Strong chieftaincies out of weak states, or elemental power unbound

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Comparative Social Research

ISSN: 0195-6310
Series editor(s): Dr Fredrik Engelstad

Subject Area: Sociology and Public Policy

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Document Information:
Title:	Strong chieftaincies out of weak states, or elemental power unbound
Author(s):	Georgi Derluguian, Timothy Earle
Volume:	27 Editor(s): Kristian Berg Harpviken ISBN: 978-0-85724-101-6 eISBN: 978-0-85724-102-3
Citation:	Georgi Derluguian, Timothy Earle (2010), Strong chieftaincies out of weak states, or elemental power unbound, in Kristian Berg Harpviken (ed.) Troubled Regions and Failing States: The Clustering and Contagion of Armed Conflicts (Comparative Social Research, Volume 27), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, pp.51-76
DOI:	10.1108/S0195-6310(2010)0000027006 (Permanent URL)
Publisher:	Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Article type:	Chapter Item
Abstract:	Chieftaincies constructed of personal power networks emerge recurrently within states and their business corporations, political parties, mafias, insurgencies and artistic cliques. Modern states were built by incorporating chieftaincies as internal organs. Nevertheless, ‘neopatrimonialism’, ‘political machines’, ‘oligarchy’, caudillismo and warlordism – the various names that designate different facets of chieftaincy – represent neither aberrant nor atavistic phenomena. They refer to an immensely adaptable strategy of manipulation in arenas where formal institutional controls prove impractical or undesirable.