EGALITARIAN BEHAVIOR AND REVERSE DOMINANCE HIERARCHY

Egalitarian society is ''explained'' chiefly in terms of ecological or social factors that are self-organizing. However, egalitarian behavio r is found in a wide variety of social and ecological settings, and th e indications are that such societies are deliberately shaped by their members. This paper looks to egalitarian behavior as an instance of d omination of leaders by their own followers, who are guided by an etho s that disapproves of hierarchical behavior in general and of bossines s in leaders in particular. A substantial cross-cultural survey reveal s the specific mechanisms by which the political rank and file creates a reverse dominance hierarchy, an anomalous social arrangement which has important implications for cross-phylogenetic comparisons and for the theory of state formation.