Thursday's reading
Thursday's reading is "Beyond the Three Faces of Power: A Realist Critique" by Jeffrey Isaac. It is in the Journal
Polity, volume 20, Issue #1, Autumn 1987, pp. 4-31.
It can be found, like the Bachrach and Baratz articles, in JSTOR.
I recommend logging in to the library from the off campus proxy (if you're off campus) and selecting databases, and choosing JSTOR.
The easiest way is to choose "Browse" and select the journal by title and go straight to the issue, but it's easy enough to craft a search to find it as well.
The three dimensions of power
Some discussion for this week:
Tuesday, 1/31 the Third Face of Power
1) How does Stephen Lukes propose improving on the first two faces of power?
2) According to Lukes, the 3rd face of power allows us to consider the how some might enthusiastically and earnestly participate in their own oppression. How does this work? What methodological issues does this raise?
3) How do we know what someone's "real" interests are? What is wrong, according to Lukes, with just asking them?
4) Does Lukes expand the concept of power too far, so as to include influences that are freely adapted? How can we tell if, say, a consumptive choice is freely chosen?
5) Is Lukes developing the notion of power and prestige developed by Simmel?
Getting Thursday's readings
To get Thursday's readings by Bachrach and Baratz, follow this process:
Log onto the library homepage and select "JSTOR" under research databases.
Choose advanced search.
Put the words Bachrach and Baratz in the first search window, and limit search to Author in the journal "American Political Science Review"
They are the first two results. Here is the full citation information:
"The Two Faces of Power," Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz,
The American Political Science Review v. 56 no. 4 (December 1962), p. 947-952.
"Decisions and Non-Decisions: An Analytic Framework," Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz,
The American Political Science Review v. 57 no. 3 (September 1963), p. 632-642.
Simmel, next week
I didn't post on Simmel, so feel free to send your Simmel questions and comments here.
This coming week, we turn our attention to the study of power amongst political scientists in the 1950's and 1960's, including Robert Dahl and his "second face" critics.
The first "face" of power is represented by Robert Dahl. Nice, short, easy readings for Tuesday to make up for Parsons.
What I'd like to do on Tuesday is, first, make sure we're all on the same page and have a good understanding of the first face model of power, as described by Lukes and using Dahl as an example.
Then I'd like to consider the following issues:
1) Assumptions (including unstated assumptions) of this view of power
2) Strengths of this approach
3) Weaknesses of this approach
4) Normative implications of this approach
We'll do something very similar for The second face on Thursday.
I'd like to see an online discussion get started. Use this thread to post your comments on any of the above issues regarding the first face of power and Dahl's approach. I'm particularly interested in your thoughts on his strengths and weaknesses.
Weber
Note: the additional Weber reading is on e-reserve, listed as "Intellectual Orientations" by Mills.
Here are some discussion questions. Feel free to begin now, or discuss after tomorrow's lecture:
Marx saw power as one thing, from one source, but Weber, we are told, saw political power and economic power as distinct entities. Why--what is the importance of keeping this distinction?
For Marx, interests drive, define, shape, and perhaps even create ideologies. How does Weber differ on the interest/ideology relationship?
For Marx, 'capitalism' was the central defining institution of modern society. For Weber, it was the 'rational bureaucracy' whether it was a military, a religious organization, a corporation or a government. Why the shift in emphasis?
What is the significance of the concept of 'charisma' to Weber? Why would Marx be skeptical of such a concept?
Weber distinguishes between different types of action and different forms of power:
--rational
--traditional
--affectual
Each of these types of action must be understood as stemming from different forms of power. What is the difference between these types of action, and how can we tell the difference?
Marx accepts the notion of objective interests, while Weber rejects it. Why do they make the choices they make? What are the consequences of those choices?
How does Weber define power (see
Power, pg. 29)? How is power different from domination? Why does this distinction matter for Weber?
Alienated Labor essay
As I mentioned yesterday,
here is an optional additional reading by Marx. This explores his theory of human nature: what makes us truly human? For those who don't want to wade through more Marx, here's the money quote:
What constitutes the alienation of labour?
Firstly, the fact that labour is external to the worker – i.e., does not belong to his essential being; that he, therefore, does not confirm himself in his work, but denies himself, feels miserable and not happy, does not develop free mental and physical energy, but mortifies his flesh and ruins his mind. Hence, the worker feels himself only when he is not working; when he is working, he does not feel himself. He is at home when he is not working, and not at home when he is working. His labour is, therefore, not voluntary but forced, it is forced labour. It is, therefore, not the satisfaction of a need but a mere means to satisfy needs outside itself. Its alien character is clearly demonstrated by the fact that as soon as no physical or other compulsion exists, it is shunned like the plague. External labour, labour in which man alienates himself, is a labour of self-sacrifice, of mortification. Finally, the external character of labour for the worker is demonstrated by the fact that it belongs not to him but to another, and that in it he belongs not to himself but to another. Just as in religion the spontaneous activity of the human imagination, the human brain, and the human heart, detaches itself from the individual and reappears as the alien activity of a god or of a devil, so the activity of the worker is not his own spontaneous activity. It belongs to another, it is a loss of his self.
The result is that man (the worker) feels that he is acting freely only in his animal functions – eating, drinking, and procreating, or at most in his dwelling and adornment – while in his human functions, he is nothing more than animal.
Marxism and theories of power
Marx is generally regarded as (amongst other things) a founder of one of the main schools of sociological analysis. This school has a particular take on power; one significant enough to devote some considerable attention to. You'll be reading a couple of texts that give you a more general take on Marx and Marxism, rather than a specific set of readings on power.
Marx's understanding of power is best viewed as a subset of his understanding of history. Marx has a particular take on what *matters* in human affairs, and what is a product of the real movement and moment of history. As Poulantzas demonstrates, Marx locates power in class, and he locates class in the relations of production. A few questions to ponder as you think about Marx on power:
Where, according to Marx, does power come from?
How does power shape people's lives?
How can power be confronted and challenged?
Why would Marx be unlikely to describe a particular person as "powerful" in any meaningful sense?
Poulantzas uses the phrase 'objective interests' in his conception of power. What is the signifigance of labelling these interests 'objective'?
Here's my favorite passage from
The Communist Manifesto. It's about, amongst other things, the changes brought about by the advent of capitalism in Europe:
All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his, real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind.
What does this mean? How does the development of a new economic system do all this?
-----
Marx has more than one intellectual legacy. His most (in)famous legacy is as an advocate for communism as a political system. He has also made his mark on the 20th century in other ways; his social scientific methods have been adopted and used by many who don't share all of his politics, or even much of them. We'll try to talk about how this makes sense in class Thursday.
Thursday's Reading
On Thursday, we'll discuss the general approach to socio-economic life of Karl Marx, with particular attention to the way he theorizes power. There is a brief reading from the
Power book edited by Lukes, but we'll be going to the original source as well.
It's very short and probably very confusing, but do try to read The Preface to
A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which serves as a dense but important summary of a number of important Marxist ideas. The link is
here.
I'd like you to read
The Communist Manifesto. This is a longer reading, and it's a bit unique in that it was written for a wide audience of factory workers, as political propaganda. This doesn't prevent it from providing valuable insights into Marx's theory of power as well. It's only important for this class to read chapters one and two (chapters three and four concern political details of limited relevance to us).
Here is a
link to chapter 1chapter 2In a few days, I'll provide some discussion questions and a reading guide for these readings.
Essentially Contested Concepts
*Great* stuff on the previous questions. Assuming I've got computer access on Tuesday, we'll take a look at some of your answers in more detail.
But we'll be moving on to the material that exlains, to a significant extent, how I think about the material in this course--the idea of essentially contested concepts.
We'll read the essay that coined the term and the concept (Gallie), and an essay that demonstrated what difficulties this concept causes for social science (Connolly). I think these are important essays, and the challenges that face those who analyze these sorts of concepts are made clearer by attention to this idea. Some questions to think about, as you're reading:
1) Why can't we simply settle all these contestations by looking it up in the dictionary?
2) What are Gallie's 5 conditions for essentially contested concepts? Other than the ones he discusses, what are some other examples?
3) What does it mean to refer to a concept as "appraisitive"? What particular challenges do these concepts provide for those who want to study them as impartial social scientists? What about those who study them as normative political theorists.
4) Some have suggested that if we grant that concepts like democracy and power are "essentially contested," we might as well throw up our hands and say "anything goes" when analyzing these concepts. Do you agree? Why or why not?
5) Connolly suggests that if we accept the idea of essentially contested concepts, it raises some serious concerns for how we do social science research. What does he mean? Is this true?
6) A different approach to concepts like "power," "democracy," and "art" might be to a)acknowledge that many people use many different definitions of these concepts, and b) argue that one group of people is simply correct about the definition, and the others are incorrect or confused in some way. Why, according to Gallie/Connolly, should we reject that approach?
(Feel free to post any other comments or questions on the Gallie and Connolly articles, or the idea of ECCs more broadly, in this discussion thread).
Power's sources and legitimacy
What are the main sources of power that impact your life?
Which of these sources and forms of power are legitimate? Which are illegitimate? How can we tell the difference between illegitimate and legitimate power?
Power: some questions
To begin this course, I'd like you to answer a couple of questions.
First, off the top of your head, without looking at a dictionary, any course readings, or any of the previously posted comments, how would you define "power"?
