Power and Authority - Essay PDF

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Power and Authority

Power as central to the study of politics:  Gerry Stoker and David Marsh: Politics is about the “uneven distribution of power, how the struggle for power is conducted”  Thomas Bell: “Power is to political analysis as the economy is to economics”  Colin Hay put it “power is politics, politics is power”

WHO GOVERNS? (Empirical question) ELITIST VS. PLURALIST

Elitism – power as concentrated among those from a narrow social strata

 Political elites seek to advance their own interests (MARXISM! Bourgeoisie vs. proletariat?)  A necessary consequence due to the enormous inequalities in the distribution of resources of influence such as property, income etc  E.g. Eton Prime Ministers, RI as PAP school etc

Pluralism – power is dispersed within society

 Politics as competitive  e.g. political parties, NGOs, media, trade unions, companies  Political elites change  Policy is the outcome of competitive processes among social groups

HOW TO CONCEPTUALISE POWER? (Theoretical question)  Colin Hay: Power, like politics, can be understood in a number of more or less inclusive ways  Power as a resource/ attribute: something to be possessed?  Power as a relational phenomenon: to have power over something?  Power as a property of social systems?  Working under circumstances directly transmitted and passed on from the past  Production of intended results: something manifested only in activity (Russell)?  Is there latent power – power which lies dormant?

1) Authority – attaches to offices, requires a subjectively deferential attitude on the part of citizens to be fully established 2) Power – general ability to influence others which 3) Powers 4) Coercive power 5) Force 6) Violence

THREE DIMENSIONS OF POWER

Colin Hay: “the tension between a concept of power that is simple, precise and potentially quantifiable and one which is more complex and intuitively appealing, yet which is much more difficult to catalogue and measure”

1. Power as decision-making

 Robert Dahl: Studied political issues in New Haven, focusing on observable decisions and the relationship between preferences and decisions  Definition: ‘A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that he would otherwise not do’  Pluralist – concluded power is widely dispersed in decision-making  Political system initially dominated by a patrician elite (Yale families, Yale education, social standing, public life) before entrepreneurs entered the picture (wealth, key positions in corporate and public life). Ex-plebes (modest social standing, usually immigrant backgrounds), rising out of a newly created urban proletariat, entered the political system with their immense popularity, gaining access to political resources – legality, city jobs etc.  Political system now dominated by many different sets of leaders, each having access to a different combination of political resources  pluralist!  Argues that the political stratum is easily penetrated because elections and competitive parties give politicians incentives to expand coalitions  Political elites change: in the 19th century, an implicit norm excluded persons of foreign birth or non-Yankee origins from nomination or election; since 1899, the norm has almost operated in reverse  Power as measurable, understood in terms of EFFECT  Actual vs. potential influence

 The possession of political resources is only a potential source of influence – one could choose not to use these resources. If so, his actual influence < potential influence, with potential influence being that he chooses to use all  Talking about the potential influence is difficult – requires one to specify what conditions might lead one to exercise all his political resources + what that train of events might be  Collective influence requires calculating the aggregate resources used by a group – if everyone used 1/10th of his resources, a millionaire might have more influence than anyone with lesser income. But a millionaire who spent $10000 on politics would be equalled by the contributions of a hundred thousand persons who spent $10 apiece  Power in relational terms - Power is understood in terms of domination / having power over  Power is zero-sum  Some gain only to the extent that some lose  Power is rendered transparent and can be classified, catalogued and tabulated in terms of realisation of preferences in the heart of the decisionmaking process

2. Power as agenda-setting

 Bachrach & Baratz: an elitist critique of Dahl  Two fundamental defects of Dahl’s view of what power is: “On s that the model takes no account of the fact that power may be, and often is, exercised by confining the scope of decision-making to relatively “safe” issues. The other is that the model provides no objective criteria for

distinguishing between “important” and “unimportant” issues arising in the political arena”  Argued for a second dimension of power – power is beyond making of decisions, extends to the setting of agenda in the first place  “to the extent that a person or a group – consciously or unconsciously – creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts, that person or group has power”  The idea of indirect influence  Claimed that political organisation = organisation of bias: some issues are organised into politics, some are organised out  Hyland: ‘the common knowledge that certain decisions would be unacceptable to the local “godfather” is sufficient to remove whole ranges of potential options from the agenda of town-meeting entirely’  Essentially a dispute about the boundaries of what constitutes politics!! Power as decision-making: restriction of the concept of power to the formal political arena of decision-making; neo-elitists such as Bachrach and Baratz broadened the concept of power, and with it the political, to encompass agenda-setting  A more fundamental critique of pluralism? – such a narrow focus on decision-making tantamount to endorsing deep-seated power relations? A normative legitimating of the political elite masquerading as a neutral and dispassionate science of the political

3. Power as thought control

 Steven Lukes: critiques of both Dahl and Bachrach & Baratz

 Argued that both Dahl and Bachrach & Baratz based their theories on stated preferences  Power includes the capacity to shape preferences in the first place – the most “insidious” form of power to shape preferences such that people accept the order of things because they see no alternative / think it is natural / believe it is divinely ordained or beneficial?

PROBLEMS

 Can we actually discern an actor’s ‘real interests’?  Cannot be studied in terms of empirical measurement  False consciousness (Marxism)  Is power simply about agency?...