section_path: Genres/Political rituals
section_name: Political rituals
paragraph_text: Political rituals
  
  According to anthropologist Clifford Geertz, political rituals actually construct power; that is, in his analysis of the Balinese state, he argued that rituals are not an ornament of political power, but that the power of political actors depends upon their ability to create rituals and the cosmic framework within which the social hierarchy headed by the king is perceived as natural and sacred. As a "dramaturgy of power" comprehensive ritual systems may create a cosmological order that sets a ruler apart as a divine being, as in "the divine right" of European kings, or the divine Japanese Emperor. Political rituals also emerge in the form of uncodified or codified conventions practiced by political officials that cement respect for the arrangements of an institution or role against the individual temporarily assuming it, as can be seen in the many rituals still observed within the procedure of parliamentary bodies.
  
  Ritual can be used as a form of resistance, as for example, in the various Cargo Cults that developed against colonial powers in the South Pacific. In such religio-political movements, Islanders would use ritual imitations of western practices (such as the building of landing strips) as a means of summoning cargo (manufactured goods) from the ancestors. Leaders of these groups characterized the present state (often imposed by colonial capitalist regimes) as a dismantling of the old social order, which they sought to restore. Rituals may also attain political significance after conflict, as is the case with the Bosnian syncretic holidays and festivals that transgress religious boundaries.