Social Structure, Revitalization Movements and State Building: Social Change in Four Native American Societies

Abstract

This paper discusses two models of social change and several historical conditions and social structural variables in an effort to isolate common factors that underly both the rise of revitalization movements and state building. Data were gatheredfrom state building and revitalization movements in four Native American societies during the 1795-1860 period. The findings indicate that given the conditions of economic andlor political deprivation that led to widespread perceptions of social deprivation, less structurally differentiated societies responded with revitalization movements, while more structurally differentiated societies responded with increased differentiation in sub-macro political and economic institutions. This finding suggests that the Wallace and Parsons-Smelser deprivation models of social change can be synthesized by specification of level of macrostructural differentiation as a precondition that influences type of societal change. State building could not be explained by deprivation and social structural arguments alone; markets that encourage economic class formation were critical to the state-building argument.