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In social and political theory, power is often regarded as an essentially contested concept One such disagreement pits those who define power as getting someone else to do what you want them to do,
or an ability or a capacity to act, that is, as a power-to do something.
The classic formulation of the former definition is offered by Max Weber, who defines power as
"the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance…"
. Similarly, Robert Dahl offers what he calls an "intuitive idea of power" according to which
"A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do" (1957,
Similarly, but from a very different theoretical background, Michel Foucault's highly influential analysis presupposes that power is a kind of power-over; and he puts it,"if we speak of the structures or the mechanisms of power, it is only insofar as we suppose that certain persons exercise power over others" (1983, 217).
Classic articulations of the latter definition of power (as power-to) are offered by Thomas Hobbes — power is a person's "present means…to obtain some future apparent Good"
Hannah Arendt argues power is "the human ability not just to act but to act in concert"
. Arguing in favor of this way of conceptualizing power, Hanna Pitkin notes that power is related etymologically to the French word pouvoir and the Latin potere, both of which mean to be able. "That suggests," she writes, "that power is a something — anything — which makes or renders somebody able to do, capable of doing something."
Peter Morriss (2002) and Lukes (2005) define power as a dispositional concept, meaning, as Lukes puts it, that power "is a potentiality, not an actuality — indeed a potentiality that may never be actualized"
Arendt defines power as a capacity, she also maintains that "power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse
Power and systems
Another way of carving up the philosophical literature on power is to distinguish between action-theoretical conceptions of power —that is, those that define power in terms of either the actions or the dispositional abilities of particular actors — and broader systemic or constitutive conceptions of power — that is, those that view power as systematically structuring possibilities for action, or, more strongly, as constituting actors and the social world in which they act. On this way of distinguishing various conceptions of power, Hobbes and Weber are on the same side, since both of them understand power in primarily instrumentalist, individualist, and action-theoretical terms (Saar 2010, 10). The systemic conception, by contrast, views power as "the ways in which given social systems confer differentials of dispositional power on agents, thus structuring their possibilities for action" (Haugaard 2010, 425; see Clegg 1989).
The systemic conception thus highlights the ways in which broad historical, political, economic, cultural, and social forces enable some individuals to exercise power over others, or inculcate certain abilities and dispositions in some actors but not in others. Saar argues, however, that the systemic conception of power should be understood not as an alternative to the action-theoretical conception of power, but rather as a more complex and sophisticated variant of that model. For, as he says, its "basic scenario remains individualistic at the methodological level: power operates on individuals as individuals, in the form of a 'bringing to action' or external determination" (Saar 2010, 14).
The constitutive conception of power, by contrast, focuses on the fundamentally transindividual and relational ways in which individuals and the social worlds they inhabit are themselves constituted by power relations. The roots of this constitutive conception can be traced back to Spinoza (2002a and 2002b), and also found in the work of more contemporary theorists such as Arendt and Foucault. (Here it is important to note that Foucault's work on power contains both action-theoretical and constitutive strands. The former strand is evident in his claim, cited above, that "if we speak of the structures or the mechanisms of power, it is only insofar as we suppose that certain persons exercise power over others"(Foucault 1983, 217), whereas the latter strand is evident in his definition of power as "the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the processes which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them;…thus forming a chain or system" (Foucault 1979, 92)).
What accounts for the highly contested nature of the concept of power? One explanation is that how we conceptualize power is shaped by the political and theoretical interests that we bring to the study of power (Lukes 1986, Said 1986). For example, democratic theorists are interested in different things when they study power than are social movement theorists or critical race theorists or postcolonial theorists, and so on. On this view, a specific conceptualization of power could be more or less useful depending on the specific disciplinary or theoretical context in which it is deployed, where usefulness is evaluated in terms of how well it "accomplishes the task the theorists set for themselves" (Haugaard 2010, 426). On this view, if we suppose that feminists who are interested in power are interested in understanding and critiquing gender-based relations of domination and subordination and thinking about how such relations can be transformed through individual and collective resistance, then we would conclude that specific conceptions of power should be evaluated in terms of how well they enable feminists to fulfill those aims.
Lukes suggests another, more radical, explanation for the essentially contested nature of the concept of power: our conceptions of power are, according to him, themselves shaped by power relations. As he puts it, "how we think about power may serve to reproduce and reinforce power structures and relations, or alternatively it may challenge and subvert them. It may contribute to their continued functioning, or it may unmask their principles of operation, whose effectiveness is increased by their being hidden from view. To the extent that this is so, conceptual and methodological questions are inescapably political and so what ‘power’ means is‘essentially contested’…" (Lukes 2005, 63). The thought that conceptions of power are themselves shaped by power relations is behind the claim, made by many feminists, that the influential conception of power as power-over is itself a product of male domination.
In social and political theory, power is often regarded as an essentially contested concept One such disagreement pits those who define power as getting someone else to do what you want them to do,
or an ability or a capacity to act, that is, as a power-to do something.
The classic formulation of the former definition is offered by Max Weber, who defines power as
"the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance…"
. Similarly, Robert Dahl offers what he calls an "intuitive idea of power" according to which
"A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do" (1957,
Similarly, but from a very different theoretical background, Michel Foucault's highly influential analysis presupposes that power is a kind of power-over; and he puts it,"if we speak of the structures or the mechanisms of power, it is only insofar as we suppose that certain persons exercise power over others" (1983, 217).
Classic articulations of the latter definition of power (as power-to) are offered by Thomas Hobbes — power is a person's "present means…to obtain some future apparent Good"
Hannah Arendt argues power is "the human ability not just to act but to act in concert"
. Arguing in favor of this way of conceptualizing power, Hanna Pitkin notes that power is related etymologically to the French word pouvoir and the Latin potere, both of which mean to be able. "That suggests," she writes, "that power is a something — anything — which makes or renders somebody able to do, capable of doing something."
Peter Morriss (2002) and Lukes (2005) define power as a dispositional concept, meaning, as Lukes puts it, that power "is a potentiality, not an actuality — indeed a potentiality that may never be actualized"
Arendt defines power as a capacity, she also maintains that "power springs up between men when they act together and vanishes the moment they disperse
Power and systems
Another way of carving up the philosophical literature on power is to distinguish between action-theoretical conceptions of power —that is, those that define power in terms of either the actions or the dispositional abilities of particular actors — and broader systemic or constitutive conceptions of power — that is, those that view power as systematically structuring possibilities for action, or, more strongly, as constituting actors and the social world in which they act. On this way of distinguishing various conceptions of power, Hobbes and Weber are on the same side, since both of them understand power in primarily instrumentalist, individualist, and action-theoretical terms (Saar 2010, 10). The systemic conception, by contrast, views power as "the ways in which given social systems confer differentials of dispositional power on agents, thus structuring their possibilities for action" (Haugaard 2010, 425; see Clegg 1989).
The systemic conception thus highlights the ways in which broad historical, political, economic, cultural, and social forces enable some individuals to exercise power over others, or inculcate certain abilities and dispositions in some actors but not in others. Saar argues, however, that the systemic conception of power should be understood not as an alternative to the action-theoretical conception of power, but rather as a more complex and sophisticated variant of that model. For, as he says, its "basic scenario remains individualistic at the methodological level: power operates on individuals as individuals, in the form of a 'bringing to action' or external determination" (Saar 2010, 14).
The constitutive conception of power, by contrast, focuses on the fundamentally transindividual and relational ways in which individuals and the social worlds they inhabit are themselves constituted by power relations. The roots of this constitutive conception can be traced back to Spinoza (2002a and 2002b), and also found in the work of more contemporary theorists such as Arendt and Foucault. (Here it is important to note that Foucault's work on power contains both action-theoretical and constitutive strands. The former strand is evident in his claim, cited above, that "if we speak of the structures or the mechanisms of power, it is only insofar as we suppose that certain persons exercise power over others"(Foucault 1983, 217), whereas the latter strand is evident in his definition of power as "the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the processes which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them;…thus forming a chain or system" (Foucault 1979, 92)).
What accounts for the highly contested nature of the concept of power? One explanation is that how we conceptualize power is shaped by the political and theoretical interests that we bring to the study of power (Lukes 1986, Said 1986). For example, democratic theorists are interested in different things when they study power than are social movement theorists or critical race theorists or postcolonial theorists, and so on. On this view, a specific conceptualization of power could be more or less useful depending on the specific disciplinary or theoretical context in which it is deployed, where usefulness is evaluated in terms of how well it "accomplishes the task the theorists set for themselves" (Haugaard 2010, 426). On this view, if we suppose that feminists who are interested in power are interested in understanding and critiquing gender-based relations of domination and subordination and thinking about how such relations can be transformed through individual and collective resistance, then we would conclude that specific conceptions of power should be evaluated in terms of how well they enable feminists to fulfill those aims.
Lukes suggests another, more radical, explanation for the essentially contested nature of the concept of power: our conceptions of power are, according to him, themselves shaped by power relations. As he puts it, "how we think about power may serve to reproduce and reinforce power structures and relations, or alternatively it may challenge and subvert them. It may contribute to their continued functioning, or it may unmask their principles of operation, whose effectiveness is increased by their being hidden from view. To the extent that this is so, conceptual and methodological questions are inescapably political and so what ‘power’ means is‘essentially contested’…" (Lukes 2005, 63). The thought that conceptions of power are themselves shaped by power relations is behind the claim, made by many feminists, that the influential conception of power as power-over is itself a product of male domination.
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