British anthropologist, student of Max Gluckman and prominent member of the Manchester school. Taught in Britain and the United States. Bailey is a transactionalist, whose approach in certain ways resembles that of Fredrik Barth (who was Edmund Leach's student), but whose endebtedness to the famous "Manchester anthropology" is shown in his focus on rules and how these are manipulated by fundamentally moral (rather than, as with Barth, by freely maximizing, value-seeking) actors, and in his Gluckmannian focus on conflict. Bailey is famous for his work on local and informal politics of everyday life in India (caste mobility, factions, rumor) and the Mediterranean.

Partial bibliography:

1957: Caste and the Economic Frontier: A Village in Highland Orissa.
1960: Tribe, Caste and Nation: A Study of Political Activity and Political Change in Highland Orissa.
1969: Strategems and Spoils.
1971: Gifts and Poison: The Politics of Reputation.
1983: The Tactical Uses of Passion: An Essay on Power, Reason, and Reality.
1988: Humbuggery and Manipulation: The Art of Leadership