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Coalition Formation and Colonialism in Western Sicily

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Peter T. Schneider
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Extract

Recently an evolutionary and international perspective has been applied to the study of nonindustrial areas which rejects the popular idea that all such places are, or once were, ‘traditional’ and will ‘modernize’ in much the same way that the West was once traditional and has modernized. This change in perspective requires that the nation-state give way to the more local region as a primary unit of analysis, so that we can examine the varied relationships between regional and international centers of marketing and control, as well as between the region and nation-state of which it is a part. It further suggests that no single model of economic and political development can be applied to different cases at different points in history. The process ofdevelopment in XVIIth century Britain differed in important ways from contemporary attempts which occur in the context of a world-wide economy dominated by established industrialpowers (1).

Type
“A Sack of Potatoes”?
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 13 , Issue 2 , November 1972 , pp. 255 - 267
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1972

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References

(1) Bendix, R., Tradition and Modernity Reconsidered, Comparative Studies in Society and History, IX (1967), 292–347CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Dore, R. P., Making Sense of History, European Journal of Sociology, X (1969), 295–305CrossRefGoogle Scholar;Moore, Barrington Jr, Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Boston, Beacon Press, 1968)Google Scholar.

(2) Such groups are also described in the literature as ‘quasi-groups’: see Mayer, A. C., The significance of quasi-groups in the study of complex societies, in Banton, M. (ed.), The Social Anthropology of Complex Societies (London, Tavistock Publications, 1966), 97–122Google Scholar; and Boissevain, J., The Place of non-Groups in the Social Sciences, Man, III (1968)Google Scholar. Since they con-form to most textbook definitions of a full-fledged ‘group’, I prefer the adjective ‘non-corporate’, i.e., a group of persons who are mutually interdependent and have a shared normative orientation, but do not have a common interest in property (broadly denned) which is vested in the group per se.

(3) Scaturro, I., Storia della Citta di Sciacca (Naples, Gennaro Majo, 1925), Vol. I, pp. 477, 582Google Scholar.

(4) Blok, A., South Italian Agro-Towns Comparative Studies in Society and History, XI (1969), 121–135CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(5) Morse, R. M., Latin American Cities: aspects of function and structure, Comparative Studies in Society and History, IV (1962), 473–493CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(6) Brancato, F., Il commercio dei grani in Settecento in Sicilia, Archivio Storico Siciliano, I (1946), 250–271Google Scholar;Caracciolo, D., Riflessioni su l'economia e I'estrazione de' frumenti della Sicilia (Palermo, della Stampa Reale, 1785)Google Scholar;Romano, S. F., Breva Storia della Sicilia (Turin, Edizioni RAI (Radio-televisione Italiana), 1964)Google Scholar.

(7) Villamaura is a pseudonym for the agrotown in which this field research was conducted.

(8) Istat (Institute Centrale di Statistica): IX Censimento Generate della Popolazione, 4 november 1951 (Roma, Soc. Abete, 1955)Google Scholar, Vol. I, Dati Sommari per Comune, Fascicolo 81: Provincia di Agrigento; Fascicolo 32: Provincia di Palermo.

(9) Unione Italiana delle Camere di Commercio Industria Artigianato e Agricoltura, : La Carta Commerciale d'ltalia (Rome, Dott. A. Giuffre, 1968)Google Scholar.

(10) Milone, F., Sicilia, La Natura e I'Uomo (Torino, Paolo Boringhieri, 1960), pp. 338–339Google Scholar.

(11) It should be noted that the dichotomy “corporate vs non-corporate group” does not contain an evolutionary assumption. It is not assumed that ‘non-corporate’ is associated with primitive, traditional, pre-industrial, folk or Gemeinschaft societies. A price fixing cartel in the electronics industry is a non-corporate group, while a tribal lineage is a corporate group. A theory about the appearance of non-corporate groups is presented in Schneider, P., Schneider, J., and Han-Sen, E., Modernization and Development: the role of regional elites and non-corporate groups in the European Mediterranean, Comparative Studies in Society and History, XV (1972), 328–350CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(12) Mayer (op. cit.) and Barnes, J. A. (Networks and Political Processes, in Swartz, M. J. (ed.), Local Level Politics(Chicago, Aldine, 1968), pp. 107–130Google Scholar, use the term ‘action-set’ to describe the coalition, This discussion profits from their approach to network analysis. See also Barnes, , Class and Committees in a Norwegian Island Parish, Human Relations, VII (1954), 39–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Boissevain, , loc. cit. (1968)Google Scholar; Id., Second Thoughts on quasi-Groups, Cate-gories and Coalitions, Man, VI (1971), 468–472; Bott, E., Family and Social Network (London, Tavistock, 1957)Google Scholar;Mitchell, W. E., Theoretical Problems in the Concept of Kindred, American Anthropologist, LXV 1963), 353–354Google Scholar.

(13) Alongi, G., La Maffia, Studio sulle Classi Pericolose della Sicilia (Firenze, Fratelli Bocca, 1886)Google Scholar;Chilanti, F., Machi è questo Milazzo? (Firenze, Parenti Editore, 1959); pp. 117–13Google Scholar;Franchetti, L., Condizioni Politiche e Amministrative della Sicilia (Firenze, Vallecchi Editore, 1925)Google Scholar;Romano, , Storia della Mafia (Verona, I Record Mondadori, 1966), pp. 10–35Google Scholar.

(14) For a discussion of types of friendship which is relevant to this argument, see E. Wolf, Kinship, Friendship and Patron-Client Relations in Complex Societies, in Banton, , op. cit. pp. 1–22Google Scholar.

(15) Franchetti, op. cit.; Mosca, G., Partiti e sindicati nella crisi del regime parlamentare (Bari, Giuseppe Laterza e figli, 1949)Google Scholar;Pantaleone, M., Mafia e Politico, 1943–1962 (Torino, Einaudi, 1962)Google Scholar;Romano, , op. cit. (1966)Google Scholar.

(16) Hobsbawm, E. J., The Age of Revolution, 1789–1848 (Cleveland, World Publishing Co., 1962)Google Scholar.