Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-94fs2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-10T09:03:47.023Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Anarchy and Culture: Insights from the Anthropology of War

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 July 2003

Jack Snyder
Get access

Abstract

Some prominent scholars and public activists contend that a fundamental change in the nature of world politics can be brought about through efforts to change prevailing culture, norms, and ideas. In this view, behavior in anarchy is what the prevailing culture makes of it, since social reality is, in Alexander Wendt's words, “ideas almost all the way down.” Anthropologists studying the causes of war in pre-industrial anarchies have tested this hypothesis extensively. Their research shows that war behavior cannot be reduced to either material factors or culture alone. Rather, material, institutional, and cultural elements must all be taken into account simultaneously in assessing an anarchical society's propensity for war and in designing strategies to promote change. Models of nested causality or of interaction effects between variables can sometimes capture these causal interrelationships, but they cannot capture nonlinear system effects that often play a prominent role. Patterns found in anthropological research can serve as a heuristic for understanding the democratic peace and processes of contemporary international cultural change.

Type
Articles
Information
International Organization , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , Winter 2002 , pp. 7 - 45
Copyright
Copyright © The IO Foundation 2002

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Barnard, Alan. 1999. Modern Hunter-Gatherers and Early Symbolic Culture. In The Evolution of Culture, edited by Dunbar, Robin\, Knight, Chris, and Power, Camilla, 50–70. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barth, Fredrik. 1987. Cosmologies in the Making. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berger, Peter, and Luckmann, Thomas. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor.Google Scholar
Bloch, Maurice. 1989. Ritual, History, and Power. London: Athlone.Google Scholar
Brewer, Marilynn. 2001. Ingroup Identification and Intergroup Conflict: When Does Ingroup Love Become Outgroup Hate? In Social Identity, Intergroup Conflict, and Conflict Reduction, edited by Ashmore, Richard D.\, Jussim, Lee, and Wilder, David, 17–41. New York: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Byman, Daniel, and Van Evera, Stephen. 1998. Why They Fight: Hypotheses on the Causes of Contemporary Deadly Conflict. Security Studies 7 (3): 1–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carneiro, Robert. 1990. Chiefdom-Level Warfare as Exemplified in Fiji and the Cauca Valley. In The Anthropology of War, edited by Haas, Jonathan, 190–211. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Carneiro, Robert. 1994. War and Peace. In Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E., 3–28. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Carothers, Thomas. 1999. Aiding Democracy Abroad. Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.Google Scholar
Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1968. Yanomamo Social Organization and Warfare. In War: The Anthropology of Armed Conflict and Aggression, edited by Fried, Morton\, Harris, Marvin, and Murphy, Robert. 109–59. Garden City, N.Y.: Natural History Press.Google Scholar
Chagnon, Napoleon A. 1997. Yanomamo. Fort Worth, Tex.: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Cohen, Alex. 1990. A Cross-Cultural Study of the Effects of Environmental Unpredictability on Aggression in Folktales. American Anthropologist 92 (2):474–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ronald, Cohen, and Service, Elman, eds. 1978. Origins of the State. Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues.Google Scholar
Copeland, Dale C. 2000. The Constructivist Challenge to Structural Realism. International Security 25 (2): 187–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cox, Robert. 1986. Social Forces, States, and World Orders. In Neorealism and Its Critics, edited by Keohane, Robert O., 204–54. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Diamond, Larry. 1996. Is the Third Wave Over? Journal of Democracy 7 (3):20–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, Emile. [1915] 1965. The Elementary Forms of Religious Life. Reprint, New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Ember, Carol R., and Ember, Melvin. 1992. Resource Unpredictability, Mistrust, and War. Journal of Conflict Resolution 36 (2):242–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ember, Carol R., and Ember, Melvin. 1997. Violence in the Ethnographic Record: Results of Cross-Cultural Research on War and Aggression. In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Martin, Debra L. and Frayer, David W., 1–20. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Ember, Carol R., Ember, Melvin, and Russett, Bruce. 1992. Peace Between Participatory Polities: A Cross-Cultural Test of the “Democracies Rarely Fight Each Other” Hypothesis. World Politics 44 (4):573–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ember, Melvin. 1982. Statistical Evidence for an Ecological Explanation of Warfare. American Anthropologist 84 (3):645–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ember, Melvin, and Ember, Carol R.. 1994. Cross-Cultural Studies of War and Peace: Recent Achievements and Future Possibilities. In Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E., 185–208. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Fearon, James D. 1995. Rationalist Explanations for War. International Organization 49 (3):379–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1984. Introduction: Studying War. In Warfare, Culture, and Environment, edited by Ferguson, R. Brian, 1–82. Orlando, Fla.: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1990. Explaining War. In The Anthropology of War, edited by Haas, Jonathan, 26–55. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1992. A Savage Encounter. In War in the Tribal Zone, edited by Ferguson, R. Brian and Whitehead, Neil, 199–228. Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1994. The General Consequences of War. In Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E., 85–111. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1995. Yanomami Warfare: A Political History. Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian. 1997. Violence and Warfare in Prehistory. In Troubled Times: Violence and Warfare in the Past, edited by Martin, Debra and Frayer, David, 321–56. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Ferguson, R. Brian, and Whitehead, Neil. 1992a. The Violent Edge of Empire. In War in the Tribal Zone, edited by Ferguson, R. Brian and Whitehead, Neil, 1–30. Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research.Google Scholar
R. Brian, Ferguson, and Whitehead, Neil, eds. 1992b. War in the Tribal Zone. Santa Fe, N.M.: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Finnemore, Martha, and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1998. International Norm Dynamics and Political Change. International Organization 52 (4):887–917.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Garrett, Geoffrey, and Weingast, Barry. 1993. Ideas, Interests, and Institutions: Constructing the European Community's Internal Market. In Ideas and Foreign Policy, edited by Goldstein, Judith and Keohane, Robert O., 173–206. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gellner, Ernest. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Gregor, Thomas. 1990. Uneasy Peace: Intertribal Relations in Brazil's Upper Xingu. In The Anthropology of War, edited by Haas, Jonathan, 105–24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gordon, Robert J., and Meggitt, Mervyn J.. 1985. Law and Order in the New Guinea Highlands. Hanover: University of Vermont.Google Scholar
Gowa, Joanne. 1999. Ballots and Bullets: The Elusive Democratic Peace. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Haas, Jonathan, ed. 1990. The Anthropology of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Harrison, Simon. 1993. The Mask of War: Violence, Ritual, and the Self in Melanesia. Manchester, U.K.: Manchester University.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, Stanley. 1965. The State of War. New York: Praeger.Google Scholar
Hui, Victoria Tin-bor. Forthcoming. War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Human Rights Watch. 2000. Human Rights Watch World Report 2001. New York: Human Rights Watch.Google Scholar
Ikenberry, G. John. 2001. After Victory: Institutions, Strategic Restraint, and the Rebuilding of Order After Major Wars. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1978. Cooperation Under the Security Dilemma. World Politics 30 (2): 167–214.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jervis, Robert. 1997. System Effects. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Johnston, Alastair Iain. 1995. Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kahl, Colin H. 1998. Population Growth, Environmental Degradation, and State-Sponsored Violence: The Case of Kenya, 1991–1993. International Security 23 (2):80–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katzenstein, Peter J., ed. 1996. The Culture of National Security. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Kaufmann, Chaim. 1996. Possible and Impossible Solutions to Ethnic Civil Wars. International Security 20 (4):136–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keeley, Lawrence H. 1996. War Before Civilization. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Raymond C. 1985. The Nuer Conquest. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Kelly, Raymond C. 2000. Warless Societies and the Origin of War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keohane, Robert. 2000. Ideas Part-way Down. Review of International Studies 26 (1): 125–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knauft, Bruce M. 1987. Reconsidering Violence in Simple Human Societies: Homicide Among the Gebusi of New Guinea. Current Anthropology 28 (4):457–500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knauft, Bruce M. 1999. From Primitive to Postcolonial in Melanesia and Anthropology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knight, Chris. 1999. Sex and Language as Pretend Play. In The Evolution of Culture, edited by Dunbar, Robin\, Knight, Chris, and Power, Camilla, 228–47. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslowski, Rey, and Kratochwil, Friedrich V.. 1995. Understanding Change in International Politics: The Soviet Empire's Demise and the International System. In International Relations Theory and the End of the Cold War, edited by Lebow, Richard Ned and Risse-Kappen, Thomas, 127–66. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Laitin, David. 1999. Somalia: Civil War and International Intervention. In Civil Wars, Insecurity, and Intervention, edited by Walter, Barbara F. and Snyder, Jack, 146–80. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Layne, Christopher, and Schwartz, Benjamin. 1999. For the Record. The National Interest 57 (fall):9–16.Google Scholar
Lévi-Strauss, Claude. 1971. The Family. In Man, Culture, and Society, edited by Shapiro, Harry, 333–57. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Linz, Juan, and Stepan, Alfred. 1996. Problems of Democratic Transition and Consolidation. Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
LiPuma, Edward. 2000. Encompassing Others: The Magic of Modernity in Melanesia. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lund, Michael, Rubin, Barnett, and Hara, Fabienne. 1998. Learning from Burundi's Failed Democratic Transition, 1993–1996. In Cases and Strategies for Preventive Action, edited by Rubin, Barnett R., 47–92. New York: Century Foundation.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1937. Culture as a Determinant of Behavior. In Factors Determining Human Behavior, edited by Harvard Tercenary Conference of Arts and Sciences, 133–68. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Tercenary Publications.Google Scholar
Malinowski, Bronislaw. 1984. Magic, Science, and Religion, and Other Essays. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood.Google Scholar
Mearsheimer, John. 1994/1995. The False Promise of Institutions. International Security 19 (3):5–49.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mearsheimer, John. 2001. The Tragedy of Great Power Politics. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Meggitt, Mervyn J. 1977. Blood Is Their Argument: Warfare Among the Mae-Enga Tribesmen of the New Guinea Highlands. Palo Alto, Calif.: Mayfield.Google Scholar
Mercer, Jonathan. 1995. Anarchy and Identity. International Organization 49 (2):229–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Modjeska, Nicholas. 1982. Production and Inequality. In Inequality in New Guinea Highlands Societies, edited by Strathern, Andrew, 50–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ortner, Sherry B. 1999. Introduction. In The Fate of “Culture”: Geertz and Beyond, edited by Ortner, Sherry B., 1–13. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Otterbein, Keith F. 1994. Feuding and Warfare. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Owen, John M. IV 1997. Liberal Peace, Liberal War. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Philpott, Daniel. 2001. Revolutions in Sovereignty: How Ideas Shaped Modern International Relations. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Posen, Barry. 1993. The Security Dilemma and Ethnic Conflict. Survival 35 (1):27–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pospisil, Leopold. 1994. I Am Very Sorry I Cannot Kill You Anymore: War and Peace Among the Kapauku. In Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives, edited by Reyna, S. P. and Downs, R. E., 113–26. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Powell, Walter W., and DiMaggio, Paul J., eds. 1991. The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Przeworski, Adam, Alvarez, Michael, Cheibub, José, and Limongi, Fernando. 2000. Democracy and Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rappaport, Roy A. 1968. Pigs for the Ancestors. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Reno, William. 1998. Warlord Politics and African States. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reyna, S. P., and Downs, R. E., eds. 1994. Studying War: Anthropological Perspectives. Amsterdam: Gordon and Breach.Google Scholar
Reus-Smit, Christian. 1999. The Moral Purpose of the State. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Risse, Thomas, and Sikkink, Kathryn. 1999. The Socialization of International Human Rights Norms into Domestic Practice. In The Power of Human Rights: International Norms and Domestic Change, edited by Risse, Thomas\, Ropp, Stephen C., and Sikkink, Kathryn, 1–38. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robarchek, Clayton, and Robarchek, Carole. 1998. Waorani: The Contexts of Violence and War. New York: Harcourt Brace.Google Scholar
Ross, Marc Howard. 1993. The Culture of Conflict. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ross, Marc Howard. 1997. Culture and Identity in Comparative Political Analysis. In Comparative Politics, edited by Lichbach, Mark Irving and Zuckerman, Alan S., 42–80. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ruggie, John Gerard. 1998. Constructing the World Polity. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce. 1993. Grasping the Democratic Peace. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Russett, Bruce, and Oneal, John R.. 2001. Triangulating Peace: Democracy, Interdependence, and International Organizations. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1968. Tribesmen. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1976a. Culture and Practical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Sahlins, Marshall D. 1976b. The Use and Abuse of Biology. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanday, Peggy Reeves. 1981. Female Power and Male Dominance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Schotter, Andrew. 1981. The Economic Theory of Social Institutions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shweder, Richard A. 2000. Rethinking the Object of Anthropology (and Ending Up Where Kroeber and Kluckhohn Began). Items and Issues 1 (2):7–9.Google Scholar
Spruyt, Hendrik. 1994. The Sovereign State and Its Competitors. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stein, Arthur. 1976. Conflict and Cohesion. Journal of Conflict Resolution 20 (2): 143–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Swidler, Ann. 1986. Culture in Action: Symbols and Strategies. American Sociological Review 51 (2):273–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tefft, Stanton. 1975. Warfare Regulation: A Cross-Cultural Test of Hypotheses. In War: Its Causes and Correlates, edited by Nettleship, Martin A.\, Givens, R. Dale, and Nettleship, Anderson, 693–712. The Hague: Mouton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tierney, Patrick. 2000. Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon. New York: W. W. Norton.Google Scholar
Tilly, Charles. 1990. Coercion, Capital, and European States, A.D. 990–1990. Cambridge: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar
Vayda, Andrew P. 1989. Explaining Why Marings Fought. Journal of Anthropological Research 45 (2):159–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Waltz, Kenneth. 1979. Theory of International Politics. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.Google Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1992. Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social Construction of Power Politics. International Organization 46 (2):391–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 1999. Social Theory of International Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wendt, Alexander. 2000. On the Via Media: A Response to the Critics. Review of International Studies 26 (1):165–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ziegler, Rolf. 1990. The Kula: Social Order, Barter, and Ceremonial Exchange. In Social Institutions: Their Emergence, Maintenance, and Effects, edited by Hechter, Michael\, Opp, Karl-Dieter, and Wippler, Reinhard, 141–70. New York: Aldine and de Gruyter.Google Scholar