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• Biological evolution


  The process whereby organisms undergo various genetic and physical changes that pave way for biological diversity
• Francisco Jose Ayala


  • Spanish American Biologist
  • Various types of plants, animals and other living things on earth have their origins in other pre-existing types and the distinguishable differences are due to modifications in successive generations
• Biocultural evolution


  • Introduced by Anthropologists in 1970s
  • The mutual interactive evolution of human biology and culture
  • States that biology makes culture possible and that developing culture further influences the direction of biological evolution
• Cultural development


  Is interconnected with people's capacity for language, tool making, and technological innovation
• Lewis Henry Morgan


  • Divided history in three stages of development: Savagery, Barbarism, Civilization
• Friedrich Engels


  • Accumulation of private property paved way for the collapse of primitive communities and establishment of a class-based society
• Karl Marx


  • Social institutions evolve primarily due to struggle between social classes over the means of production, such as wealth and private property
• Herbert Spencer


  • Individual members in the societies engage in a competition for survival where the superior ones dominate the inferior
• Cultural relativism


  • Individual's attitudes, beliefs, and ideas are based on the cultural context of his or her society
  • Human behavior is not rooted in biology but is socially constructed
• Stages of social and political institution development

  • Band-level society/Bands
  • Tribes
  • Chiefdom
• Band-level society/Bands


  • Small and nomadic family groups and were plainly organized
  • Highly egalitarian and non hierarchical
  • Distinction is based on age, sex and division of labors
  • Leaders exercised a certain degree of authority or influence but does not exercise power to enforce rules
  • These groups were not considered as political organizations
• Tribes


  • More formal social organization made up of several bands and groups that were connected through a clan structure of kinship
  • Lead by "HEADMAN"
  • Headman performed activities such as resolving conflicts, overseeing activities, organising feasts and festivals
• Chiefdom


  • Tribes united under one leader or chief
  • More complicated interactions between member tribes and had large populations and territories
• Industrial revolution


  Happened during the mid-1700s until the 1800s, many societies in the world particularly in Western Europe were transformed due to it
• Factors which influenced the industrial revolution

  • Technological breakthroughs and inventions
  • Increased use of mechanical devices
  • Discovery of steam power which led to factory system
• Effects of the industrial revolution

  • Increased migration
  • Growth of urban populations
  • Changes in lifestyle
  • Increased production
  • Technological advancement
  • Rise of middle class
• Theories on society and state

  • Society as a natural institution
  • Society as a product of social contract
  • Modernization theories
• Society as a natural institution

  • Ancient Greeks believed that society and it's various institutions are a natural product of man's interactions
  • Human beings are by nature social and political animals - Aristotle
  • Polis, or city-state, considered as the highest form of interaction which fulfills the highest need of man which is self-sufficiency
• Society as a product of social contract

  • Agreement made by the members of society that defines and influences their interactions, particularly those in authority
  • Thomas Hobbes - need to guarantee security of the people, main role of the political ruler is to maintain order and security of the people
  • John Locke - need to guarantee fair and impartial enforcement of the law, primary function of the state is to guarantee individuals to exercise their natural rights to life, liberty, and property
  • Jean-Jacques Rousseau - emphasizes on the natural equality of humans, general will
• Modernization theories


  • Historical-materialist perspective by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - societies evolve in stages in relation to the development of the means of production and its ownership, state viewed as the instrument of the ruling class to maintain its control over the means of production
  • Max Weber - observed the process of rationalization and bureaucratization, more specialized functions have to be performed by social institutions as societies expand economically
  • Emile Durkheim - mechanical solidarity, organic solidarity