ABSTRACT
In general, anthropological approaches to the problem of violence have been concerned with the solution of societal, rather than individual violence. A number of attempts at Utopian societies have been both proposed and indeed attempted: rarely do such attempts survive for long, in particular suffering problems of instability and difficulties of surviving within a larger, different society. Nonetheless a few have managed to survive with little or no internal violence: on the other hand it must be remembered that such communities may in any case tend to attract those keen on social cooperation, making conflict in any event unlikely. The other main influences of anthropology have tended to operate through political and legal agencies. For the most part political and judicial agencies have relied on the use of punishment as a controller of violence: typically the judiciary are responsible for meting out punishment, the political agencies for specifying the powers to be available to the judiciary.
