Review

Reviewed Work(s): Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group

Behavior. by Robert A. LeVine and Donald T. Campbell
Review by: Jack van der Slik
Source: The Journal of Politics , Nov., 1973, Vol. 35, No. 4 (Nov., 1973), pp. 1022-1024
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Southern Political
Science Association
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/2129223

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1022 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 35, 1973

This book, then, is an unfortunate contribution to a literature

already overburdened with acerbity.

BENJAMIN W. SMITH, California State University, Los Angeles

Ethnocentrism: Theories of Conflict, Ethnic Attitudes, and Group

Behavior. By ROBERT A. LEVINE AND DONALD T. CAMPBELL.
(New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1972. Pp. ix, 310. $10.95.)

This book is authored by an anthropologist (R.A.L.) and a psy-

chologist (D.T.C.) whose research concerns are interethnic re-
lations within and among population groups "who were not yet
dominated by Europeans or their forms of government' (p. 245).
The particular objective of the field work was to obtain from old
members of such groups who could remember and report group
beliefs and behavior patterns prior to the impact of any European
cultural invasion. The book does not report data from the field
work but is intended to be a systematic inventory of propositions
about ethnocentrism drawn primarily from a broad range of an-
thropological, sociological, and psychological literature, along with
a dab from political science and economics.
The authors' beginning point is William Graham Sumner's Folk-
ways. From that classic and from more recent literature they
identify ethnocentrism as a syndrome with 23 facets, nine of- which
are attitudes and behaviors toward an ingroup (for example, see
selves as strong; willingness to fight and die for ingroup). The
remainder are attitudes and behaviors toward an outgroup (for
example, outgroup hate; use of outgroups as bad examples in the
training of children). Part 2 of the book deals with societal theories
of human behavior, beginning with "realistic group conflict theory,"
and works of L. A. White, L. A. Coser, and Kenneth Boulding, which
the authors find to be rich with empirical propositions. They draw
upon reference group theory, "evolutionary theories" (that is,
particularly those that suggest a developmental evolution through
intergroup conffict), and theories of social structure emphasizing
hierarchical organization and obligations in contrast to those that
emphasize crosscutting loyalties and overlapping group member-
ships. Part 3 considers psychological theories, particularly those of

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 BOOK REVIEWS 1023

Freudian heritage, which emphasize scapegoating, repression, ag-

gression, and displacement. One chapter tries to bring together
"cognitive congruity theories," including balance theory, dissonance
theory, and belief-system theory.
The contribution of this book is to specify with substantial clarity
specific hypotheses which can easily be operationalized: for ex-
ample, "The higher a group is on indices of ingroup interpersonal
aggression (low self-esteem), the more likely it is to imitate, with-
out recognition, the customs and values of successful military
enemies" (p. 144); "Those groups recognized as higher in the
regional occupational ranking system will be more admired and
emulated" (p. 202). The last chapter, which is intended to com-
pare and contrast the theories, is a bit disappointing. The authors
do identify theoretical contradictions and agreements. Unfor-
tunately these are treated briefly in the compass of a dozen
pages without any real assessment of what the areas of agree-
ment and disagreement imply concerning the theories from which
the propositions spring or for future theory building concerning
ethnocentrism. The value of the book is essentially in its proposi-
tional inventory.
This volume is not particularly addressed to political scientists,
and for most of us it is certainly not essential reading. Neverthe-
less for political scientists who are studying interest groups this
book will stimulate consideration of some propositions not common
in political science literature about ingroup solidarity and inter-
group coalition formation, co-operation, and competition. What, for
example, is the social distance between Nader's public interest
groups and other groups with which they may share some short
term goals but which have altogether contrasting ingroup norms
and loyalties? How does such distance affect the probability of
co-operative efforts between them? What kind of internal group
values prevent groups with similar goals from co-operative efforts?
Interest group politics can, I am sure, be profitably examined with
perspectives drawn from this study of ethnocentrism.
Similarly these perspectives could be the basis for propositions to
study intergovernmental co-operation and competition in metro-
politan areas. How do political authorities and citizens in balk-
anized middle-class suburbs view themselves in contrast with the
ethnically heterogeneous central city populations or other suburban
municipalities with unique social characteristics? These relation-

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1024 THE JOURNAL OF POLITICS, VOL. 35, 1973

ships could well be viewed as the politics of ethnocentrism. In

short, LeVine and Campbell's book contains valuable hypotheses for
political scientists interested in group behavior.

JACK VAN DER SLIK, Calvin College

Mind and Politics: An Approach to the Meaning of Liberal and

Socialist Individualism. By ELLEN MEIKSINS WOOD. (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1972. Pp. 208. $7.50.)

The conventional wisdom holds that liberalism as a political and

social doctrine has as its great virtue a true understanding of in-
dividualism as a central given of human nature and that socialism
presents the other side of the coin, focusing attention on the com-
munity with its needs and public concerns, though sometimes at
the expense of individualism. In this view, Lockean liberalism
is grounded in individualism, and Marxian socialism is grounded
in community consciousness. In Mind and Politics, a readable, pro-
vocative and intensely ideological book, Ellen M. Wood takes
issue with the conventional wisdom. Liberalism, she argues, is as
inadequate in its conception of individualism as it is deficient in its
conception of the public good, and Marxism gives us a correct view
of individualism as well as of the community.
Essentially her thesis is that epistemology is an important but
often neglected aspect of political theory and that one's theory
of knowledge is not unrelated to one's social and political values.
To develop this argument, she points to the British empiricists,
Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, and J. S. Mill, whose empiricism was
related to their concepts of individualism, which in turn con-
stituted the fundamental consideration of what came to be called
liberalism. Opposed to this stream of thought was Kantian epis-
temology and Kantian individualism, which was brought into its
effulgence by Marx as socialist individualism. Lockean empiricism
makes of the individual a passive object who can only respond to
the stimuli of his sense perceptions, and Lockean liberalism makes
for a class structured society in which men are objects controlled
by the external forces of the market. Neither Locke, nor Bentham,

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