Publisher’s summary

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