The Biopolitics of Primates

Abstract

In this chapter, I use the term “biopolitics” to mean evolutionarily informed political science. Politics has been characterized as “Who gets what, when, and how” (Lasswell, 1936), but rather than about material possessions, politics is understood to be about power, more specifically about collective power, especially differential group power competition, hierarchy and stratification in power distribution, and the universal struggle to enhance power, and to maintain or challenge/destroy this status quo. Politics “should be found in any system of nature in which conflicts of interest exist among cooperating organic units” (Johnson, 1995, p. 279). My main focus will be competitive intergroup relations in monkeys and apes, or as I (van der Dennen, 1995) called it “intergroup agonistic behavior” (IAB). I also briefly treat interindividual and intercoalitionary agonistic behavior when relevant.

Citation

van der Dennen, J.M.G. (2011), "The Biopolitics of Primates", Peterson, S.A. and Somit, A. (Ed.) Biology and Politics (Research in Biopolitics, Vol. 9), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 53-96. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2042-9940(2011)0000009005