Mobilisation of the Peasantry

Abstract

Power has always included the components of violence and consent. While the violence imposed by rulers has, at times, been so overwhelming that it has annihilated civilisations, the consent of the ruled to their domination is sometimes an even stronger element in the nature of power.² The numerous variations of patron-client relationship in Peru probably express not only regional and historical differences in the relative force of the various institutions of the Conquest, but also the varied ways in which Indian communities evolved their own sub-cultures of repression.