hierarchy

1. Religion a body of persons in holy orders organized into graded ranks

2. Taxonomy a series of ordered groupings within a system, such as the arrangement of plants and animals into classes, orders, families, etc.

3. Linguistics Maths a formal structure, usually represented by a diagram of connected nodes, with a single uppermost element

4. government by an organized priesthood

Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005

Hierarchy

An arrangement or system of ranking one above the other or arranged in a graded series or sequence such as size (large to small), shape (similar or dissimilar), and placement (emphasis or location).

hierarchy

An organisation with few things, or one thing, at the top and with several things below each other thing. An inverted tree structure. Examples in computing include a directory hierarchy where each directory may contain files or other directories; a hierarchical network (see hierarchical routing), a class hierarchy in object-oriented programming.

This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)

hierarchy

A structure that has a predetermined ordering from high to low. For example, all files and folders on the hard disk are organized in a hierarchy (see Win Folder organization).

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The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Hierarchy

the ordering of parts or elements of a whole from the highest to the lowest.

The term “hierarchy” was introduced not earlier than the second half of the fifth century by Pseudo-Dionysius in his treatises The Celestial Hierarchy and The Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. Until the 19th century, it was used to describe the organization of the Christian church. The development of the conception of hierarchy in science began in the second half of the 19th century. In the social sciences, the conception of hierarchy was originally used to describe class-estate divisions in an antagonistic society (for example, feudal hierarchy) and to characterize the structure of authority, especially of bureaucracy. In contemporary bourgeois sociology, numerous research studies have been devoted to the hierarchy of prestige, the hierarchy of wealth, and the hierarchy of power and control as an expression of social stratification and of social inequality.

With the appearance of the general systems theory in the 20th century, the conception of hierarchy was applied to describe any system objects. Hierarchically organized forms exist in all spheres of objective reality: inorganic, biological, and social. In Marxist philosophy, the idea of the hierarchy of qualitatively irreducible structural levels of matter has been developed. In general organizational theory, hierarchy is seen as the principle of control that secures the effective functioning of the organization. The hierarchy of levels (tiers) of a language is distinguished in linguistics. In graph theory the hierarchically constructed graph (the so-called tree) is used.

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References in periodicals archive

''The power structure within a party is a vital element for politics,'' he said.

LDP reform vital for Koizumi's future, Thai analyst says

You must be a bit of a sleuth to understand the political power structure of an organization.

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Defense Minister Walter Ledesma said the move was intended to "dismantle the power structure that had been used to politically control the armed forces." This follows the Nov.

Peru forces officers to retire

Anoushiravan Ehtashami's chapter on "Islamic Governance in Iran" explores post-revolutionary Iran's power structure, foreign policy, macro-economic policy and political/religious relations.

Islamic Fundamentalism

It is extremely rare, however, for the shifting power structure of the relationship between creator and interpreter to be explicitly articulated.

The continuing evolution of Mr. Forsythe

The author's major goals are to reexamine the old community power studies, identify their theoretical and methodological flaws, and devise a "new paradigm." The old community power studies of the 1960s and early 1970s tended to classify communities as governed by either an elite or plural power structure. In most of these studies, a community's classification was the product of the methodology used by the researcher, which itself was largely a function of his/her academic discipline.

Urban Political Economy: Broward County, Florida

In January 1993, the leadership of the Nation changed political hands peacefully as the power structure that had existed for a dozen years gave way to a new one.

The transition document

The point is an important one: what is at issue is not the personal inclinations of those in power but the nature of the power structure that put them there.

Notes from the editors

In fact, the main supporters of Billy Payne's Olympics effort comprise virtually the entire Atlanta business and political power structure are the key not only to Atlanta's Olympic bid triumph, but to the success of the city itself.

Atlanta games

Field irrigation for growing food and the rise of a centralized political power structure did not occur at the site until considerably after the urban flowering of El Paraiso, the research team concludes.

Ancient city shows where cotton was king

For many in the party, only a centralised power structure could ensure political and economic stability in the country.

Betting on presidential rule

The CJP's recent statement about democracy is equally important and relevant as the superior judiciary is now considered an integral part of the country's new de facto power structure in which the apex court is also calling the shots along with the executive and the military establishment.

Reconstructing the power troika