One problem with the study of political structures is that even if we can reassemble the bones and trace their growth, we may still have no idea how the political body actually moved. As W. R. Connor remarks, in his important discussion of the rise of a new type of political leader in Athens, the demagogue, ‘‘the formal structure of the state is but the skeleton of her politics. The nerves, the tendons, the musculature of the body politic is to be found in the organization of forces and often of interest groups within it’’ (1971: 4-5). Seeking to explain how social and political systems could survive for so long without a written constitution, scholars focused on groups that operated behind and between governmental institutions.
I want to look initially at two related approaches. The first is prosopography, an unwieldy term for a historical methodology, pioneered by Matthias Gelzer and Friedrich Munzer, that viewed history and politics through a careful, often empirical, study of the ‘‘formation, duration, and dissolution’’ of influential families and groups that comprised the governing class (Broughton 1972: 251). These groups cultivated networks of personal relationships and support that extended into the law courts and political institutions, and were organized by shared interests, social and economic class, family connection, and political friendships.
We can identify a second approach, which shares some of the same assumptions with, and often finds evidentiary sustenance in, prosopography. That framework, which has its roots in the work of Anton von Premerstein, views politics as a function of social power. Where prosopography often saw relations of power as contingent and separately negotiated, social power (or transactional) approaches attempt to explain these relations of power as a more system-wide phenomenon. Politics and political questions, though, all but disappear in the shadow of the ‘‘realities of power’’ (MacMullen 1988: 116): a whole network of extralegal and extrainstitutional relations or transactions that were organized by the ability to influence (through wealth, patronage and position) and the ability to coerce (through fear).
There are three political questions at the heart of these group approaches: Who really rules? How do they do it? And why do they do it? The answers given to each of these questions resonate with similar debates within political science and sociology between the pluralist school reflected in the work of Arthur Bentley, David Truman, and Robert Dahl, on the one hand, and elite power approaches, reflected in the pioneering work of the Lynds in the 1920s and 1930s and articulated, theoretically, by Gaetano Mosco, Vilfredo Pareto, and Robert Michels, on the other hand. How one appraises group influence, whether oligarchic or democratic, depends to a large extent on the evaluation of the extent to which the informal relations are seen as open, fluid, competitive, or transparent. Connor, for example, following Bentley, views these informal relationships as the stuff of democracy, consisting of small, fluid, and often competitive groups who had to continually cultivate broader support to survive (1971). But Connor is more the exception. The decision to study families and connections between families (whether of marriage or political friendships), and to exclude from prosopographical collections ‘‘lower orders’’ of public officials, all but assumes an answer to the first question, who really rules, since the method can tap only the most elite sectors of the population whose names would be recorded (Barnish 1994: 171; see Badian 1968: 81).
In answering the second question, how do these groups maintain power, informal group approaches look elsewhere than constitutional forms. Precisely because neither Greece nor Rome was a Rechtsstaat, institutions and processes did not have power aside from the individuals who could control them. Prosopography and social power approaches thus emphasize the remarkable cohesion of oligarchy, which was created and reinforced through particular ‘‘weapons’’ (Syme 1939: 12): family, which was strengthened through marriage and adoption; money to entertain the populace through games and shows, to bribe voters and jurors, and to support allies; political alliances to build a following among different orders of society; and the ability to manipulate symbols to create both solidarity and affirm elite rule. Not surprisingly, a methodology that identifies names and connections is going to locate the movement of politics in the actions of and connections between particular individuals (as opposed to larger structural or systemic issues in society). Thus Gruen attributes the decline of the Roman Republic not to ‘‘underlying causes’’ but to ‘‘accident and irrationality, stubbornness and miscalculations’’ among the elite (1974: 4). And Perlman sees much of the ‘‘stability and preservation of Athenian democracy in the fourth century’’ as resulting from the influence and activities of the informal (and largely ‘‘closed’’) network of political leaders who dominated Athenian politics (1963: 355, 340).
As for the third question, the motivation for political action seems largely reducible to ambition: raw and naked in its operation, but often veiled in a self-image and ideology of the rightness and responsibility of that group to rule. Group power approaches ultimately end up with ‘‘power’’ as an explanatory variable: the desire for power explains the motivations for action and the possession ofpower explains the success. As Badian states in his opening to Roman Imperialism, the longing for power is so rooted in what we are as humans that it ‘‘does not call for explanation’’ (1968: 5).
At times, prosopographical and social power approaches evince the swagger of an unconscious positivism; not only politics, but also the ‘‘conceptual world of a society in the past,’’ can be understood by ‘‘subordinat[ing]’’ oneself‘‘to the evidence’’ and by avoiding using concepts that would have ‘‘contaminated the presentation of the evidence’’ (Millar 1977: xii; Badian 1996: 189). Yet, these approaches often end up telling us more about their own assumptions about human nature and social life than about the different motivations that may underlie ancient political life. Political institutions and procedures appear as a ‘‘sham’’ or a ‘‘bitter joke’’ (Syme 1939: 15; MacMullen 1988: 90). Ideas - whether as ideologies, common aspirations, particular principles and beliefs, or human yearnings - are, as Momigliano (1940) long ago pointed out, read out of politics (L. Taylor 1949: 8; Paterson 1985: 22; Mouritsen 2001: 117). And those over whom power is exercised all but vanish as people are turned into ‘‘mice’’ who ‘‘must simply accept their place in the great scheme of things’’ (MacMullen 1988: 106). How and why transactions break down - or why the mice sometimes squeak - is less explicable.
There is a third group approach - social history - that sees politics (and political development) as a fairly complex interplay between social groups in their response to each other and to larger structural issues and events, such as demographic changes, famines, debt, and war (see Further Reading below). Social historical approaches have been particularly important in exploring the processes by which groups make claims to a share of the community’s material resources and to a part in the political process. Politics, from this perspective, is about social integration. On what basis do particular groups, such as an aristocratic elite, a new plebeian elite, provincial elites, or the people, become conscious of themselves as groups and make claims on a community (or resist claims by the community)? And what are the factors, such as ongoing strife, military needs, elite competition, elite cohesiveness, or tyrants and reformers, that explain why these groups are either successfully or unsuccessfully integrated? In these group interaction approaches, unlike many prosopographical and social power approaches, power is negotiable and politics embodies both material concerns and broader questions of community identity and purpose.
World History
