STUDYING POLITICS CROSS-CULTURALLY: KEY CONCEPTS AND ISSUES1

The successful cross-cultural study of politics entails two important steps: (1) the identification of appropriate concepts and the specifi-cation of their interrelationships, and (2) consideration of how micro-level processes within communities are related to macroprocesses between them. It is argued here that the concepts of authority, conflict, and community provide the theoretical foundation for the cross-cultural study of politics. Each concept can be viewed as a distinct dimension of political life; while taken together, the three can help us understand a wide range of significant political behaviors. These concepts are also crucial in helping to link the more process-oriented view of politics that has dominated political anthropology and political science in recent years with the more structural and static concerns that have been dominant in macrocomparative research, such as cross-cultural studies. Finally, it is argued here not only that explicit attention to political processes within communities offers a dynamic set of research questions for the cross-cultural study of politics but also that more sophisticated cross-community studies can point to important theoretical relationships in the comparative study of politics within communities