African Political Systems (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from African Political Systems

In attempting to classify human societies, difficulties are met with of a kind that do not exist in other sciences, such as zoology or chemistry. Two societies or two types may resemble each other in one aspect Of the total social system and differ in another. It is therefore necessary to compare societies with reference to some particular aspect or part of the whole social system, with reference, for example, to the economic system or the political system or the kinship system. Thus the present volume presents materials for the comparison Of certain African societies with reference to their political organization alone.

This, of course, involves making an abstraction of a different kind. For in any social system the political institutions, the economic institutions, the kinship organization, and the ritual life are intimately related and interdependent. In science there are right and wrong ways of making abstractions; the right ways are profitable in that they lead us to important additions to our knowledge; the wrong ways are not merely unprofitable, but are sometimes obstructive. If we are to study political institutions in abstraction from other features of social systems we need to make sure that our definition of 'political' is such as to mark Off a class of phenomena which can profitably be made the subject Of separate theoretical treatment.

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