Selina Ahmed

The concept of “power” is frequently encountered in the field of political science, yet its definition is notoriously unsettled. For the purpose of this paper I shall assume that power is “essentially contested concept”, the criteria of application and meaning of which shall forever remain unsettled. Most theories accept that at minimum, power refers to the capacity to bring about consequences; or to ones ability to affect the attitude and/or actions of other. Political theorist such as Max Weber, Steve Lukes and C.Wright Mills largely advocate the view that power is essentially oppressive force: those in position of authority are able to exercise their power and realize their own interests against the relatively powerless. Other theorist, namely Talcott Parsons and Hannah Arendt have proposed an alternative view. Their argument is that power is not an inherently oppressive force, but a productive one which can be utilized to reach collective goal. Parsons, Arendt and to a lesser extent Michel Foucault, have all stressed that the concept of “power” must be distinguish from concepts such as “force”, “authority” and “coercion” – all of which refer to distinctly different phenomena.

During the course of this essay I shall outline the major arguments put forward by the aforementioned political theorists and examine the double-sided nature of power. Although I agree, to an extent that power can be both oppressive and productive, on the whole, I would have to argue that it is largely oppressive force-even is relatively stable democracies.

According to the “two-dimensional” account of power advanced by Bachrach & Baratz, power is not only exercised in an overt and observable way, but also has another “hidden face” in that it may also be exercised in a covert and unobservable manner. Steven Lukes takes this one step further and offers a “three-dimensional” theory which accords a pivotal place to the concept of interest: “A has power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interest”. In a manner reminiscent of the Marxist idea of false consciousness, Lukes goes on to assert that the most effective way of exercising power is through ideological conditioning and the ability to shape an individual’s beliefs about what is or is not in that individual’s interest. This power is all the greater as it is virtually invisible to those over whom it is exercised. “Is it not the supreme exercise of power to avert conflict and grievance by influencing, shaping and determining the perceptions and preferences of others?”

Max Weber also offers us an interpretation of power as a largely oppressive force. For him, power illustrates “the chance of a man or a number of men to realize their own will in communal action even against the resistance of others”, implying power involving conflicting interest. The exercise of power involves relations of conflict in which self-interested parties protect their interest against others. Power is essentially manipulative – people are oriented towards their own success and not toward common agreement. In a similar vein, for C.Wright Mills, “all politics is a struggle for power: the ultimate kind of power is violence”.

An alternative view to that proposed by Weber, Lukes and Mills is offered by Talcott Parsons who emphasized that the “zero-sum” concept of power produced an over-simplified depiction which associated power with the use of coercion and force. Contrary to what some “zero-sum” theorists advocated, power was not exercised merely when some from of negative sanction of coercion had been applied. Parsons suggested that power was better conceived of as a reciprocal relationship from which both sides might gain. Like money, power could also be generated, and just as money had a commonly recognized value, power became a facility for the achievement of collective goals. Like financial investments, power could be expanded if subjects are willing to place significant trust in their rulers. Everyone gained from this process, and as such there was more then a “zero-sum” circular flow of power. Parsons rejects the idea that authority is a “form” of power, and argued that is was a basis for, rather than a form of power. For him there was no such a thing as “illegitimate power”: “the threat of coercive measures, or of compulsion without legitimating or justification, should not properly be called the use of power at all”. Unlike Weber who perceived power as the opportunity to assert one’s will even against opposition, Ardent advocates the idea that power is the potential for collective achievement that arises when equals come together. Through the role of citizens, people act as free and equal agents who create power collectively via their communicative interaction. In Arendt’s view, no regime based entirely on the means of violence has ever existed.

Like Arendt, Michel Foucault insists that power relations are founded through communication and interaction, thus violence, which has no need for discussion, should be sharply separated from power. Foucault’s interpretation of power suggests that the zero-sum theory which primarily concentrates on the oppressive nature of power, are very limited in their understanding of the concept. Far from being a merely oppressive, power can be productive in that it is implicated in the production and reproduction of social practices. In Foucault’s view, the repressive models (as advocated by Weber, Lukes and Wright Mills) may have been suitable for describing pre-modern power, but are inadequate for explaining the way in which modern power is possessed and exercised. However, unlike Arendt and Parson, Foucault views power as a much more sinister force which moulds the individual into passive, obedient beings. The productive power that makes modern societies function in allied as never before with “disciplinary knowledge”. Beneath the rhetoric of freedom and democracy of modern societies are a multitude of discursive disciplines which constitute an entire “normalizing technology”. To homogenize bodies into a unified, obedient force is typical of the way that power circulates is democratic societies.

It is interesting to note, furthermore that even Talcott Parsons recognized that power could be oppressive. In stable political systems, power was only based symbolically on the use of coercion; it was the sanction that was applied when all else had proved ineffective. It was only in the case of insecure political regimes that the overt use of power became frequent. In situations of power ‘inflation’ power can grow out of the barrel of a gun. History shows that “particular social forms are often at first implemented by force, or by some other form of definite coercion, and coercive measures are used to produce and reinforce a new legitimacy”.

In many respects, the conception of power as advanced by Parsons and Arendt is an ideal model which is incapable of being achieved in reality. The type of productive power they talk about of can only be achieved in communication and interaction which is free from any form of domination and coercion. Furthermore, they tend to ignore the necessarily hierarchical character of power, and the division of interest which are frequently consequent upon it. They do, however, raise the important point that power can be a means of achieving collective goals and is it not intrinsically oppressive. In addition they point out the importance of distinguishing between phenomena such as “authority” and “force” from the phenomena of “power”.

By equating power with oppression, Weber, Lukes and Wright Mills have a tendency to overlook the many instances where power has acted as a vehicle through which objectives desired by both party has been achieved. Correlating power with the organization of violence only holds true if we accept Marx’s view of the state as an instrument of oppression in the hand of the ruling class. Power therefore, does not necessarily entail the coercive subordination of the interest of one party to those of another. Nor is the use of power inevitably correlated with “oppression” or “exploitation”.

Ultimately whether we view power as essentially productive or oppressive depends very much upon our own subjective values and beliefs, as it does on the theoretically paradigm that we adopt. For example, coming from a normative functionalist school of thought, Persons merely looked for evidence which neatly supported his assumptions about the way in which society functions and ignored the many instances were power was clearly oppressive. Similar criticisms can be made of the entire theorists who have been mentioned in this discussion.