories of more inclusive civic and more exclusive ethnic nationalism by introducing the intermediary model of ethnic republicanism. We analyze four major cultural building blocks of nationalism—conceptions of time (the relationship between past, present, and future), space (the borders of the state), and religion (secular, traditional, and orthodox) as well as cultural constructs of individual and collective security/insecurity. Specific patterns of these attributes correlate with the alignment of political movements and parties in Israel. Among others, the understanding of the dynamics of the ongoing struggle over the definition of the collective us as opposed to them has significant implications for the possibility of successful resolution of the conflict between Israel, the Palestinians, and other Arab states with which the Jewish state is still at war or in conflict. This is a subject we take up in chapter 7.

In chapter 6 we examine a problem that has preoccupied students of comparative politics for generations—how can stable democracies be established in culturally plural, deeply fissured societies? Many scholars focus primarily on a single dimension (political or cultural) depending on their disciplines. We demonstrate through a comparative analysis of post–World War II Netherlands, India, and Israel the importance of examining how different combinations of mechanisms of control and conciliation are employed to different sectors of society in changing conditions over several generations. For example, we cite cases of control in restrictions imposed on Palestinians who became citizens of Israel during the first decade and a half after independence and India during martial law (1975–1977).

The two main conceptual models employed to analyze the three cases in the first phase from the end of World War II until 1967 are a form of elite accommodation known as consociationalism for the Netherlands (aspects of which apply to Israel) and the dominant party system for Israel and India. But over time these institutional arrangements, while combined with the elite’s commitment to democratic rules of the game that recognizes that all of the players must get a turn at bat, undermine themselves. In other words, pragmatic ideological adjustments to foster the creation of tactical political alliances and coalitions eventually lead (in conditions specified in the chapter) to enduring, major shifts in cultural and ideological positions. And this, in turn, calls for the recalibration of the political system in a seemingly unending and dynamic process.

Attempts at resolution of the major outstanding issues between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are the subject of chapter 7. We examine several aspects of the Oslo peace process with specific focus on the failed summit negotiations at Camp David (11–25 July 2000) and Taba, Egypt (21–27 January 2001). We contend that the dichotomized account of discourse about Camp David—dominant and revisionist narratives—is inadequate. We prefer to sacrifice parsimony by complicating the model to achieve a more nuanced understanding of the complex events. Each of the delegations—Israeli, Palestinian, and US mediators—was significantly internally divided. Divisions were based on seniority (proximity to the leader), organizational role (diplomat, civil servant, military, security/intelligence), political and personal rivalries, generation (especially among the Palestinians), and institution (e.g., State Department, National Security Council). We show how these divisions influenced the outcome. Three schools of interpretation are examined. The orthodox school became the dominant narrative, which primarily blames Yasser Arafat for the failure of negotiations. The revisionist school debunks the former school’s position and places blame for failure primarily on Barak and also on Dennis Ross (the lead US negotiator). The eclectic school articulates a more nuanced and balanced analysis, and our thick interpretive analysis essentially supports the findings of this approach.

Chapter 8 is devoted to the analysis of another hot object of interest in social science at the turn of the century: civil society. After reviewing some of the most important contributions to the literature, we offer a precise conceptualization of civil society. We review several recent studies and then move on to a more in-depth analysis of civil society (both as a concept and actual social practice) in non-Western societies. This analysis reveals that while the replication of the Western structure and practice is hard, if not impossible, there are places around the world where civil-society-like hybrids exist and work as civil society functional equivalents. The last section of the chapter is devoted to the detailed analysis of civil society’s emergence and functioning in the region where Kubik conducted his ethnographic fieldwork—Cieszyn Silesia. We show that despite frequently expressed criticisms and doubts concerning civil society’s applicability outside of the West, much depends on the specifics of local/regional cultures. Whether civil society can work outside of the West cannot be determined a priori; it needs to be demonstrated empirically after a careful analysis of local cultural and social contexts.

In chapter 9 we conduct an empirical ethnographic test of one of the most pressing issues found in the literature on postcommunism. The question is whether people who were socialized under state socialism—Homo sovieticus, as they are sometimes called—can properly function in a new system built around the precepts of capitalism and modern democracy. Even if we assume that they can, how long is the process of necessary adjustment? And what exactly needs to be adjusted: the capitalist and democratic institutions imported from the outside of the people themselves? Either way, the analysis is based on the assumption that such a construction of the human being as Homo sovieticus (culturally constructed, socially transmitted, and psychologically internalized) has certain coherence and can be seen as a useful concept capturing the essence (or at least a median tendency) of a large, complex society. Moreover, scholars may assume that such concepts express the durability of certain constellations of attributes of whole, large societies. We show that detailed ethnographic studies do not confirm the existence of the Homo sovieticus syndrome, certainly not as an attribute of the whole society. The chapter is designed to demonstrate that certain cultural generalizations that sometimes underpin political analyses can be verified, adjusted, or rejected as a result of ethnographic studies conducted in specific locations.

The chapters are introduced. Let’s move on to chapter 1 in which we present several major debates, outline the key concepts, and discuss in some detail the main concerns that animate our work.

Notes

1. The idea of grid and group first appears in Mary Douglas’s influential Natural Symbols (1970). For the introduction of the cultural theory see Thompson, Ellis, and Wildavsky 1990. A symposium on A Cultural Theory of Politics, edited by Brendon Swedlow, was published in the October 2011 issue of PS: Political Science & Politics. It provides a review of the most recent work produced within this approach.

2. For a more detailed discussion see Aronoff 2006.

3. The results are presented systematically in such chapters as The Nowy Targ Region—Images of the State, Images of the Authority, Images of the Nation, or Images and the Participation in Public Life.

Chapter 1

INTRODUCTION

Answering Grand Questions from Different Epistemological and Ontological Stances

Recent dramatic changes on the political map of the world, including the fall of the Soviet system, the ensuing third wave of democratizations, and the acceleration of the globalization processes, contributed to the reinvigoration of the two fundamental debates in the social sciences:

• Can all political phenomena be described, interpreted, and explained by the same universal theory (epistemological dimension)?

• Do all societies operate according to the same set of political and/or economic principles, encapsulated in the universal laws of, say, the socioeconomic development or reconstructed in the model of the rational choice behavior (ontological dimension)?

There is no agreement among social scientists on how to answer these questions, but there are clear disciplinary tendencies. With a number of important exceptions, today’s political scientists tend to give positive answers to both questions, while anthropologists tend toward negative responses. This is, of course, related to the fact that the mainstreams of these two disciplines have, by and large, privileged different conceptualizations of their subject matters, methods, and strategies of theory building. It is also important to note that those differences in ontological and epistemological stances systematically influence the execution of the third important task of any social scientist: providing normative evaluations of states, institutions, and policies (Sen 1989: 301).¹

Both political science and anthropology are quite diversified and each is divided into a number of theoretical approaches or schools (see, for example, Munck & Snyder 2007). Trying to come to terms with this diversity is beyond the scope of a single, moderately sized volume. Our goal here is much more modest; we are interested mostly in two smaller subfields of each discipline: political anthropology and comparative politics. The choice is not only influenced by our professional training and affiliations; it is primarily dictated by the fact that these two fields share one common characteristic: an ambition to produce systematic knowledge about the exercise of power and politics (understood broadly as an institutionalized, collective effort to solve problems of collective existence) in various types of societies, from the simplest to the most complex. At the same time, despite this common goal, each discipline produces quite different bodies of knowledge. Disciplinary epistemologies, languages, assumptions, and methods are sufficiently different to produce often dissimilar if not contradictory interpretations or explanations of the same events or processes. We want to study those different pictures of political reality, contrast specific disciplinary findings and poke under the surface of different, specialized disciplinary terminologies in order to learn more both about each discipline and about the phenomena they study.

The best way to compare these two disciplines is to work through a series of specific analyses of concrete events or processes. Several chapters in this book offer such closely knit analyses. Yet, before they are offered, it is useful, if not necessary, to provide a basic road map that explicates several basic differences between comparative politics and political anthropology. It must be remembered, however, that the contrasts outlined below refer merely to the most central tendencies in each discipline; one could easily point to examples of anthropologists pursuing quite political scientific agendas or political scientists engaged in anthropological studies tout court.

Putting aside the areas of overlap (which our own work exemplifies) for a moment, comparative politics and political anthropology can be contrasted in several ways. Perhaps their most significant difference is related to the differences in the epistemological/methodological and ontological foundations of the broader disciplines: political science and cultural anthropology.

Goals and Methods: Universalism and Explanation (of Political Science) versus Particularism and Interpretation (of Anthropology)

With all possible caveats necessitated by a considerable number of important exceptions, it is safe to claim that anthropologists prefer focusing on single cases, favor rich narrative descriptions of their material (idiographic focus), and define their discipline’s goal as interpretation of specific features of the cases they study.² By contrast, political scientists are more comfortable with a larger number of cases whose features are distilled into variables that are seen as related to one another. Those relationships, captured by propositions, are hypothesized and then tested due to procedures of science. For most of its practitioners, the ultimate goal of political science is explanation.³

A more extensive exposition of various issues related to the concept of explanation in social sciences is not possible here (see, for example Brady 2008; Little 1991; Miller 1987); suffice it to note that scholars sometimes distinguish two basic types of explanations: (1) genetic and (2) nomological-deductive. According to the former, to explain an occurrence of a phenomenon is to reconstruct the chain of its causes or to determine the causal effect that brings the phenomenon about (King, Kohane, & Verba 1994: 77–85; Nagel 1961: 567–58).⁴ According to the latter, to explain a phenomenon is to offer a set of propositions from which a sentence stating the occurrence of this phenomenon can be logically deducted (Hempel 1962; Popper 1959: 59).

The political-scientific preoccupation with explanation is linked to the general universalizing tenor of this discipline, while anthropology’s stress on interpretation reflects this discipline’s particularizing tendency. To illustrate this contrast one may recall Geertz’s (1983: 57) distinction between an "experience-near concept which a person would use to define what he or his fellows see, feel, think, imagine, and an experience-distant concept employed by specialists, e.g., ethnographers to further their scientific (or other) aims. Clearly, the matter is one of degree, not polar opposition. (1983: 57). The goal is to produce an interpretation of lives that is sensitive to, but moves beyond a group’s mental horizons. For example, the concept human individual is universal but has enormous cultural variability. For it to be understood in non-Western contexts requires not just empathy, but putting aside the Western notion of the person and, according to Geertz (1983: 59), seeing their experiences within the framework of their own idea of what selfhood is. Anthropology tends to rely more on experience-near concepts and work from the particular to the universal or to find the universal within the particular. As Geertz (1973: 23, emphasis added) says, Small facts speak to large issues." Political science has tended to work with experience-distant concepts and reason by beginning with abstract theory and gathering data to test it.

Level