Young offenders and the Criminal Justice System

Young offenders and the Criminal Justice System Introduction The human civilization has from ancient times acknowledged the fact that the children are the future of the present civilization. Our modern era also believes in this ideology. This being the case, our society has always strived to ensure that children and the youth are given the best opportunity to excel.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Young offenders and the Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More However, despite all the good intention of the society, there are still a number of children and youth who continue to be on the wrong side of the law. Cole and Smith note that this increase in juvenile deliquescence is as a result of social, economic and other factors prevalent in this era (13). Policy makes have taken care to ensure that these troubled children are not left behind in the quest for a brighter future for all the children. Measures have been taken to ensure that the trou bled children who are charged with offences are afforded a chance to rectify their mistakes and become respectable citizens through rehabilitation programs. This has been through the implementation of juvenile justice systems which have been characterized by their correctional as opposed to punishment role. Despite the presence of a functional juvenile justice system in the country, there has been a marked increase in crime rates among children and youths. As a result of this rising rates of crime amongst youths, policy makers have pushed for the increased transfer of juvenile offenders to criminal courts for adult prosecution. This is a move that is hailed by some as being the best manner to reduce juvenile crimes and therefore safeguard the society’s peace. However, there are opponents to these waivers who suggest that such moves result in the reduction in chances of rehabilitation for the juvenile offenders. This paper argues that juveniles should not be waived to adult co urts unless they commit heinous crimes such as murder. To reinforce this assertion, this study will perform a critical analysis of the various arguments presented both for and against transferring juveniles to adult courts. A brief overview of the juvenile court system will also be offered to act as a background for the paper. Juvenile justice system The Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century led to a mushrooming of urban settlements and the number of children living in cities rapidly increased (Sims and Preston 46). Juvenile delinquency became an issue in many cities and the welfare of the urban children became a primary concern. The introduction of a separate system of justice for children borrowed heavily from the ideas proposed by the 18th Century English lawyer, William Blackstone (Yeckel 331).Advertising Looking for term paper on criminology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Blackstone aimed at categoriz ing people based on their ages and thus drawing a line between the age where one could be held accountable for their actions and an age where one was absolved from any crime committed. To a large extent, the earlier advocates of juvenile systems considered themselves to be on a humanitarian mission championing the rights of the children. The major difference between the juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system was that juvenile courts aimed to rehabilitate rather than punish. Core to the courts principles was the mission to help troubled children. This benevolent nature of the system led to an informal and non adversarial approach that was not entangled in the procedural rules and formalities that characterized the criminal court systems. Sim and Preston assert that this open nature was all in line with the ultimate goal of the courts which was to guide the young offender towards life as a responsible and law-abiding adult (48). The lack of well defined procedures mea nt that the juvenile court could take extra-legal factors in deciding on how to handle a case. The primary argument by the proponents of automatic judicial waiver of juvenile court jurisdiction is as a result of the increased juvenile crime and violence. While it is true that juvenile crimes are markedly higher that they were in the previous decades, the same can be said about adult crimes. Allard and Young assert that there is no evidence that young people have become disproportionately more crime prone or dangerous at that than the rest of the population (8). Arguably, the alleged increase in juvenile crime is simply a function of population growth which is not only natural but to be expected. Allard and Young go on to demonstrate that the juvenile arrests for serious violent crimes have remained fairly average over the last 30 years (7). The underlying philosophy behind transferring juveniles to the criminal justice system is that more severe punishment even if at the expense of rehabilitation will result in reduced crime rates and therefore increase the public safety. However, studies indicate that juvenile offenders in the adult system are more likely to re-offend or commit more serious subsequent offenses than those who remain in the juvenile system (Allard Young 4). Youths and young offenders should not be prosecuted through the criminal justice system unless they commit major crimes such as murder. Instead they should be prosecuted through the juvenile justice system.Advertising We will write a custom term paper sample on Young offenders and the Criminal Justice System specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More This is attributed to the fact that juvenile courts are predisposed to have the best interest of the children or youths in consideration and offer some form of defense and rehabilitation for the children in juvenile facilities. As such, the underlying goal of the juvenile system is to guide the young offe nder towards life as a responsible and law-abiding adult (Sim and Preston 56). The arguments on juveniles raised by policy markers in the late 1800s resulted in a consensus that juveniles were developmentally inferior compared to adults and as such, juveniles would no longer be held criminally responsible for their actions (Feld 19; Bakken 14). However, while this attribute of benevolence is hailed by many proponents of the juvenile system, these benign actions have resulted in the lack of accountability for their actions by the youths. Waivers can offset this condition since as Feld comments: The rehabilitative ideal has minimized the significance of the offenses as a dispositional criterion. The emphasis on the best interests of the child has weakened the connection between what a person does and the consequences of that act on the theory that the act is at best only symptomatic of real needs. (Bakken 13). This argument suggests that the treatment of youths in the juvenile system does not lead to the offender feeling accountable for his/her crimes therefore resulting in a lack of liability. This is as opposed to the adult system in which one is held accountable for their crimes and made to pay for them to the maximum extent permissible by the law. In addition, proponents of the waiver to prosecute the youth in the criminal justice system assert that one of the goals for transferring juvenile offenders to the adult criminal courts is to deter them from taking part in criminal activities in future. However, a research carried out by Donna Bishop in 1996 to highlight the differences in outcomes of juvenile courts compared to the criminal courts on youths showed that juvenile offenders who were transferred to the adult courts received more severe sentences than their counterparts in the juvenile system. In addition to this, the findings showed that the transferred youth had higher re-arrest rates (54%) compared with 32% for the youths dealt with by the juvenile courts ( Rosenheim 87).Advertising Looking for term paper on criminology? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More In light of such findings, advocates of the juvenile court systems argue that the taking up of waiving as a means to reduce future crimes is a faulty policy. While the juvenile system may not be flawless, these findings demonstrate that the system has not altogether failed and should therefore be experimented with further. To further reinforce this argument, Watt, Howells and Delfabbro use Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory to explain why individuals commit crimes (150). In this theory, Freud believes that all humans have underlying desires. As such, it is only through socialization that these urges can be controlled. Therefore, a person with poor social skills develops a personality disorder which forces him/her to exhibit antisocial tendencies. Those that bring out these tendencies become criminals while those who suppress them become neurotics. This theory is therefore a proponent to the fact that criminals are social misfits trying to compensate for their weaknesses. B earing this in mind, taking young offenders through the criminal justice system does not help them change but instead, makes them more antisocial thereby increasing their chances of committing more serious offences. As Fisher reiterates, the acts of violence exhibited by youths and young offenders are triggered by their need to empower themselves in a society that constantly undermines them (109). Therefore, the solution should not be prosecuting them but rather, to find solutions to factors that lead them into committing crime. To further support his argument as a proponent of youth prosecutions in the criminal justice system, Bakken states that juveniles are capable of hideous crimes as was demonstrated in the Kent v. United States case. A 16 year old, Morris A. Kent was charged with breaking into a womans apartment, robbing her and raping her (6). The juvenile court system is evidently not equipped to deal with such kind of violent crimes as its sentencing does not include life i mprisonment or even the death penalty. Bakken acknowledges that it is cases such as this that make juvenile transfer not only desirable but necessary so as to enable the offender to be tried on criminal charges (7). The waiving system presents a mode through which these malicious offenders can be kept away from the society therefore preserving social harmony. Without waivers, crimes such as those committed by Kent would only be punished marginally and the offender would be free to rejoin the society after only a few years of incarceration. However, Watt, Howells and Delfabbro disagree with this argument by using the interactionist theory of crime causation which asserts that an individual’s interaction with criminals may psychologically influence him/her to commit crime (147). The theory proposes that the chances of an individual committing crime as a result of peer pressure are significantly high. According to Fisher, constant interactions with criminals play a central role in the development of criminal behaviors (105). The author states that from these associations, individuals are influenced into committing crime and becoming notorious criminals. This theory proposes that a petty offender can become a hardcore criminal through the association with criminals. It assumes that from such interactions, an individual learns how to think, act and react to different situations like a criminal. As such, imprisoning young offenders may invariably make them worse than they were before getting into the system. To this regard, Watt Howells Delfabbro propose a more positive approach whereby young petty offenders are enrolled in the juvenile justice system where there are positive reinforcement programs that may help them change their behaviors (143). However, Gaines and Miller argue that criminal convictions carry with them a certain stigma as a person is marked as a felon for the rest of their lives (62). The authors suggest that this stigmatization by the soci ety is in fact healthy as it also adds to the deterrence factor since people do not want to be viewed as social misfits. The juvenile court system is structured in such a way that these long-term consequences to the offender are not present. In as much as this statement holds true, adult conviction also results in some socioeconomic consequences such as the person being compelled to report their conviction on job application or being barred from particular types of jobs. These factors have serious psychological effects on an individual. For example, no matter how much an individual is trying to change his/her ways, the criminal records and the social limitations associated with them will never go away. As such, these realities often foster feelings of frustration and other antisocial tendencies. These are key factors that may lead an individual into causing crime as a means of acting-out. These bleak realities further support the statement that youth offenders should not be go throu gh the criminal justice system and that other alternatives should be found. The rationale behind the establishment of the juvenile system was to protect the interests of the children who were deemed as being less liable than adults since they were morally and emotionally less developed (Rosenheim 91). This almost paternal view is the main difference between juvenile courts and criminal courts whereby the juvenile courts emphasis on the best interests of the violators. By indiscriminately waiving juvenile offenders to the adult court system, the criminal justice system will have failed in its initial goal which was to protect the interest of young offenders and hopefully rehabilitate them into useful members of the society. However, it can be argued that the juvenile system was established in an era when the capability and emotional intelligence of the youth developed at a fairly slower pace. In the modern era, children are exposed to all kinds of information which result in greater understanding. As such, the laws should be amended to accommodate these new realities. Conclusion This study set out to argue that juveniles should not be waived to adult courts. To underscore this point, the paper has performed a brief overview of the juvenile system in America as well as an in-depth analysis of the arguments forwarded both for and against waivers. However, this paper has clearly demonstrated that there are other means through with juvenile criminality can be tackled. Considering the risk that waivers could results in the conversion of juvenile offenders into hardcore criminals, the evidence in this paper suggests that more intervention-based measures should be implemented to ensure that young offenders do not get into the criminal justice system unless they commit heinous crimes. Allard, Patricia and Malcolm Young. Prosecuting Juveniles in Adult Court: Perspectives for Policymakers and Practitioners, 2002. Web. njjn.org/ Bakken, Nicholas. (2007). You do the Crime , You do the Time: A Socio-Legal History of the Juvenile Court and Transfer Waivers, 2002. Web. Burrow, John. (2005). Punishing Serious Juvenile Offenders: A Case Study of Michigans Prosecutorial Waiver Status, 2002. Web. https://jjlp.law.ucdavis.edu/archives/vol-9-no-1/01_Burrow.pdf Cole, George and Cristopher Smith. The American System of Criminal Justice. New York : Cengage Learning, 2006. Print. Fisher, Bonnie. â€Å"Crime Prevention.† Journal of Security Education 2.1 (2006): 103 – 111. Print. Gaines, Larry and Roger Miller. Criminal Justice in Action. New York: Cengage Learning, 2006. Print. Rosenheim, Margaret. A Century of Juvenile Justice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Print. Sims, Barbara and Pamela Preston. Handbook of Juvenile Justice: Theory and Practice. California: CRC Press, 2006. Print. Watt, Bruce, Kevin Howells and Paul Delfabbro. (2004). â€Å"Juvenile Recidivism: Criminal Propensity, Social Control and Social Learning Theories.† Psychiatry, Psychology and Law 11.1 (2004): 141 – 153. Print. Yeckel, Josef. â€Å"Violent Juvenile Offenders: Rethinking Federal Intervention in Juvenile Justice.† Journal of Urban and Contemporary Law 51 (1997): 331. Print.

Ameican wilderness Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Ameican wilderness - Essay Example In the given paper will discuss the records of the two governors of early American colonies. William Bradford (1590-1657) is known as an American colonial ruler and a Pilgrim head. He became famous due to great number of facts. The most important achievements of Bradford are the foundation of Plymouth Colony and the establishing peaceful relations with Native Americans (Perkins, 2006). The record of William Bradford tells us about the Pilgrims’ arrival in 1620: â€Å"being thus arrived in a good harbor and brought safe to land, they fell upon their knees & blessed ye God of heaven, who had brought them over ye vast & furious ocean, and delivered them from all ye perils & miseries thereof, again to set their feet on ye firmer and stable earth, their proper element† (Bradford (Edited by Samuel Eliot Morison, 1967) Their primary goal was to find a place where they would become independent in their religious belief. Pilgrims considered Virginia to be a right place for them. However, they arrived in the place where there was no government, so they had to form it. M ayflower Compact, a document created by Pilgrims, became a record of the new laws and William Bradford was appointed as a leader. From the Bradford’s record we find out that the new conditions differed much from the life the Pilgrims got used to. It was very difficult for people to survive the first winter, which was extremely cold. Bradford understood that the help of Native Americans was essential, so he established the agreement with the Wamponoag tribe head. This tribe was one of the friendly tribes, which helped new Americans adopt to the new life. Bradford was the organizer of the first Thanksgiving Day held in order to thank Native Americans for their help. Bradford wrote in his records, that â€Å"†¦and no marvel if they were thus joyful, seeing wise  Seneca  was so affected with sailing a few miles on ye coast of his own  Italy; as he affirmed, that he had rather

Sprung rhythm in The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins Essay

Sprung rhythm in The Windhover by Gerard Manley Hopkins - Essay Example At first glance the structure can seem confusing with the sentences half finished and the verbs, adjectives, and nouns all mixed together without flow. However, this is part of Hopkins’s skill by being â€Å"fully in control of the energies of his sprung rhythm† (Rumens 2011). Carol Rumens sees this rhythm as allowing the poet to set the words â€Å"soaring across the first seven lines of the octet† (2011). Also, all the â€Å"ing† endings in the first eight lines act to unify and tie together the first stanza; just like the way the bird is inseparable from itself and its action so too are the words from their lines. For example, the bird is perfectly absorbed and engrossed in its act of â€Å"riding Of the rolling level underneath him steady air† (Hopkins lines 2-3). It merges and becomes one with the wind, just like all the different words fuse together and become one with the rhythm of the sonnet. Sprung rhythm also charges the lines with verbs t rying to capture the intensity of the bird’s actions. It gives the sentences a controlled speed, highlighting the way the bird pauses and abruptly springs into action.

The divine comedy Essay Example for Free

The divine comedy Essay One may ask whether or not the scriptwriters or directors of the movies to be mentioned in this paper were able to actually read the Divine comedy; or perhaps the depiction of Heaven, hell, and the purgatory made my Dante was simply so vivid that it has become a staple of the mainstream literary views (in all its modes). Let us begin with the scenery comparison of Heaven and hell as depicted in the â€Å"What Dreams May Come† (1998) and that of Dante’s Hell and Paradise. The protagonist of the film named Chris awoke in a garden called Summerland, which if we would view using Dante’s paradise is quite similar to the Garden of Eden portrayed in the book. In travelling to hell in order to rescue his wife, he was accompanied by a guardian angel (similar to Virgil in a loose kind of way). The parallelism is heightened when we see that the hell in the film reflects the same coldness, and eerie feeling as that of Dante’s Inferno. In terms of storyline, we ought to refer to the film entitled the Purgatory (1999), the setting is different in a sense that it was set in Wild West, and the place of judgment is a town. Those who are yet to gain entry in heaven are sent to the said town to repent their sins by changing the way they lived. They are to resist temptations as well as go to church to repent, or perhaps it was to reflect on their sins. This is similar to how Dante portrayed the souls in his purgatory. In a way that, both depictions showed experience of toiling to make amends for one’s sins, waiting for judgment to come, and the fulfillment of one’s punishment for his shortcomings in his lifetime in order to be allowed passage into paradise. Lastly, the eternal suffering of the condemned in hell is a theme of Dante’s Inferno that can be seen in the comedy Little Nicky (2000), wherein one’s sins receives the tantamount turmoil in hell. We could also take reference to the angels in the said film that implied the dominance of femininity in the gates of heaven like that of Dante’s Paradise i. e. Beatrice et al. Reference: Dante Alghieri, The Divine Comedy: Inferno; Purgatorio; Paradiso, One Vol. Ed. Everyman’s Library, (1995).

Ambrose Bierces An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge Essay example -- Bi

Ambrose Bierce's â€Å"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge† â€Å"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge,† by Ambrose Bierce, is the story of the hanging of a Civil War era Southern gentleman by the name of Peyton Farquhar. The story begins with an unidentified man being prepared to be hanged by a company of Union soldiers on a railroad bridge that runs over a river. He is then identified as Peyton Farquhar, a man who attempted to destroy the very bridge they are standing on based on information he was given by a Federal scout posing as a Confederate soldier. As he is dropped from the bridge to hang, the rope snaps and he falls into the river. After freeing himself and returning to the surface of the river, he realizes that his senses are all much heightened and he even â€Å"noted the prismatic colors in all the dewdrops upon a million blades of grass† (153). Peyton then begins to swim downstream as he is being shot at by the soldiers and a cannon as well. He soon pulls himself ashore and begins the long journey home. After walking all day and night, to the point where â€Å"his tongue was swollen with thirst† and â€Å"he could no longer feel the roadway beneath his feet† he finally makes it to his home (155). Just as he is about to embrace his wife he feels a sharp pain in his neck and hears a loud snap. He is dead from the hanging, and all this was just a dream. â€Å"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge† shows the potential strength that a person’s will to live can have, and that we often don’t appreciate...

Structural Functional Approach

Retrieved from: http://www. cifas. us/smith/chapters. html Title: â€Å"A structural approach to comparative politics. † Author(s): M. G. Smith Source: In Varieties of Political Theory. David Easton, ed. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. p. 113-128. Reprinted in Corporations and Society. p. 91-105. FIVE M. G. SMITH University of California, Los Angeles A Structural Approach to Comparative Politics Comparative politics seeks to discover regularities and variations of political organization by comparative analysis of historical and contemporary systems.Having isolated these regularities and variations, it seeks to determine the factors which underlie them, in order to discover the properties and conditions of polities of varying types. It then seeks to reduce these observations to a series of interconnected propositions applicable to all these systems in both static and changing conditions. Hopefully, one can then enquire how these governmental processes relate to the wider m ilieux of which they are part. It would seem that this comparative enquiry may be pursued i~. various ways that all share the same basic strategy, but differ in emphases arid sta~ ­ ing points.Their common strategy is to abstract one aspect of political reality and develop it as a frame of reference. With this variable held constant, enquiries can seek to determine the limits within which other dimensions vary; as the value of the primary variable is changed, the forms and values of the others, separately or together, can also be investigated. Ideally, we should seek to deduce relevant hypotheses from a general body of theory, and then to check and refine them by inductive analyses of historical and ethnographic data. ActuaJ procedures vary. 113 114 /A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS Initially, we might expect anyone of four approaches to be useful in the comparative study of political systems. These four approaches use respectively the dimensions of process, content, function, and form as the bases for their conceptual frameworks. In fact, cOlIlparative studies based on process and content face insuperable obstacles due to the enormous variability of political systems. In centralized polities, the institutional processes of government are elaborately differentiated, discrete, and easy to identify.They are often the subject, as well as the source, of a more or less complex and precise body of rules which may require specialists to interpret them. In simpler societies, the corresponding processes are rarely differentiated and discrete. They normally occur within the context of institutional activities with multiple functions, and are often difficult to abstract and segregate for analysis as self-contained processual systems. Before this is possible, we need independent criteria to distinguish the governmental and nongovernmental dimensions of these institutional forms.The substantive approach rests on the category of content. By the con.. tent of a governmental system, I mean its specific substantive concerns and resources, whether material, human, or symbolic. As a rule, the more differentiated and complex the governmental processes are, the greater the range and complexity of content. This follows because the content and processes of government vary together. Since both these frameworks are interdependent and derivative, both presuppose independent criteria for identifying government. The functional approach avoids these limitations.It defines government functionally as all those activities which influence â€Å"the way in which authoritative decisions are formulated and executed for a society. â€Å"l From this starting point, various refined conceptual schemes can be developed. As requisites or implications of these decisional processes, David Easton identifies five modes of action as necessary elements of all political systems: legislation, administration, adjudication, the development of demands, and the development of support and solidarity. They may be grouped as input and output requisites of governmental systems.According to Almond, the universally necessary inputs are political socialization and recruitment, interest articulation, interest aggregation, and political communication. As outputs, he states that rule making, rule application, and rule adjudication are all universa1. 2 Neither of these categorical schemes specifies foreign relations and defense, which are two very general governmental concerns; nor is it easy to see how these schemes could accommodate political processes in non-societal units. Such deductive models suffer from certain inexplicit assumptions with1David Easton, â€Å"An Approach to the Analysis of Political Systems,† World Politics, IX, No. 3 (1957), 384. 2 Gabriel Almond, â€Å"Introduction† to Almond and James S. Coleman, The Politics of the Developing Areas (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1961). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITIC S / 115 out which the initial exclusive stress on political functions might be im- . possible. But despite their universal claims, it remains to be shown that Bushmen, Pygmies, or Eskimos have governments which are functionally homologous with those of the United States and the Soviet Union.Legislation, rule adjudication, and interest articulation are categories appropriate to the discussion of complex, modern polities rather than simple, primitive ones. But the problem which faces the student of comparative politics is to develop a conceptual framework useful and applicable to all. To impute the features and conditions of modern polities to the less differentiated primitive systems is virtually to abandon the central problem of comparative politics. The functional approach, as usually presented, suffers from a further defect: It assumes a rather special ensemble of structural conditions.When â€Å"authoritative decisions are formulated and executed for a society,† this unit must be territorially delimited and politically centralized. The mode of centralization should also endow government with â€Å"more-or-Iess legitimate physical compulsion. â€Å"3 In short, the reality to which the model refers is the modern nation-state. By such criteria, ethnography shows that the boundaries of many societies are fluctuating and obscure, and that the authoritative status of decisions made in and for them are even more so.Clearly bounded societies with centralized authority systems are perhaps a small minority of the polities with which we have to deal. A structural approach free of these functional presumptions may thus be useful, but only if it can accommodate the full range of political systems and elucidate the principles which underlie their variety. In this paper, I shall only indicate the broad outlines of this approach. I hope to present it more fully in the future. Government is the regulation of public affairs.This regulation is a set of processes whic h defines government functionally, and which also identifies its content as the affairs which are regulated, and the resources used to regulate them. It does not seem useful or necessary to begin a comparative study of governmental systems by deductive theories which predicate their minimum universal content, requisites, or features. The critical element in government is its public character. Without a public, there can be neither public affairs nor processes to regulate them.Moreover, while all governments presuppose publics, all publics have governments for the management of their affairs. The nature of these publics is therefore the first object of study. Publics vary in scale, composition, and character, and it is reasonable to suppose that their common affairs and regulatory arrangements will vary correspondingly. The first task of a structural approach to comparative politics is thus to identify the properties of a public and to indicate the principal varieties and bases of pu blics. 3 Almond, â€Å"Introduction,† p. . 116 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS As I use the term, public does not include mobs, crowds, casual assemblies, or mass-communication audiences. It does not refer to such categories as resident aliens, the ill, aged, or unwed, or to those social segments which lack common affairs and organized procedures to regulate them-for example, slaves, some clans, and unenfranchised strata such as the medieval serfs or the harijans of India. Such categories are part of one or more publics; they are not separate publics of their own.For example, in an Indian village, a medieval manor, or a slave plantation, members of the disprivileged categories constitute a public only if they form an enduring group having certain common affairs and the organization and autonomy necessary to regulate them; but the existence of such local publics is not in itself sufficient for the strata from which their memberships are drawn to have the status of publics. For this to be the case, these local publics must be organized into a single group co-extensive with the stratum. With such organization, we shall expect to find a set of common affairs and procedures to regulate them.The organization is itself an important common affair and a system of institutional procedures. By a public, then, I mean an enduring, presumably perpetual group with determinate boundaries and membership, having an internal organization and a unitary set of external relations, an exclusive body of common affairs, and autonomy and procedures adequate to regulate them. It will be evident that a public can neither come into being nor maintain its existence without some set of procedures by which it regulates its internal and external affairs. These procedures together form the governmental process of the public.Mobs, crowds, and audiences are not publics, because they lack presumptive continuity, internal organization, common affairs, procedures, and autonom y. For this reason, they also lack the determinate boundaries and membership which are essential for a durable group. While the categories mentioned above are fixed and durable, they also lack the internal organization and procedures which constitute a group. When groups are constituted so that their continuity, identity, autonomy, organization, and exclusive affairs are not disturbed by the entrance or exit of their individual members, they have the character of a public.The city of Santa Monica shares these properties with the United States, the Roman Catholic Church, Bushman bands, the dominant caste of an Indian village, the Mende Pora, an African lineage, a Nahuatl or Slavonic village community, Galla and Kikuyu age-sets, societies among the Crow and Hidatsa Indians, universities, medieval guilds, chartered companies, regiments, and such â€Å"voluntary† associations as the Yoruba Ogboni, the Yako lkpungkara, and the American Medical Association. The units just listed ar e all publics and all are corporate groups; the governmental process inherent in publics is a feature of all corporate groups.Corporate groups-Maine's â€Å"corporations aggregate†-are one species of â€Å"perfect† or fully-fledged corporation, the other being the â€Å"corporation A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 117 sole† exemplified by such offices as the American Presidency, the British Crown, the Papacy, governorships, chieftaincies, and university chancellorships. Corporations sole and corporate groups share the following characteristics, all of which are necessary for â€Å"perfect† or full corporate status: identity, presumed perpetuity, closure and membership, autonomy within a given sphere, exclusive common affairs, set procedures, and organization.The first four of these qualities are formal and primarily external in their reference; they define the unit in relation to its context. The last four conditions are processual and func tional, and primarily internal in their reference. The main differences between corporations sole and corporate groups are structural, though developmental differences are also important. Corporate groups are pluralities to which an unchanging unity is ascribed; viewed externally, each forms â€Å"one person,† as Fortes characterized the Ashanti matrilineages. This external indivisibility of the corporate group is not merely a jural postulate. It inevitably presumes and involves governmental processes within the group. In contrast with a corporate group, an office is a unique status having only one incumbent at any given time. Nonetheless, successive holders of a common office are often conceived of and addressed as a group. The present incumbent is merely one link in a chain of indefinite extent, the temporary custodian of all the properties, powers, and privileges which constitute the office.As such, incumbents may legitimately seek to aggrandize their offices at the expens e of similar units or of the publics to which these offices relate; but they are not personally authorized to alienate or reduce the rights and powers of the status temporarily entrusted to them. The distinction between the capital of an enterprise and the personalty of its owners is similar to the distinction between the office and its incumbent. It is this distinction that enables us to distinguish ffices from other personal statuses most easily. It is very possible that in social evolution the corporate group preceded the corporation sole. However, once authority is adequately centralized, offices tend to become dominant; and then we often find that offices are instituted in advance of the publics they will regulate or represent, as, for example, when autocrats order the establishment of new towns, settlements, or colonies under officials designated to set up and administer them.There are many instances in which corporate groups and offices emerge and develop in harmony and congr uence, and both may often lapse at once as, for example, when a given public is conquered and assimilated. These developmental relations are merely one aspect of the very variable but fundamental relation between offices and corporate groups. Despite Weber, there are a wide range of corporate groups which lack stable leaders, 4 Meyer Fortes, â€Å"Kinship and Marriage among the Ashanti,† in African Sys- tems of Kinship and Marriage, eds. A. R.Radcliffe-Brown and Daryll Forde (London: Oxford University Press, 1950), pp. 254-61. 118 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS much less official heads. Others may have senior members whose authority is at best advisory and representative; yet others have a definite council or an official head, or both. In many cases, we have to deal with a public constituted by a number of coordinate corporate groups of similar type. The senior members of these groups may form a collegial body to administer the common affairs of the public, w ith variable powers.Ibo and Indian village communities illustrate this well. In such contexts, where superordinate offices emerge, they often have a primarily sacred symbolic quality, as do the divine kingships of the Ngonde and Shilluk, but lack effective secular control. Between this extreme and an absolute despotism, there are a number of differing arrangements which only a comparative structural analysis may reduce to a single general order. Different writers stress different features of corporate organization, and sometimes employ these to â€Å"explain† these social forms.Weber, who recognizes the central role of corporate groups in political systems, fails to distinguish them adequately from offices (or â€Å"administrative organs,† as he calls them). 5 For Weber, corporate groups are defined by coordinated action under leaders who exercise de facto powers of command over them. The inadequacy of this view is patent when Barth employs it as the basis for denying to lineages and certain other units the corporate status they normally have, while reserving the term corporate for factions of a heterogeneous and contingent character. Maine, on the other hand, stresses the perpetuity of the corporation and its inalienable bundle of rights and obligations, the estate with which it is indentified. 7 For Gierke,s Durkheim,9 and Davis,10 corporate groups are identified by their common will, collective conscienc~, and group personality. For Goody, only named groups holding material property in common are corporate. 1! These definitions all suffer from overemphasis on some elements, and corresponding inattention to others. The common action characteristic of corporate groups rarely embraces the application of violence which both Weber and Barth seem to stress.Mass violence often proceeds independ5 Max Weber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organization, trans. A. R. Henderson and Talcott Parsons (London: Wm. Hodge & Co. , 1947), pp. 133-37, 302-5. 6 Fredrik Barth, Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. Monographs in Social Anthropology, London School of Economics, No. 19 (London: University of London Press, 1959). 7 H. S. Maine, Ancient Law (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1904), p. 155. S Otto Gierke, Natural Law and the Theory of Society, 1500 to 1800, trans. Ernest Barker (Boston: Beacon Press, 1957). Emile Durkheim, The Division of Labour in Society, trans. George E. Simpson (New York: Free Press of Glencoe, Inc. , 1933). 10 John P. Davis, Corporations (New York: Capricorn Books, 1961), p. 34. 11 Jack Goody, â€Å"The Classification of Double Descent Systems,† Current Anthropology; II, No. 1 (1961), 5, 22-3. A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 119 ently of corporate groups. Corporate action is typically action to regulate corporate affairs-that is, to exercise and protect corporate rights, to enforce corporate obligations, and to allocate corporate responsibilities and privileges.When a group hol ds a common estate, this tenure and its exercise inevitably involve corporate action, as does any ritual in which the members or representatives of the group engage as a unit. Even the maintenance of the group's identity and closure entails modes of corporate action, the complexity and implications of which vary with the situation. It is thus quite fallacious to identify corporate action solely with coordinated physical movements. A chorus is not a corporate group.The presumed perpetuity, boundedness, determinate membership, and identity of a corporation, all more or less clearly entail one another, as do its requisite features of autonomy, organization, procedure, and common affairs. It is largely because of this interdependence and circularity among their elements that corporations die so hard; but by the same token, none of these elements alone can constitute or maintain a corporation. An office persists as a unit even if it is not occupied, providing that the corpus of rights, r esponsibilities, and powers which constitute it still persists.To modify or eliminate the office, it is necessary to modify. or eliminate its content. Among ! Kung bushmen, bands persist as corporate groups even when they have no members or heads12 ; these bands are units holding an inalienable estate of water holes, veldkos areas, etc. , and constitute the fixed points of ! Kung geography and society. The Bushman's world being constituted by corporate bands, the reconstitution of these bands is unavoidable, whenever their dissolution makes this necessary.As units which are each defined by an exclusive universitas juris, corporations provide the frameworks of law and authoritative regulation for the societies that they constitute. The corporate estate includes rights in the persons of its members as well as in material or incorporeal goods. In simpler societies, the bulk of substantive law consists in these systems of corporate right and obligation, and includes the conditions and c orrelates of membership in corporate groups of differing type. In such societies, adjectival law consists in the usual modes of corporate procedure. To a much greater extent than is commonly ealized, this is also the case with modern societies. The persistence, internal autonomy, and structural uniformity of the corporations which constitute the society ensure corresponding uniformity in its jural rules and their regular application over space and time. As modal units of social process and structure, corporations provide the framework in which the jural aspects of social relations are defined and enforced. Tribunals are merely functionally specific corporations charged with handling issues of certain kinds. Neither tribunals nor â€Å"the systematic ap12 Lorna Marshall, â€Å"! Kung Bushmen Bands,† A/rica, XXX (1960), 325- 5). 120 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS plication of the force of politically organized society†13 are necessary or sufficient for t he establishment of law. The law of a primitive society consists in its traditional procedures and modes of corporate action, and is implicit in the traditional rights, obligations, and conditions of corporate membership. In such societies, units which hold the same type of corporate estate are structurally homologous, and are generally articulated in such a way that each depends on the tacit recognition or active support of its fellows to maintain and enjoy its estate.Thus, in these simpler systems, social order consists in the regulation of relations between the constitutive corporations as well as within them. In societies which lack central political organs, societal boundaries coincide with the maximum range of an identical corporate constitution, on the articulation of which the social order depends. Though the component corporations are all discrete, they are also interdependent. But they may be linked together in a number of different ways, with consequent differences in the ir social systems.In some cases, functionally distinct corporations may be classified together in purely formal categories, such as moieties, clans, or castes. The Kagoro of northern Nigeria illustrate this. 14 In other cases, corporations which are formally and functionally distinct may form a wider public having certain common interests and affairs. The LoDagaba of northern Ghana and Upper Volta are an example. 15 In still other cases, corporations are linked individually to one another in a complex series of alliances and associations, with overlapping margins in such a way that they all are related, directly or indirectly, in the same network.Fortes has given us a very detailed analysis of such a system among the Tallensi. 16 However they are articulated in societies which lack central institutions, it is the extensive replication of these corporate forms which defines the unit as a separate system. Institutional uniformities, which include similarities of organization, ideology , and procedure, are quite sufficient to give these acephalous societies systemic unity, even where, as among the Kachins of Burma, competing institutional forms divide the allegiance of their members. 7 To say that corporations provide the frameworks of primitive law, and that the tribunals of modem societies are also corporate forms, is simply to say that corporations are the central agencies for the regulation of public affairs, being themselves each a separate public or organ, administering certain affairs, and together constituting wider publics or associations of publics 13 Roscoe Pound, Readings on the History and System 0/ the Common Law, 2nd ed. (Boston: Dunster House Bookshop, 1913), p. 4. 14 M. G.Smith, â€Å"Kagoro Political Development,† Human Organization, XIX, No. 3 (1960), 37-49. 15 Jack Goody, â€Å"Fields of Social Control among the LoDagaba,† Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, LXXXVII, Part I (1957),75-104. 16 Meyer Fortes, The Dynamics 0/ Clanship among the Tallensi (London: Oxford University Press, 1945). 17 E. R. Leach, Political Systems of Highland Burma (London: G. Bell & Sons, Ltd. , 1954). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 121 for others. By the same token, they are the sources or frameworks of disorder.In some acephalous societies, disorder seems more or less perennial, and consists mainly in strife within and between corporations. Centralization, despite its merits, does not really exclude disorder. In concentrating authority, it simultaneously concentrates the vulnerability of the system. Accordingly, in centralized societies, serious conflicts revolve around the central regulative structures, as, for instance, in secessionist or revolutionary struggles, dynastic or religious wars, and â€Å"rituals of rebellion. â€Å"18 Such conflicts with or for central power normally affect the entire social body.In acephalous societies, on the other hand, conflicts over the regime may proceed in one r egion without implicating the others. 19 In both the centralized and decentralized systems, the sources and objects of conflict are generally corporate. Careful study of Barth's account of the Swat Pathans shows that this is true for them also, although the aggregates directly contraposed are factions and blocs. 20 Societal differences in the scale, type, and degree of order and coordination, or in the frequency, occasions, and forms of social conflict are important data and problems for political science.To analyze them adequately, one must use a comparative structural approach. Briefly, recent work suggests that the quality and modes of order in any social system reflect its corporate constitution-that is, the variety of corporate types which constitute it, their distinctive bases and properties, and the way in which they are related to one another. The variability of political systems which derives from this condition is far more complex and interesting than the traditional dicho tomy of centralized and noncentralized systems would suggest.I have already indicated some important typological differences within the category of acephalous societies; equally significant differences within the centralized category are familiar to all. This traditional dichotomy assumes that centralization has a relatively clear meaning, from which a single, inclusive scale may be directly derived. This assumption subsumes a range of problems which require careful study; but in any event, centralization is merely one aspect of political organization, and not necessarily the most revealing.Given variability in the relations between corporations sole and corporate groups, and in their bases and forms, it seems more useful to distinguish systems according to their structural simplicity or complexity, by reference to · the variety of corporate units of differing forms, bases, and functions which they contain, and the principles which serve to articulate them. Patently, such differen ces in composition imply differences in the relational networks in which these corporations articulate. Such ifferences in structural composition simultaneously describe the variety of political forms 18 Max Gluckman, Rituals of Rebellion in South East Africa (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1954); â€Å"Introduction† to Gluckman, Order and Rebellion in Tribal Africa (London: Cohen & West, 1963). 19 Leach, Political Systems 0/ Highland Burma. 20 Barth, Political Leadership among Swat Pathans. 122 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS and processes, and explain differences in the scale, order, and coordination of polities.This is so because corporate organization provides the framework, content, and procedures for the regulation of public affairs. For this reason, the analysis of corporate structure should be the first task in the case study of a political system and in comparative work. For many political scientists, the concept of sovereignty is essential as the foundation of governmental order and autonomy. In my view, this notion is best dispensed with. It is a hindrance rather than a help to analysis, an unhappy solution of a very real problem which has been poorly formulated. In a system of sovereign states, no state is sovereign.As etymology shows, the idea of sovereignty derives from the historically antecedent condition of personal dominion such as kingship, and simply generalizes the essential features of this form as an ideology appropriate to legitimate and guide other forms of centralization. The real problem with which the notion of sovereignty deals is the relation between autonomy and coordination. As the fundamental myth of the modern nation-state, the concept is undoubtedly important in the study of these states; its historical or analytical usefulness is otherwise very doubtful.It seems best to formulate the problems of simultaneous coordination and autonomy in neutral terms. As units administering exclusive common a ffairs, corporations presuppose well-defined spheres and levels of autonomy, which are generally no more nor less than the affairs of these units require for their adequate regulation. Where a corporation fully subsumes all the juridical rights of its members so that their corporate identification is exclusive and lifelong, the tendencies toward autarchy are generally greatest, the stress on internal autonomy most pronounced, and relations between corporations most brittle.This seems to be the case with certain types of segmentary lineage systems, such as the Tallensi. Yet even in these conditions, and perhaps to cope with them, we usually find institutional bonds of various types such as ritual cooperation, local community, intermarriage, clanship, and kinship which serve to bind the autarchic individual units into a series of wider publics, or a set of dyadic or triadic associations, the members of which belong to several such publics simultaneously.Weber's classification of corpo rate groups as heteronomous or autonomous, heterocephalous or autocephalous, touches only those aspects of this problem in which he was directly interested. 21 We need also to analyze and compare differing levels, types, and degrees of autonomy and dependence in differing social spheres and situations. From comparative studies of these problems, we may hope to derive precise hypotheses about the conditions and limits of corporate autonomy and articulation in systems of differing composition and span. These hypotheses should also illuminate the conditions and limits of social disorder.Besides the â€Å"perfect† or fully-fledged corporations, offices and corpo21 Weber, Theory 0/ Social and Economic Organization, pp. 135-36. A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 123 rate groups, there are â€Å"imperfect† quasicorporations with must also be studied explicitly. The two main forms here are the corporate category and the commission. A corporate category is a clearl y bounded, identifiable, and permanent aggregate which differs from the corporate group in lacking exclusive common affairs, autonomy, procedures adequate for their regulation, and the internal organization which constitutes the group.Viewed externally, acephalous societies may be regarded as corporate categories in their geographical contexts, since each lacks a single inclusive frame of organization. But they are categories of a rather special type, since, as we have seen, their institutional uniformity provides an effective basis for functional unity. In medieval Europe, serfs formed a corporate category even though on particular manors they may have formed corporate groups.Among the Turkana22 and Karimojong23 of East Africa, age-sets are corporate categories since they lack internal organization, exclusive affairs, distinctive procedures, and autonomy. Among the nearby Kipsigi24 and Nandi25 clans are categorical units. These clans have names and identifying symbols, a determinat e membership recruited by agnatic descent, certain ritual and social prohibitions of which exogamy is most important, and continuity over time; but they lack internal organization, common affairs, procedures and autonomy to regulate them.Though they provide a set of categories into which all members of these societies are distributed, they never function as social groups. Not far to the south, in Ruanda, the subject Hutu caste formed a corporate category not so long ago. 26 This â€Å"caste† had a fixed membership, closure, easy identification, and formed a permanent structural unit in the Tutsi state. Rutu were excluded from the political process, as a category and almost to a man. They lacked any inclusive internal organization, exclusive affairs, autonomy, or procedures to regulate them.Under their Tutsi masters, they held the status of serfs; but when universal suffrage was recently introduced, Rutu enrolled in political parties such as the Parmehutu Aprosoma which succee ded in throwing off the Tutsi yoke and expelling the monarchy. 27 In order to become corporate groups, corporate categories need to develop an effective representative organization, such for instance as may now be emerging among American Negroes. In the American case, this corporate category is seeking to organize itself in order to remove the disprivileges which define it as a category.Some corporate 22 Philip Gulliver, â€Å"The Turkana Age Organization,† American Anthropologist, LX (1958), 900-922. 23 Neville Dyson-Hudson, to author, 1963. 24 J. G. Peristiany, The Social Institutions of the Kipsigis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1939). 25 G. W. B. Huntingford, The Nandi of Kenya (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. , 1953). 26 J. J. Maquet, The Premise of Inequality in Ruanda (London: Oxford University Press, 1960). 27 Marcel d'Hertefelt, â€Å"Les Elections Communales et Ie Consensus Politique au Rwanda,† Zaire, XIV, Nos. -6 (1960), 403-38. 124 / A STRUC TURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS categories are thus merely formal units lacking common functions; others are defined by common disabilities and burdens, though lacking common affairs. Under Islam, the dhimmi formed such a category; in India, so do the individual castes. The disabilities and prohibitions which define categories are not always directly political; they include exogamy and ritual taboos. Commissions differ from offices along lines which recall the differences between corporate categories and corporate groups.Like categories, commissions fall into two main classes: one class includes ad hoc and normally discontinuous capacities of a vaguely defined character, having diffuse or specific objects. The other class includes continuing series of indefinite number, the units of which are all defined in such general terms as to appear structurally and functionally equivalent and interchangeable. Familiar examples of the latter class are military commissions, magistracies, professorships, and priesthoods; but the sheiks and sa'ids of Islam belong here also.Examples of the first class, in which the powers exercised are unique but discontinuous and ill-defined, include parliamentary commissions of enquiry or other ad hoc commissions, and plenipotentiaries commissioned to negotiate special arrangements. In some societies, such as the Eskimo, Bushman, and Nuer, individuals having certain gifts may exercise informal commissions which derive support and authority from public opinion. The Nuer â€Å"bull,† prophet, and leopard-skin priests are examples. 28 Among the Eskimos, the shaman and the fearless hunter-warrior have similar positions. 9 The persistence of these commissions, despite turnover of personnel and their discontinuous action, is perhaps the best evidence of their importance in these social systems. For their immediate publics, such commissions personalize social values of high relevance and provide agencies for ad hoc regulation and gu idance of action. In these humble forms, we may perceive the seeds of modern bureaucracy. Commissions are especially important as regulatory agencies in social movements under charismatic leaders, and during periods of popular unrest.The charismatic leadership is itself merely the supreme directing commission. As occasion requires, the charismatic leader creates new commissions by delegating authority and power to chosen individuals for special tasks. The careers of Gandhi, Mohammed, Hitler, and Shehu Usumanu dan Fodio in Hausaland illustrate this pattern well. So does the organization and development of the various Melanesian â€Å"cargo cults. â€Å"30 But if the commission is to be institutionalized as a unit of permanent administration, its arbitrary 28 E. E. Evans-Pritchard, The Nuer (London: Oxford University Press, 940). 29 Kaj Birket-Smith, The Eskimo (London: Meuthuen & Co. , Ltd. , 1960); V. Stefansson, My Life with the Eskimo (New York: The Crowell-Collier Publishing Co . , 1962). 80 Peter Worsley, The Trumpet Shall Sound (London: McGibbon & Kee, 1957). A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVB POLma / 125 character must be replaced by set rules, procedures, and spheres of action; this institutionalization converts the commission into an office in the same way that its organization converts the corporate category into a corporate group.Moreover, in the processes by which corporate categories organize themselves as groups, charismatic leadership and its attached commissions are the critical agencies. The current movement for civil rights among American Negroes illustrates this neatly. Any given public may include offices, commissions, corporate categories, and corporate groups of differing bases and type. In studying governmental systems, we must therefore begin by identifying publics and analyzing their internal constitution as well as their external relationships in these terms.It is entirely a matter of convenience whether we choose to begin with the smallest units and work outwards to the limits of their relational systems, or to proceed in the opposite direction. Given equal thoroughness, the results should be the same in both cases. Any governmental unit is corporate, and any public may include, wholly or in part, a number of such corporations. These units and their interrelations together define the internal order and constitution of the public and its network of external relations.Both in the analysis of particular systems and in comparative work, we should therefore begin by determining the corporate composition of the public under study, by distinguishing its corporate groups, offices, commissions, and categories, and by defining their several properties and features. As already mentioned, we may find, in some acephalous societies, a series of linked publics with intercalary corporations and overlapping margins. We may also find that a single corporate form, such as the Mende Para or the Roman Catholic Church, cuts across a number of quite distinct and mutually independent publics.An alternative mode of integration depends on the simultaneous membership of individuals in several distinct corporations of differing constitution, interest and kind. Thus, an adult Yako81 simultaneously belongs to a patrilineage, a matrilineage, an age-set in his ward, the ward (which is a distinct corporate group), one or more functionally specific corporate associations at the ward or village level, and the village, which is the widest public. Such patterns of overlapping and dispersed membership may characterize both individuals and corporations equally.The corporations will then participate in several discrete publics, each with its exclusive affairs, autonomy, membership, and procedures, just as the individual participates in several corporations. It is this dispersed, multiple membership which is basic to societal unity, whether or not government is centralized. Even though the inclusive public with a centralized a uthority system is a corporate group, and a culturally distinct population 81Daryll Forde, Yako Studies (London: Oxford University Press, 1964); Kenneth Little, The -Mende of Sierra Leone (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, Ltd. 1951). 126 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS without this remains a corporate category, functionally both aggregates derive their underlying unities from the same mechanism of crosscutting memberships, loyalties, and cleavages. In the structural study of a given political system, we must therefore define its corporate constitution, determine the principles on which these corporate forms are based, and see how they articulate with one another.In comparative study, we seek to determine what differences or uniformities of political process, content, and function correspond with observable differences or uniformities of corporate composition and articulation. For this purpose, we must isolate the structural principles on which the various types of cor porations are based in order to determine their requisites and implications, and to assess their congruence or discongruence. To indicate my meaning, it is sufficient to list the various principles on which corporate groups and categories may be based.These include sex, age, locality, ethnicity, descent, common property interests, ritual and belief, occupation, and â€Å"voluntary† association for diffuse or specific pursuits. Ethnographic data show that we shall rarely find corporate groups which are based exclusively on one of these principles. As a rule, their foundations combine two, three, or more principles, with corresponding complexity and stability in their organization. Thus, lineages are recruited and defined by descent, common property interests, and generally co-residence.Besides equivalence in age, age-sets presume sameness of sex and, for effective incorporation, local co-residence. Guilds typically stressed occupation and locality; but they were also united by property interests in common market facilities. In India, caste is incorporated on the principles of descent, ritual, and occupation. Clearly, differing combinations of these basic structural principles will give rise to corporations of differing type, complexity, and capacity; and these differences will also affect the content, functions, forms, and contextual relations of the units which incorporate them.It follows that differing combinations of these differing corporate forms underlie the observable differences of order and process in political organization. This is the broad hypothesis to which the comparative- structural study of political systems leads. It is eminently suited to verification or disproof. By the same token, uniformities in corporate composition and organization between, as well as within, societies should entail virtual identities of political process, content, and form.When, to the various possible forms of corporate group differentiated by the combination of structural principles on which they are based and by the relations to their corporate contexts which these entail, we add the other alternatives of office, commission, and category, themselves variable with respect to the principles which constitute them, we simultaneously itemize the principal elements which give rise to the variety of political forms, and the principles and methods by which we can reasonably hopeA STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS / 127 to reduce them to a single general order. Since corporations are essential regulatory units of variable character, their different combinations encompass the entire range of variability of political systems on the functional, processual, and substantive, as well as on the structural levels. Within this structural framework, we may also examine the nature of the regulatory process, its constituents, modes, and objectives.The basic elements of regulation are authority and power. Though always interdependent and often combi ned, they should not be confused. As a regulatory capacity, authority is legitimated and identified by the rules, traditions, and precedents which embody it and which govern its exercise and objects. Power is also regulatory, but is neither fully prescribed nor governed by norms and rules. Whereas authority presumes and expresses normative consensus, power is most evident in conflict and contraposition where dissensus obtains.In systems of public regulation, these conditions of consent and dissent inevitably concur, although they vary in their forms, objects, and proportions. Such systems accordingly depend on the simultaneous exercise and interrelation of the power and authority with which they are identified. Structural analysis enables us to identify the various contexts in which these values and capacities appear, the forms they may take, the objectives they may pursue, and their typical relations with one another within as well as between corporate units.In a structurally homog eneous system based on replication of a single corporate form, the mode of corporate organization will canalize the authority structure and the issues of conflict. It will simultaneously determine the forms of congruence or incongruence between the separate corporate groups. In a structurally heterogeneous system having a variety of corporate forms, we shall also have to look for congruence or incongruence among corporations of differing types, and for interdependence or competition at the various structural levels.Any corporate group embodies a set of structures and procedures which enjoy authority. By definition, all corporations sole are such units. Within, around, and between corporations we shall expect to find recurrent disagreements over alternative courses of action, the interpretation and application of relevant rules, the allocation of positions, privileges and obligations, etc. These issues recurrently develop within the framework of corporate interests, and are settled b y direct or indirect exercise of authority and power.Few serious students now attempt to reduce political systems to the modality of power alone; but many, under Weber's influence, seek to analyze governments solely in terms of authority. Both alternatives are misleading. Our analysis simultaneously stresses the difference and the interdependence of authority and power. The greater the structural simplicity of a given system, that is, its dependence on replication of a single corporate form, such as the Bushman band or Tallensi lineage, the greater its decen- 28 / A STRUCTURAL APPROACH TO COMPARATIVE POLITICS tralization and the narrower the range in which authority and power may apply. The greater the heterogeneity of corporate types in a given system, the greater the number of levels on which authority and power are simultaneously requisite and manifest, and the more critical their congruence for the integration of the system as a whole.

The Leading Killer Of Women And Men Essay - 1345 Words

Statement of Need The leading killer of women and men remains, myocardial infarctions. In 2012, it accounted for every three out of ten deaths, killing 17.5 million people worldwide (The World Health Organization, n.d.). Myocardial infarctions (MI) stem from the onset of Coronary Heart Disease. Coronary Heart Disease (CHD) occurs when there is a blockage of blood flow to the heart. This blockage, is caused by a build-up of plaque in the heart’s arteries, which ruptures and becomes dislodged forming a blood clot that prevents oxygen- rich blood from reaching the heart. When blood to the heart is reduced this can trigger a myocardial infarction also known as a heart attack. The lack of blood to surrounding tissue in the heart can cause muscle death if not treated promptly and can be fatal (National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, n.d.). The onset of Myocardial infarction (MI) is dependent on several factors and to the extent of which those factors are present. Factors such as physical inactivity, high blood pressure, obesity, high blood glucose, lipid abnormalities, and tobacco use are all known contributors to MI and CHD (Cardiovascular Disease, 2006). While there are several methods used to help treat myocardial infraction such as surgery, lifestyle changes, and medication, the fundamental treatment methods remain Fibrinolytic Therapy (FT) and Percutaneous Coronary Intervention (PCI). FT, also known as Thrombolytic therapy is theShow MoreRelatedLung Cancer : The Leading Cancer Killer Of Men And Women854 Words   |  4 Pages Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer of men and women in the U.S. The main cause of lung cancer is smoking. (Health Risks, n.d.) Smoking weakens our body’s immune system due to the chemicals (carcinogens) that are found in cigarettes. 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