Secret Societies and Social Structure

Abstract

Since Simmel's seminal essay on secret societies, little systematic work on the topic has been attempted even though the empirical basis for such work has greatly improved. The present paper uses six case studies with unusually good structural detail in analyzing one aspect of secret societies: their organizational structure. In contrast with Simmel, I argue that secret societies under risk must be differentiated from others; that societies under risk have a wide range of structural forms; and that the major sources of structure are found in preexisting social structures rather than in psychological factors. Risk enforces recruitment along lines of trust, thus through preexisting networks of relationships, which set the limits of the secret society's structure. Structure can still vary considerably, depending primarily on the centralization of control of recruitment, in turn dependent on the control of key resources. This paper discusses the structures of secret societies operating under risk, with an emphasis on how and why such structures vary in the extent to which they are hierarchical. To date, the only theory of secret society structure is that of Simmel. His discussion of secrets and secret societies has not generated as much later work as most of his other contributions; see, for example, a recent review of Simmel's impact on North American sociology (Levine et al. a, b). Further, the few scholars discussing secret societies since Simmel have not systematically analyzed the structure of secret societies. This topic need no longer be neglected, given the growing number of good case studies with detailed structural information. I will use six such studies to develop an argument which differs from Simmel's in several fundamental ways. Simmel discusses secret societies in general. I argue that secret societies operating under risk are quite different from others, and my analysis is confined to such cases. Simmel's discussion of the sources of secret society structure emphasized psychological factors, especially a love of hierarchical planning. I argue that, for societies under risk, the crucial motive is a desire to maximize security. Simmel implies that psychological factors are far more important than structural ones, while I argue that preexisting social structure constrains the forms secret societies can take. Finally, Simmel assumes that all secret societies are hierarchical. I argue that their structures vary, in part because