Order and anarchy : civil society, social disorder and war PDF
Preview Order and anarchy : civil society, social disorder and war
This page intentionally left blank ORDER AND ANARCHY Throughthestudyofcivilsociety,theevolutionofsocialrelations andthebreakdownofsocialorder,Orderandanarchyre-examines theroleofviolenceinhumansocialevolution.Drawingonanthro- pology,politicalscienceandevolutionarytheory,itoffersanovel approachtounderstandingstabilityandinstabilityinhumansoci- ety.RobertLaytonprovidesaradicalcritiqueofcurrentconcepts ofcivilsociety,arguingthatrationalactionischaracteristicofall human societies and not unique to post-Enlightenment Europe. CasestudiesrangefromephemeralAfricangoldrushcommunities and the night club scene in Britain to stable hunter-gatherer and peasantcultures.Thedynamicsofrecentcivilwarsintheformer Yugoslavia,Chad,SomaliaandIndonesiaarecomparedtowarin small-scaletribalsocieties.Theauthorarguesthatrecentclaimsfor the evolutionary value of violence have misunderstood the com- plexityofhumanstrategiesandthesocialenvironmentsinwhich theyareplayedout. RobertLaytonisProfessorofAnthropologyattheUniversityof Durham.RecipientoftheRoyalAnthropologicalInstitute’sRivers Medal for his research, Professor Layton has written widely on anthropologicalthemes,includingTheanthropologyofart(1991), Australianrockart(1992)andAnintroductiontotheoryinanthropology (1997). ORDER AND ANARCHY Civilsociety,socialdisorderandwar ROBERTLAYTON Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,SãoPaulo Cambridge University Press TheEdinburghBuilding,Cambridge,UK PublishedintheUnitedStatesofAmericabyCambridgeUniversityPress,NewYork www.cambridge.org Informationonthistitle:www.cambridge.org/9780521857710 ©RobertLayton2006 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexceptionandtotheprovisionof relevantcollectivelicensingagreements,noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplace withoutthewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublishedinprintformat 2006 - ---- eBook(EBL) - --- eBook(EBL) - ---- hardback - --- hardback - ---- - --- CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofs forexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. Contents Acknowledgements page vi 1 Civil society and social cohesion 1 2 Self-interestandsocialevolution 46 3 Thebreakdownofsocialorder 92 4 Warfare,biologyandculture 138 References 174 Index 193 v Acknowledgements Warmthankstoallofthefollowingfortheirhelpfulcomments: Frances d’Souza; Chris Hann and Julia Eckert on chapter 1, Rob Aspden on chapter 2 and Elizabeth Chilton on chapter 4. The constructive editorial advice of the three anonymous readers has also helped immensely in making this a more readable book. Much of the library research was carried out whileIwasaVisitingFellowattheMaxPlanckInstitutefor SocialAnthropologyinHalle,Germany,andI’malsograteful toChrisHann’scolleaguesfortheirhelpandadvice. vi chapter 1 Civil society and social cohesion introduction Backgroundtothebook Orderandanarchygrewoutofseveralofmyresearchinterests. Oneoriginatedinmydoctoralresearchonsocialchangeina clusterofFrenchvillagesclosetotheSwissborder(seeLayton 2000).Iconductedseveralperiodsoffieldworkbetween1969 and1995,andreliedonlocalarchivestoreconstructcontinuity andchangeoveraperiodextendingbacktotheancienre´gime thatpredatedtheFrenchRevolutionof1789.Theoverwhelm- ing impression I gained was that village life had remained remarkably orderly through a period that encompassed the 1789Revolution,theagriculturalrevolutionoftheeighteenth and nineteenth centuries (associated with the turmoil of the enclosures in England), military occupations in the Franco- Prussian and Second World Wars, and the post-war mech- anisation of agriculture. Knowing something about English village life, I was also impressed by the comparative vital- ity of local democracy and the freedom ‘my’ villages had to manage common pasture and forest. While I was analysing thismaterial,however,statesocialisminEasternEuropewas collapsing;sometimesinamoreorlessorderlyfashion,else- wheredisintegratingintocivilwar.Politicalthinkersinboth 1 2 Orderandanarchy Eastern and Western Europe saw the creation of ‘civil soci- ety’intheEasternblocasthekeytofuturepoliticalstability, andbelievedthiswouldbefacilitatedbythedevelopmentof a market economy. Through my involvement in the World ArchaeologicalCongress,Ialsolearnedaboutthecivildisor- der in northern India that surrounded the 1992 destruction of the mosque at Ayodhya, which Hindu fundamental- ists claimed stood on the site of a Hindu temple marking the birthplace of the culture hero Rama. The World Ar- chaeologicalCongressmetinIndiaonthesecondanniversary of the mosque’s destruction, and plans to debate the role of nationalistarchaeologistsinpromotingthemosque’sdestruc- tion were met by angry demonstrations. WAC deferred the debateandsubsequentlymetinCroatia,whereitwasablealso to examine the destruction of churches, mosques and other cultural property in the recent war between Serbia, Croatia andBosnia(Layton,StoneandThomas2001).Theseexperi- encesdemandedabetterunderstandingoftheprocessesthat sometimes allow society to change peacefully but at other timescreateviolentconflict.Throughoutthe1990sfirst-hand anthropologicalaccountsofviolenceandcivilwarwereaccu- mulating,providingwaysofinvestigatingthetopicincloser detail. Theargument Order and anarchy is a study of civil society, of the construc- tionandbreakdownofsocialorderandoftheroleofviolence inhumansocialevolution.‘Anarchy’hastwomeanings.Itis generallyunderstoodtorefertothebreakdownofauthorityin society,leadingtosocialdisorder.ForKropotkinandhisfel- lowanarchistsinlaternineteenth-centuryRussia,however,it referredtothefreedomoflocalcommunitiestoorganisetheir
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