T potheses used in studying the introduc-

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1 Democracy in a Traditional Society: Two Hypotheses on Role DANIEL T. HUGHES Ateneo de Manila University Over the last twenty years a democratic political system has been introduced into the Micronesian Islands of the US. Trust Territory of the Pacific. This article reports on two hypotheses concerning sociopolitical change tested on the island of Ponape in the Trust Territory. The first hypothesis considers the possible difference in the rate of acceptance between new leadership roles with traditional counterparts and those with no such counterparts. The second hypothesis deals with the influence of traditional social status on the enactment of newly introduced leadership roles, It is suggested that the factors influencing the rate of change in the political system will also be operative in other modernization processes, such as economic development. HIS ARTICLE reports on two hy- T potheses used in studying the introduc- tion of a democratic political system into the traditional society on the island of Ponape in the Eastern Caroline Islands of Micronesia. Ever since the United States gained control of the Japanese Mandated Islands of Micronesia in 1945 and established the Trust Territory of the Pacific under the auspices of the United Nations, the American administration has been attempting to introduce democratic principles and institutions into the political systems of these islands. At present elected executive officials administer local areas or municipalities throu,ohout the Trust Territory while elected legislative bodies function on the local, district, and territorial levels of government. Therefore, any district of the Trust Territory could have served as the area of investigation for this study. Ponape was selected as the site for the study largely because Riesenberg s (1955) extensive monograph on the traditional political system of Ponape provided valuable background material.1 The traditional political system, which still functions on the island of Ponape, is centered in the five kingdoms of Madolenihmw, Uh, Kiti, Net, and Sokehs. Each has traditionally been governed by two rulers called the Nanmwarki and the Nahnken. The Nanmwarki is the primary ruler of the kingdom and the Nahnken is his chief advi- Accepted for publication June 18, sor and administrator. Below each of the rulers in each kingdom there is a line of titles. The first twelve titles in both lines (including the titles of Nanmwarki and Nahnken themselves) constitute a privileged noble class, which shall be referred to in this report as the royalty or nobility. Those people with lesser kingdom titles or with no kingdom titles constitute the commoner class. The five kingdoms are divided into sections, which are governed by section chiefs. Each section also has a series of titles that play an important part in a person s prestige in that section. Only kingdom titles, however, and not section titles, form the noble-commoner class distinction. In the political system introduced by the American administration there are six municipalities on Ponape, five of which are coextensive with the five traditional kingdoms. The sixth municipality was established a few years ago when the town of Kolonia separated from the kingdom and municipality of Net. Each of the six municipalities has an elected chief magistrate as the highest executive official and an elected council as the legislative body of the municipality. The domains of five of the chief magistrates are coextensive with the domains of the five Nanmwarkis. Thus the chief magistrate has been assigned some former responsibilities of the Nanmwarki and is partially replacing or substituting for the Nanmwarki as ruler of the kingdom. The councilman typically represents an area

2 [HUGHES] Democracy in a Traditional Society 37 coextensive with several traditional sections. He has therefore assumed some authority that was formerly exclusively the prerogative of the section chief and is partially substituting for that position. In addition to the municipal councils there is an elected district legislature with legislative authority over the entire Ponape District, which includes the islands of Ponape, Pingelap, Kusaie, Ngatik, Mokil, Nukuoro, and Kapinganiarangi, most of which islands have mutually unintelligible languages and also differ widely in their traditional sociocultural systems, although several did have pale imitations of the traditional Ponapean system. Each of the islands elects one or more representatives to the district legislature, which meets twice a year on Ponape. The chief executive or administrative official on this district level of govern- ment is the district administrator, who is appointed by the high commissioner of the Trust Territory and not elected by the people of the district. In 1965 the Congress of Micronesia was formed with elected representatives from all six districts of the Trust Territory in Micronesia. Six representatives have been elected from the Ponape District to take part in the annual sessions of this Congress, the first legislative body with jurisdiction over the entire Trust Territory. The chief executive or administrative official on the territorial level of government is the high commissioner appointed by the President of the United States and responsible directly to the secretary of the interior. The present study is limited to the island of Ponape, but it attempts to touch upon these various levels of the traditional and in-

3 38 American Anthropologist [71, 1969 TABLE 1. INTRODUCED POLlTICAL SYSTEM Executive Ofice ~- Legislative Body Territorial level District level Municipal level High Commissioner District Administrator *Chief Magistrate - "Micronesian Congressman *District Legislator *Municipal Councilman troduced political systems. The hypotheses of the study concern the four asterisked positions in Table l. Those four officials are elected by the Micronesians, while the other two are appointed by American officials. In the traditional political system neither the islands of Micronesia as a whole nor the islands of the Ponape District had ever been joined in any sort of political union. Both the Ponape District Legislature and the Micronesian Congress are, therefore, complete innovations to the Ponapeans and to the other Micronesians. Unlike the positions of chief magistrate and councilman, which have partially replaced the traditional positions of Nanmwarki and section chief, the positions of legislator and congressman in no way replace any traditional positions but are added to the traditional system. This distinction between the new leadership roles that are replacing traditional leadership roles and those that are not replacing traditional leadership roles is important in understanding the first hypothesis. HYPOTHESIS I In his study of emerging leadership on Palau, Force found that new leadership roles with no traditional counterparts were productive of less leadership insecurity and contributed less to dysfunction than did leadership roles with traditional counterparts (Force 1960:120). In an attempt to explain why new leadership roles with traditional counterparts might produce greater leadership insecurity and dysfunction than new leadership roles with no traditional counterparts the following hypothesis was formulated: When new political leadership roles based on nontraditional principles of authority are introduced into a society, the people will apply the introduced norms and principles of authority more quickly to the new leadership roles with no traditional counterparts (added leadership roles) than to new leadership roles with traditional counterparts (substituting leadership roles). People will tend to confuse the norms, behavior, relationships, values, and requirements of substituting leadership roles with corresponding elements of their traditional counterparts. Since added roles do not face such corresponding traditional roles, people will more quickly and more consistently apply nontraditional principles to them. The first prediction based on the above hypothesis was that the Ponapean people would tend to value the same personal qualities in the chief magistrates and councilmen (substituting leadership roles) that they valued in their traditional leaders. In legislators and congressmen (added leadership TABLE 2. QUALITIES VALUED MOST IN TRADITIONAL LEADERS - Nanmwarki Nahnken No. % Love Foster cooperation Patience Capable administrator Intelligence Section Chief No. % No. 9%

4 HUGHES] Democracy in a Traditional Society 39 roles), however, they would tend to value personal qualities stressed by introduced norms of authority such as education and capability in administration or legislation. In interviews with a random sample of three hundred Ponapeans love for the people was chosen most frequently as an important quality for incumbents of all leadership roles, both traditional and democratic (Tables 2 to 4).z The traditional Ponapean leaders have always been considered as fathers who were expected first and foreniost to love the people as their children. The Ponapeans have applied this basic expectation to all four introduced leadership roles. For all three traditional leadership roles the second and third choices for the most important qualities were ability to foster cooperation and patience. For the substituting roles of chief magistrate and councilman the more practical quality of capability in administration moved into second place, and ability to foster cooperation was third. In the added roles of congressman and legislator the more practical qualities of capability in legislation and education replaced ability to foster cooperation and patience as the second and third choices of the people. The responses of the sample confirm our prediction that the Ponapeans will tend to value the same personal qualities for substituting leadership roles that they value for traditional leadership roles but that for added leadership roles they will tend to value personal qualities stressed by introduced norms of authority. Education was not included among the TABLE 3. QUALITIES VALUED MOST IN SUBSTI- TUTING LEADERSHIP ROLES Chief Mugistrate No. o/o Love Capable administrator Foster cooperation Education Intelligence Councilman No. % TABLE 4. QUALITIES VALUED MOST IN ADDED LEADERSHIP ROLES Legislator Congressman No. % No. % Love Capable administrator Education Foster cooperation Intelligence five choices listed for the traditional leadership roles because in the course of the pilot study, during which 67 Ponapeans were interviewed, many of the informants were confused when education was suggested as a possibly important quality for a traditional leader. Since patience was mentioned by many informants as important for the traditional leaders and by almost none as important for the elected leaders, patience was listed among the possible choices for the traditional leadership roles and education as a possible choice for the elected leadership roles. The second prediction based on the fist hypothesis was that chief magistrates and councilmen (substituting roles) elected by Ponapeans would tend to have traditional qualifications for political authority such as noble social status and age, whereas legislators and congressmen (added roles) would tend to have introduced qualifications such as formal education, English-speaking ability, and travel experience. On Ponape English-speaking ability is largely a function of the degree of formal education a person has been exposed to. This is also partially true of travel experience since at present there are no facilities for education beyond the high-school level within the Trust Territory itself. However, travel through places like Guam, Hawaii, the mainland United States, and the Philippines as well as English-speaking ability are considered by many Ponapeans as exposure to foreign ways over and above the formal education that may or may not accompany such factors. When

5 40 American Anthropologist [71, 1969 TABLE 5. EDUCATION OF ELECTED LEADERS* Substituting roles Added roles Chief magistrate Councilman Legislator Congressman - No. 95 No. % No. 7% No. % Grammar Intermediate High School Medicalt College I * Entries on this chart represent the number of leaders who have had some training on a particular level of education, not those who have completed that level. Thus the entry of 7 in the cell corresponding to college for legislators means that seven legislators have had some college training. not that seven have completed college. t Medical training at Fiji is listed separately from college education because these seemed to be two distinct levels of education to the informants. asked to specify what they meant by foreign ways in this context many Ponapeans mentioned the system of government based on the people electing leaders and leaders representing and reporting to the people. Tables 5 through 8 list the educational level, travel experience, age, and traditional social status of the four sets of elected leaders on Ponape. These findings are generally in accord with the second prediction. The educational level (Table 5) of the legislators and congressmen is considerably above that of the chief magistrates and Councilmen. None of the chief magistrates have gone above the level of intermediate school, and only 3% of the councilmen have gone above high school, where 29% of the legislators and 50% of the congressmen have attended college. Similarly, the legislators and congressmen have traveled much more extensively than the chief magistrates and councilmen (Table 6). Two informants who speak excellent English and who know all the legislators and congressmen were asked to rate each of them according to their English-speaking ability as very good, good, poor, or very poor. Both informants rated 5 (83 % ) of the congressmen as very good. One rated seventeen (71%) and the other rated 19 (79%) of the legislators as good or very good. These informants did not TABLE 6. TRAVEL OF ELECTED LEADERS Substituting roles Added roles Chief magistrate Councilman Legislator Congressman No. % No. % No. 95 No. % Other Districts* G uarn Hawaii Mainland U.S Philippines Fiji Japan *Other districts of the Trust Territory.

6 HUGHES] Democracy in a Traditional Society 41 TABLE 7. AGE OF ELECTED LEADERS Substituting roles Added roles Chief magistrate Councilman Legislator Congressman No. % No. % No. % No. % I know all the chief magistrates and councilmen, so they could not rate them. I have interviewed all the chief magistrates and the majority of the councilmen, however, and I can say that almost none of them outside Kolonia Town could be rated above poor for their English-speaking ability. My interviews had to be conducted almost entirely in Ponapean. The data also confirm the prediction based on the age criterion because the legislators and congressmen are considerably younger than the chief magistrates and councilmen (Table 7). The data on the traditional social status of the incumbents of the four introduced leadership roles (Table 8) partially confirm and partially oppose the second prediction. The prediction is confirmed by the finding that there is a higher percentage of nobles among the chief magistrates (50% ) than among the legislators (13 % ) or congressmen (17% ). However, the small number (3% ) of nobles among the councilmen is contrary to the prediction. The investigation revealed two reasons for such a low number of nobles being elected to the position of councilman. First, the nobles-especially the higher nobles+onsider this position beneath their dignity and do not seek election to it. Second, because the contact of the councilman with the people is much more constant and direct than that of any other elected leader, the traditional forms of respect toward a noble pose a greater obstacle to the performance of that elected leadership role. Other factors besides the added-substituting distinction between various introduced leadership roles can also help explain why the Ponapeans apply norms to the roles of chief magistrate and councilman that differ from those they apply to the roles of legislator and congressman. All the chief magistrates and most councilmen live in the sections or municipalities from which they are elected. They are, therefore, usually in direct and constant contact with their constituents. The legislators and congressmen, on the other hand, usually live in Kolonia and thus have little direct contact with their constituents. Kolonia is the base area for the American personnel of the District Adminis- TABLE 8. TRADITIONAL SOCIAL STATUS OF ELECTED LEADERS Substituting roles Added roles - Chief magistrafe Councilman LegisIator Congressman No. % No. % No. % No. % Commoner Noble

7 42 American Anthropologist [71, 1969 tration and also the home of large numbers of immigrants from other islands. Because the chief magistrates and councilmen are in direct and constant contact with the people, the Ponapeans value in those roles qualities like ability to foster cooperation and patience, which tend to make them approachable. Because the legislators and congressmen have less direct and frequent contact with the people, Ponapeans place greater stress on qualities that will make them more effective in their professional capacity of law-making than on qualities that render them approachable. Thus formal education and fluency in English are considered more important for the legislator and congressman than for the chief magistrate and councilman. Another factor in explaining the difference in some norms applied to various democratic leadership roles is the time at which these roles were introduced into Ponapean society. The roles of chief magistrate and councilman were introduced into Ponapean society in 1948 with the establishment of the municipalities. From 1952 until 1958 there was a Ponape Island Congress with a House of Nobles (not elected) and a House of Commoners (elected), which evolved into the present Ponape District Congress, a fully elected unicameral legislative body that was formed in Finally, the Congress of Micronesia was established only in Thus the Ponapeans had increasing experience with democratic principles and processes with each new democratic role that was introduced. Also by 1965, when the role of congressman was introduced, the radio had come to Ponape. A radio station had been built on Ponape and transistor radios rapidly made their appearance in all parts of the island. The American administration made extensive use of the radio to explain to the Ponapeans the meaning and the importance of the Micronesian Congress. The findings presented above support the hypothesis that people will apply introduced principles and norms of authority more quickly to new leadership roles with no traditional counterparts than to new leadership roles with traditional counterparts. Obviously other factors will also affect the rate of change from traditional to nontraditional principles with new leadership roles. Some other factors operative in Ponapean society are the degree of direct contact between the new leaders and the people, the experience the people already had with other nontraditional leadership roles when a particular role was introduced, and the amount and type of publicity explaining the nature and importance of the new leadership role. HYPOTHESIS I1 In his study of new leadership roles in Palau, Force (1960:137) found that traditional relationships affected the role behavior of new leaders. Younger legislators deferred to older and those of low traditional social status paid deference to those of higher traditional social status. Based on Force s report, the following hypothesis states a general rule about the effect of traditional social relationships on the role behavior of new leadership roles and then applies this rule to see if it is borne out in Ponapean society today. In a society in which new political leadership roles are being introduced the role behavior of individuals in new leadership roles of the contemporary political system will reflect role relationships of the traditional system. Even in exercising political leadership roles based on nontraditional sources of authority, those political leaders who have lower traditional social status will defer to those who have higher traditional social status. Some traditional forms of respect, such as the use of the royal language and deferential body gestures, will be afforded to Ponapean nobles even when they are exercising the nontraditional leadership roles of chief magistrate, councilman, legislator, and congressman. The Ponapean language has many levels of complexity, and each level is considered appropriate for a particular type of social situation. For our purposes it is enough to refer to the analysis of Riesenberg and Garvin (1952: ), in which they distin-

8 HUGHES] Democracy in a Traditional Society 43 guish three levels of language on Ponape. In addition to the common language Riesenberg and Garvin also discuss the respectful language and the royal language. Ponapeans use the common language with children or with equals in an informal situation. The polite language is used in addressing an equal in a formal situation or a superior, and it adds to the common language humble words and forms referring to oneself and respectful words and forms referring to one s equal or superior. The royal language is used in speaking to or in the presence of the nobility and adds further humble and respectful words and forms. Deferential gestures toward the Ponapean nobles include bowing when greeting them and always keeping one s head below theirs. Thus in passing a noble one stoops to bring one s head below his. Another deferential gesture is to hand something to a noble with the right hand crossed over the left elbow or wrist and with the head turned slightly down and away from his face. The congressmen from Ponape were unanimous in saying that no traditional forms of respect were afforded to the one Ponapean noble congressman during the first session of the Congress on Saipan in The official language of the Congress is English because it is the only common language among the members, whose first languages are mutually unintelligible. Nine of the twenty-four members of the Ponapean District Legislature are from the outer islands of the Ponape District such as Kusaie, Nukuoro, and Kapingamarangi, and they speak Ponapean only as a second language. Thus one of the rules of the legislature states that the meetings are to be conducted in Ponapean, but any member lacking fluency in Ponapean may use English or any language of the other islands, and a translation into Ponapean will be provided. All the legislators said that their interpretation of this rule was that the royal language is not to be used. From my own observation in attending two weeks of legislature meetings it was clear that the legislators used a combination of the common and polite forms depending upon their own fluency with the polite forms, and royal forms were not used at all. The patterns of deference of stooping to bring one s head below that of another and of handing someone an object with one s right hand crossed over the left elbow or wrist were somewhat in evidence during the meetings, but they were not noticeably practiced more toward the three noble members of the legislature than toward the others. I attended one council meeting in the municipality of Kiti, where the chief magistrate is one of the lower nobles of that kingdom. The chief magistrate was chairman of the meeting, and there was greater use of the polite language than at the legislature meetings in Kolonia and some use of the royal language. There was also a marked increase in the amount of deferential behavior such as stooping and handing objects in the stylized form described above. However, these gestures of deference were practiced toward me (an honored person by my status as foreigner) as well as toward the chief magistrate. I did not have the opportunity to attend a council meeting in Net, the one municipality where the same man, Max Iriarte, is both Nanmwarki and chief magistrate. However, two of the councilmen from Net said that they found it difficult to argue with the chief magistrate at council meetings because he is their Nanmwarki. Table 9 contains the percentages of responses in each category when a random sample of three hundred Ponapeans was asked: If two people, one a noble and the other a commoner, are equally qualified in all ways, which of the two will do a better job as chief magistrate?... as councilman?... etc. Far more respondents said there would be no difference between a noble and a commoner holding the office of legislator (42%) or congressman (47%) than holding the office of chief magistrate (27% ) or of councilman (36% ). In discussing the reasons for their answers some respondents who opposed the nobles being elected to various public offices said that they thought a noble would not really be concerned with

9 44 American Anthropologist [71, 1969 TABLE 9. PREFERRED TRADITIONAL SOCIAL STATUS FOR SELECrED LEADERS Substituting roles Added roies Chief magistrate Councilman Legislator Congressman No. Ut /O No. % No. % No. % Nobility I Commoner No difference the good of the people. An even greater number felt that the royal language and other patterns of deference would prevent a noble from doing a good job as chief magistrate or councilman. A commoner, they said, could not really complain to or discuss his problems with a noble as freely as he should be able to with his chief magistrate and councilman. None of the respondents ever cited the second reason for being opposed to a noble s being elected legislator or congressman. In fact some denied that it could be a factor saying that they knew that at the Legislature meetings in Kolonia and the Congress meetings on Saipan traditional forms of deference would not be involved. The findings of the present study do not support the second hypothesis, at least not as it has been stated. As a revised statement of this hypothesis I would propose that traditional role relations will influence role behavior in the exercise of introduced leadership roles to the extent that the role behavior occurs in traditional surroundings. The findings of this study will support this revised version of the second hypothesis. The role behavior of the chief magistrate and councilman takes place mostly in the kingdom and IargeIy in traditional surroundings. The legislator exercises his role mostly in Kolonia, which is somewhat removed from traditional surroundings by reason of: (1) its political independence of any kingdom; (2) the large number of outer-island residents; and (3) the strong American influence. The congressman exercises his role largely on Saipan, which is completely removed from traditional Ponapean surroundings. Thus the role behavior of the legislator and congressman is less influenced by traditional role relations than that of the councilman and chief magistrate. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS The distinction between new leadership roles with traditional counterparts (substituting leadership roles) and those without such traditional counterparts (added leadership roles) proved to be heuristically valuable and could be explored further in sociopolitical studies. In the course of this investigation the most interesting information was gathered concerning the role of congressman on Ponape. Even though the first hypothesis led to the prediction that Ponapeans would tend to apply introduced norms and principles of authority more quickly to that role than to the chief magistrate and councilman roles, the speed and degree with which this has taken place is still surprising. This investigation was conducted during the first year after the institution of the Congress of Micronesia. Within that brief period the role has been accepted to a very high degree on a nontraditional basis. Since only one noble was among the first group of congressmen in 1965 and none among the second group in 1966, it is evident that the choice of congressman is not based on the traditional social status of those running for office. The factors that did come to light as being operative in the choice of congressmen are the nontraditional norms of leadership: educational level, English-speaking ability, and travel experience. The first hypothesis would explain the rapidity with which nontraditional norms have been applied to the congressman s role by

10 HUGHES] Democracy in a the fact that it has no traditional counterpart. This is, however, only a partial explanation of the data. Some other factors that also help to explain this same phenomenon are: (1) the amount of previous experience with democratic leadership roles at the time a particular democratic leadership role is introduced; (2) the amount and type of publicity used to explain the nature and importance of the new leadership role; and (3) the level of contact between the new leadership role and the people. Each of these factors should be further investigated through research in other types of sociopolitical development. These conclusions can be applied to other aspects of modernizing societies than political development. I would suggest that these same variables will be just as operative in the modernization of economic or educational systems, for example, as they are in the modernization of political systems. People can be expected to apply introduced norms more quickly to new roles with no traditional counterparts than to new roles with traditional counterparts whether they are economic, educational, or political roles. Likewise the modernization process can be expected to accelerate with each new role accepted. Finally, the publicity explaining the new role and the level of contact between the new role and the people will affect Traditional Society 45 the speed with which introduced norms and principles will be applied to the role. NOTES 'The fieldwork for this investigation was conducted from January to November 'Tables 2 through 4 and 9 are based on responses from a random sample of 300 chosen from those Ponapeans above the age of 21 (less than 6,000). The data for Tables 2 through 4 were gathered by asking respondents to select two out of lists of five qualities considered most important for respective leadership roles. The lists were derived from previous open-ended interviews with 67 Ponapean informants. Tables 5 through 8 present data from a complete sample of chief magistrates, Iegislators, and congressmen holding office at the time of this investigation and from a random sample of 29 of the 57 councilmen in office at that time. REFERENCES CITED FORCE, ROLAND W Leadership and cultural change in Palau. Chicago, Chicago Natural History Museum. RIESENBERG, SAUL H The aboriginal political system of Ponape. Manuscript currently being prepared for publication. Washington, Smithsonian Institution. RIESENBERG, SAUL H., AND PAUL GARVIN 1952 Respect behavior on Ponape. American Anthropologist 54: