Dominance, Power, and Politics in Nonhuman and Human Primates

Abstract

Dominance is a common, although not universal, characteristic of social relationships in nonhuman primates. One individual is dominant to another when it consistently wins the agonistic interactions between them. Attainment of high dominance rank can bring reproductive payoffs, mostly because it confers priority of access to monopolizable food sources (for females) or to mating opportunities (for males). For females in particular, a wide variation exists in the frequency of intense aggression, the directionality of aggression within dyads, the tolerance of high-ranking individuals, and other aspects of “dominance style.” This variation reflects variation in ecology and is also influenced by phylogenetic history. Variation also exists in male dominance style, although it has not received as much attention. Dominance is one component of power, which also encompasses other sources of asymmetry in relationships that affect the relative ability of individuals to carry out their goals against the interests of others. Leverage is an important source of power in many nonhuman primates; an animal has leverage over another when it controls a resource or service that cannot be appropriated by force, such as agonistic support. Individuals behave politically when they try to increase or maintain their power relative to that of others by manipulating social relationships, both their own and those of others. The concept of power applies universally to gregarious primates, although asymmetries do not occur between adults of all species, but we should only ascribe politics to species in which the actors have knowledge about the relationships between others in their groups. Some parts of the literatures in political science and political anthropology not only provide useful frameworks for a comparative investigation of power and politics in nonhuman primates, but also highlight qualitative differences between humans and other primates, especially regarding the importance of ideologies and political rhetoric.