The four dimensions of power

Understanding domination, empowerment and democracy

Mark Haugaard

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781526110367, 9781526110374
• eBook ISBN: 9781526110398
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political History & Theory
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This is an original account of social/political power, which builds upon cutting edge social theory, including Steven Lukes and Michel Foucault. The book develops a four-dimensional model, in an accessible style with vivid examples. It is ideal for undergraduates, postgraduates, academics and activist who wish to understand power and conflict.

1

The first dimension of power: Violence, coercion and authority

The first dimension of power is attributed to Dahl. We will expand upon it to include accounts of positive-sum power, authority, coercion and (in Chapter 3) contrast 1-D with deeper forms of 2-D conflict. This chapter builds upon the work of Allen (1999), Austin (1975), Barnes (1988), Clegg (1989), Parsons (1963) and Searle (1996).

Routine power as agency

In Dahl’s model an exercise of power takes place when an agent makes a difference in the world by making something happen that would not otherwise have happened if it were not for that agent’s actions. Dahl uses the example of a police officer directing a motorist in a direction they would not otherwise have gone (Dahl 1957: 202). As Dahl was a democratic theorist, who developed his vocabulary of power as a conceptual toolkit to test the quality of democratic participation (Dahl 1961), the democratic process also constitutes a paradigmatic instance of the routine exercise of 1-D power. Through the use of elections and parliaments one political party prevails over another and individual citizens have an effect.

The police officer and the democratic process of 1-D power presuppose some level of legitimacy relative to the less powerful compliant social actor. However, 1-D power also includes more coercive and illegitimate exercises of power. The command from a highway robber (Your money or I shoot!) constitutes an exercise of 1-D power. Unlike the police officer, this is based upon coercion and is regarded as illegitimate. In everyday speech, it is the coercive form of power that springs to mind. As we shall see, in actual social life both aspects of 1-D power co-exist. In short, the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate 1-D is what Weber would call an ideal type (Weber 1970: 294 and 2011: 47–66), which is an abstraction that constitutes the essence of a social phenomenon but rarely exists in its pure form.

Power-over, power-to and power-with

Since Dahl’s work, Allen has introduced the distinction between power-over, power-to and power-with (Allen 1999). In 1-D, the power-over aspect of agency is obvious. A police officer exercises power-over drivers and in a democracy the winning party exercises power-over those who lose an election. However, as has been emphasized by Morriss (2002) and Pansardi (2012), this power-over constitutes a manifestation of a wider capacity for action, which presupposes power-to. Both police and winning parties have a generic capacity for action, or power-to, which is a condition of possibility of their capacity for interactive power-over.

In a successful exercise of power-over, the capacity for action, or power-to, is not only possessed by the more powerful but also the less powerful. For an exercise of power to be successful, the respondent B has to have the power-to do as A commands. It is for this reason that power-over is usually exercised over persons with some power-to. The ultimate exclusion is to be so powerless that you are unworthy of having power exercised over you – the poorest of the poor fall into this category. The abjectly powerless fall outside, or are excluded from, the social system. Or, they find themselves included only through their vulnerability, in demeaning ways, including slavery.

In the case of legitimate power, the exercise of power-over feeds back to empower B. Compliance with the authority of the traffic police delivers B power-to drive in an ordered system of traffic. This is in contrast to purely coercive power, as in Your money or I shoot! By handing over her money the responding actor loses capacity for action (she no longer has that money), while in the case of legitimate power-over, the response feeds back into the reproduction of the responding actor’s power-to. In an ordered traffic system, responding appropriately to the rules of the road empowers drivers.

Typically, power-with refers to collective organization between A and B in order to enhance their collective power-to (Allen 1999). Minorities joining forces are an instance of power-with. Also, organizations created for a collective goal are instances of power-with. Furthermore, there is a sense in which all collectives, even informal ones, entail power-with. Much of everyday interaction concerns ritualized greetings that are expressions of solidarity. The phatic communion greeting Hello, how are you? constitutes an expression of solidarity with the other, or collective power-with. This results in collective dispositional power-to resources that may or may not be activated by individual members.

Reinforcing feedbacks between power-over and power-to

The power-over and power-to aspects of interaction are not necessarily separate events but often constitute a duality. The fact that drivers accept the power-over of the traffic police and follow the highway code enables them to drive in an ordered manner, which gives them a capacity for action.

In the democratic process, there are winners and losers. However, in a properly functioning democratic system, the loser is not an absolute loser. When the election is over, the structures of the election are reproduced and this gives the loser the capacity for action (or power-to) to fight another election. Consequently, in a well-balanced democracy there is a virtuous cycle between power-over and power-to.

While 1-D power can be mutually empowering, it is frequently not so. In instances of power-over as pure domination, the feedbacks from power-over to power-to are absent. If the more powerful, dominant, A exercises power-over the less powerful, or subordinate, B in a manner whereby the power-to gain is all in A’s favour, B is dominated and has little pragmatic reason to comply. Consequently, such a relationship requires coercion as a base for power-over. If someone holds a gun to someone else’s head, and says Your money or I shoot! the compliant B gains nothing from the interaction. Consequently, the sole reason for B’s compliance is her response to coercion.

Domination

Typically, domination is not either/or but on a scale. Many relationships of power-over entail a mix of domination and mutual empowerment. For instance, in economic exploitation, the exploited party gains some power-to, while the more powerful person typically gains comparatively greater power-to.

In the power debates there was a tendency to assume that 1-D was inherently and therefore solely dominating power. Domination refers to a power relationship where A gains at the expense of B. This dominating view of power is exemplified by Lukes’ 1974 definition of power, which is as follows: ‘A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests’ (Lukes 1974: 27; italics added).

Following the discussion in the introduction concerning language games, there is no singular correct definition of power. I am not saying that Lukes was categorically wrong to define power in this way. Rather, from a sociological point of view I wish to emphasize the complexity of power relations and to explore how empowerment and domination are nearly always mixed. This enables us to understand the relative stability and dynamics of complex power systems.

From a normative perspective the assumption that power is inherently obnoxious leads to the belief that what is the most normatively desirable objective is the total abolition of political power-over. In reality, the aim of removing all conflict, and all power-over, entails the suppression of conflict. Often this is presented as a utopian vision of power-with replacing power-over. In everyday discourse, this is characterized in terms of a vision of cooperation replacing domination, or love replacing war. However, as we shall see later, in greater depth, an entire society based purely upon power-with and power-to is impossible. Systems that appear this way create the illusion of the absence of power-over by suppression of conflict of interests, which entails massive 3-D and 4-D social control to block all potential dissent.

Power as variable-sum: zero-sum and positive-sum power

As argued by Baldwin (2015), the negatively evaluative perception of power (power as domination) was not inherent in Dahl’s conceptualization of power. Rather, it was a later attribution. If we emphasize only the negative aspects of power, only domination, understanding why actors often consent to power-over becomes difficult.

The perception that power-over is necessarily dominating comes from the assumption that power-over is zero-sum. Your money or I shoot! is a classic example of zero-sum power. In zero-sum power relationships the gain of the powerful is entirely at the expense of the less powerful. However, sophisticated structured relations of power are usually not zero-sum but are positive-sum. In positive-sum relationships both parties gain something, even if the more powerful usually gains the most.

Zero-sum power relationships are unstable relationships. When a subordinate gains nothing, the only reason for the subordinate’s compliance is fear of coercion. Consequently, the subordinate remains a potential revolutionary, biding her time until she has the chance to overthrow the elite. Usually, pure coercion begets a coercive response, which is akin to constantly living on the side of a volcano. Zero-sum systems are inherently unstable, and consequently often characterized by violence.

From the perspective of the more powerful there is a short-term advantage to coercive relationships because coercion enables the more powerful to disregard the desires of the less powerful. However, in the longer term the instability of the relationship is to the disadvantage of the more powerful. For this reason there is a tendency for complex systems to become positive-sum. The only exception to this is terrorization of the less powerful subjects. In that case there is a 4-D power effect that renders the compliant social actor particularly docile, fatalistically accepting her domination. It is also possible to build complex systems this way, but this is exceptional. We will discuss this qualification further, with regard to slavery and solitary confinement, in Chapter 8.

Positive-sum relationships tend to be more stable, as resistance is low. This is most obviously the case with respect to power-with organizations that are directed at goals desired by the less powerful. An educator exercises power-over a student. When this is a genuine pedagogic relationship, the student gains a capacity for action, or power-to, from the power-over of the teacher. That power-to constitutes an incentive for the student to accept the legitimacy of the power-over of the teacher. In the ideal type, perfect instance, the power-over of the teacher constitutes a power-with relationship between pedagogue and learner. Of course, as observed by Willis (2016), many working-class children resist teacher authority, which could potentially empower them, because they find the status difference objectionable in principle.

As a qualification on the above, moving from ideal types to reality, we must not forget that even though educational institutions and other power-with organizations are in principle empowering, they do presuppose everyday power-over relations that are open to uses other than those intended. It is quite likely, without checks and balances, that those with power-over may use that power for their own interests, rather than the goals of the less powerful. Such use of power-over is domination because the power-over only serves to enhance the power-to of the more powerful. In supposedly power-with relations, domination is often less visible than in more overt domination where no pretext is made of serving the interests of the less powerful. A variation on this is when those working for an organization reify the organization above its intended purpose. So, they protect the organization from the normatively legitimate contestation or resistance of the less powerful. In the eyes of the more powerful, protecting the organization can appear altruistic.

Less positive-sum than sharing goals, but still positive-sum, are attempts to manage conflict in such a manner that they cease to be zero-sum. The democratic process is the classic procedure for stabilizing power relationships by turning conflicts into positive-sum power-over relationships. When political party A prevails over political party B, there is a recognition of real conflict and the gain for A may be significant. Yet, the loss for B is not absolute. The democratic process consists of a set of political structures, which entails that those with the most votes win and take power. The moment the loser concedes defeat the democratic structures are reproduced and, once reproduced, those structures exist as a resource for B to prevail over A in the next election. Consequently, when party B loses, he does not lose absolutely or in a zero-sum manner. Once B acknowledges his defeat, he contributes to the reproduction of democratic power structures, which in the longer term are enabling to B. Next time around it may be party A who concedes defeat.

Resolving conflicts by turning zero-sum power-over into positive-sum power-over is distinguishable from the resolution of conflict based upon creating a relationship of pure power-with. The latter suggests turning adversaries into allies and collaborators. This solution to power conflict is more idealistic but also more utopian. Communist and other utopian models are premised upon turning conflict, and power-over, into power-with. In contrast, democratic models do not seek to eliminate conflict; they re-channel it from zero-sum power into positive-sum power.

As we will see in greater depth in Chapter 9, in most instances democracy emerges out of an attempt to stabilize social relations. Over time elites buy off resistance by offering some stake in the system to the less powerful, with democratic norms emerging as a result. This more pragmatist and realist view of the emergence of democracy is in contrast to a more idealist image of populations becoming converted to justice and fairness.

The continued existence of the democratic process presupposes that the less powerful have a stake in the system, whereby they also gain some power-to. However, this empowerment of B has to be real, not just theoretical, in order to result in stability. If B represents a permanent minority who always find themselves in opposition, then the gain is not real, and so the relationship is zero-sum, even if the trappings of democracy, including regular elections, exist. Normatively this is an insidious form of domination, as the name of democracy is invoked and election rituals take place, but this is not real democracy. In such cases, the system tends to be unstable. Over time, permanent minorities tend to resort to violence and coercion because the democratic process does not offer the possibility of positive-sum empowerment. Models of consociational democracy (Lipjardt 2008) are an ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Information
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Conceptions of power and an overview
• 1 The first dimension of power: Violence, coercion and authority
• 2 The second dimension of power: Conflict over structures or deep conflict, and dominant ideology
• 3 The first and second dimensions of power contrasted: Deep versus shallow conflict and resistance
• 4 The third dimension of power: Practical consciousness knowledge, consciousness-raising, the natural attitude and the social construction of reasonable/unreasonable
• 5 The third dimension continued: Conventions, reification, the sacred and essentialism
• 6 The third dimension continued: Descartes’ error, reification of truth and fallible truth
• 7 The fourth dimension of power: The making of the social subject
• 8 The fourth dimension continued: Social death through slavery, death-camps and solitary confinement
• 9 Normative analysis of the four dimensions of power: A pragmatist approach: what is power for?
• References
• Index