ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews the pastoral peoples in order to address two issues. The first is a major question in political philosophy: the compatibility of equality and freedom, that is, the extent to which equality and freedom can exist together. The second issue is the contribution of pastoral culture to the widespread deficit of democracy in contemporary Middle Eastern and African states. Thus, a central or recurrent theme in ethnographic accounts of segmentary, tribal pastoralists is the autonomy or freedom of the individual. The general thrust of that review was that among segmentary, tribal pastoralists, equality as an ideal, equality of status, and economic equality were all quite strong. Segmentary societies base order on a balance of coercive potential and effective force, each segment ready and able to mobilize and apply coercion in defense of its own interests. The security of each man and family depends upon the collective solidarity of the segment, which serves as a defense and attack group.
