The foundation of anthropology was evolutionism, biology, and the great social theorists such as Marx, Weber, and Durkheim, whereas the foundation of political science was classical philosophy. While social anthropology deals with all the sub-systems of society, political science focuses on the political system and power. It would be a mistake, however, to assume that anthropology is not concerned with power. Edmund Leach (1965), a prominent British social anthropologist, has argued that power is the most fundamental aspect of all social life, and therefore central to the anthropological endeavour, and in fact there is an area of specialisation in anthropology called political anthropology.
Social anthropologists do look at something politically. There is a range of anthropological behaviours depending on the sophistication of the society being studied and the goals and theoretical awareness of the investigator. The overlap of political and other activities is greater in simpler societies than in more complex societies. To put it in a slightly different manner, there is less functional specificity of different cultural aspects. Or, in simpler societies activities that social anthropologists regard as clearly and predominantly political are usually embedded in other kinds of activities.
Political activity is an aspect of all human social action and “interest articulation” is a universal function of all systems. Social anthropologists represents a highly diverse set of policies for whom political theory should be applicable if such ideas lay claim to universality. For a political scientist the presence of anthropological literature is not only a stimulus to theory testing but forms a basis for understanding local political situations as well. The theoretical contribution that anthropology is making to political science, related to functionalism, is the evolutionary point of view. Cohen, (1967) stated that explicitly or implicitly, social anthropologists have almost always ordered the societies they study into an evolutionary framework. Research on the local areas and institutions of the new nation brings the political scientist and the social anthropologist into the same area treating with the same populations and many of the same behaviours. In many parts of the non-western world, local political systems are heavily dependent on forms of socio-political structures that are still strongly influenced by their traditional cultures. Social anthropology can aid political science in the analysis of ethnicity and in preparing researchers for the use of participant observation techniques in the field. Social anthropology on its side has a great deal to gain from political science, in terms of theory and more precise behavioural methods, which at this point of its development the discipline needs (R. Cohen, 1967).