Power

A Key Idea for Business and Society

Reinoud Bosch

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• Print ISBN:
  9780367471972
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000532609
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Business General
• Index: Business

Power plays a central role in business and management. But what is power exactly, and what are key elements of this concept? Defining power as relative ability, this book discusses structures of power, individual power, the exercise of power, strategy, and collective power.

While discussing these key components, ideas of important thinkers about power, from Plato to Foucault, Weber to Lukes, Machiavelli to Kahneman, Sun to Kotter, and Barnard to Clegg, are discussed and interpretively categorized into a toolbox of conceptual elements – what Blumer referred to as sensitizing concepts. This toolbox of sensitizing concepts allows the selection of those elements of the concept of power that provide the most constructive and effective practical understanding in particular situations.

The core message behind the discussion is that knowledge of key components of the concept of power is empowering. It is empowering to learn about aspects of structures of power, individual power, the exercise of power, strategy, and collective power. Understanding such conceptual components empowers students, researchers, practitioners, and other readers to use their understanding in interpreting, theorizing about, and dealing with the complexities of power in their particular situations – without tying them to any preconceived general theories about power.

1 What is power?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003034100-2

The meaning of the word ‘power’ has been highly contested. For some, it has negative connotations due to the possibility of its abusive exercise. Others consider the positive role power may play in various forms of agency allowing for individual and collective achievements. In light of this, it is reasonable to argue that power may be viewed negatively or positively depending on the circumstances, the way it is used, and the perspective from which it is considered. This leaves open the question what the word ‘power’ may be taken to refer to and how we could think of the realm of ideas that is invoked by its use. Historically, various positions have been taken in this regard. A number of these positions will be critically discussed in this chapter, as well as a number of contemporary positions. At the end of the chapter, the reasoned choice is made to define power as relative ability – a definition that aims to empower by providing clarity and understanding.

Historical notions of power

An early definition of power can be found in Plato’s Sophist (360 BC):

My notion would be, that anything which possesses any sort of power to affect another, or to be affected by another…has real existence; and I hold that the definition of being is simply power of.

In other words, according to this definition, being – everything that exists – is ‘power of’. There is something counterintuitive to this very broad definition. It seems reasonable to argue that everything that exists has a certain power. The earth can be said to have the power to draw objects to its surface through gravity, a human being can have the power to speak. But that does not equate the earth or a human being to ‘power of’. Power rather seems to be something that the earth or a human being can be said to have.

This more intuitive idea of power as something that one can have shows up in the definition of power in Hobbes’ Leviathan (1651/1996, p. 66):

The Power of a man, (to take it Universally), is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good.

Here, power is equated to means. According to Hobbes, this includes such things as faculties of body or mind, riches, reputation, friends, good luck, servants, success, the sciences, and instruments of war. While more intuitive, it seems odd to equate power to means. Instead, it seems more reasonable to argue that means enhance power, and that power itself is something else, something that is enabled by means – an ability.

A definition of power as an ability appears in Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690/1999, p. 218):

Power thus considered is two-fold, viz. as able to make, or able to receive any change.

This definition combines the idea of power as an ability with what the effects of this ability may be – a change made or received. As argued above, considering power to be an ability feels intuitively right, but the effects of power would appear to be broader than just making or receiving. They would also seem to include such effects as influencing or feeling. Nonetheless, as will become apparent, Locke’s definition has been reinvoked by a popular contemporary definition of power.

There remains the question where this particular ability that power consists of is located. Is it a characteristic of something or someone, or should it be seen as relative to the context? The importance of the context shows up in a popular definition of power proposed by Weber in Economy and Society (1922/1978, p. 53):

“Power” (Macht) is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance, regardless of the basis on which this probability rests.

Here, the notions of social relationship, position, and resistance indicate that power should be seen as relative to a context. Weber defines power as a probability, which is characteristic of his methodological focus on the interpretation of social life in terms of probabilities of social actions. Looked at from a substantive rather than a methodological perspective, Weber’s use of the term ‘basis’ may be taken to refer to the ability discussed earlier. Notable in Weber’s definition is the attention it pays to resistance. The definitions discussed earlier may have come across as focusing mostly on positive effects of power, even if the power to ‘make’ torture devices or ‘receive’ a blow to the head show that this is not in fact so. The attention to resistance in Weber’s definition of power nonetheless indicates some focus on negative effects of power.

This focus on negative effects shows up more strongly in the ‘intuitive idea of power’ provided by Dahl in his classical article ‘The Concept of Power’ (1957, pp. 202–203):

My intuitive idea of power, then, is something like this: A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.

In this definition, the relational context of power is retained, but the effect of power gets a negative connotation mostly because of the use of the word ‘over’.

This attention to negative connotations of power was heightened by authors who felt that Dahl did not go far enough. In their article ‘Two Faces of Power’, Bachrach and Baratz argued that Dahl neglected the importance of organizing the setting within which power is exercised. In their words, addressing power in policy making:

to the extent that a person or group – consciously or unconsciously – creates or reinforces barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts, that person or group has power.

(Bachrach & Baratz, 1962, p. 949)

Here, power is not directly exercised by A over B, but instead A creates or reinforces barriers to B’s actions. Bachrach and Baratz refer to this process as ‘the mobilization of bias’ (borrowing from Schattschneider, 1960), ‘nondecision-making’, or the ‘second face of power’. In their view, Dahl’s definition of power was only concerned with public decision-making itself – the ‘first face of power’.

In his book Power: A Radical View, Lukes argued that this still did not go far enough. According to Lukes, power is also exercised over others when it results in the change of their ‘wants’ – the ‘third dimension of power’. As he writes:

A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants.

(Lukes, 1974, p. 23)

In general, Lukes views the exercise of power as something negative, as it is seen to run contrary to the interests of those over whom power is exercised:

A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests.

(ibid., p. 27)

Not all power theorists shared this negative view of power. Around the same time at which Dahl, Bachrach and Baratz, and Lukes published their ideas, other authors emphasized positive connotations. In his article ‘On the Concept of Political Power’, Parsons defined power as follows:

Power then is generalized capacity to secure the performance of binding obligations by units in a system of collective organization when the obligations are legitimized with reference to their bearing on collective goals and where in case of recalcitrance there is a presumption of enforcement by negative situational sanctions.

(Parsons, 1963, p. 308)

Power here is seen as a capacity that supports the attainment of collective goals. It is this positive support that is argued to provide its legitimacy. But defining power in terms of supporting the attainment of collective goals excludes the possibility that a kind of power can exist that may be abused in conflict with collective goals – or with individual ones for that matter. It is a one-sided view of abilities to be referred to with the word ‘power’.

In On Violence, Arendt also defined power as an ability that contributes to legitimate collective action:

Power corresponds to the human ability not just to act but to act in concert. Power is never the property of an individual; it belongs to a group and remains in existence only so long as the group keeps together. When we say of somebody that he is “in power” we actually refer to his being empowered by a certain number of people to act in their name. The moment the group, from which the power originated to begin with (potestas in populo, without a people or group there is no power), disappears, “his power” also vanishes.

(Arendt, 1969, p. 44)

Here, again, power is defined as contributing to collective goals, to act in the name of the group. Abuse of power toward the group itself or its members is excluded by definition.

Contemporary notions of power

In light of the current popularity of Foucault’s ideas, it seems reasonable to start the discussion of contemporary notions of power with his idea of the meaning of ‘power’. According to Foucault (1976/1978, pp. 92–93):

power must be understood in the first instance as the multiplicity of force relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute their own organization; as the process which, through ceaseless struggles and confrontations, transforms, strengthens, or reverses them; as the support which these force relations find in one another, thus forming a chain or a system, or on the contrary, the disjunctions and contradictions which isolate them from one another; and lastly, as the strategies in which they take effect, whose general design or institutional crystallization is embodied in the state apparatus, in the formulation of the law, in the various social hegemonies.

According to this definition, power is a multiplicity of force relations that is processual in nature and takes effect in strategies that become embodied in social hegemonies. Thus, similar to Weber, Foucault sees power as relational. The ideas of multiplicity, process, and social hegemonies can also be found in Weber (1922, 1922/1978), but Foucault makes these ideas constitutive of his definition of power. In addition, Foucault specifically defines power as force relations, and the strategies in which these force relations take effect. The way in which force relations are embodied in social hegemonies – whichever form these may take – has been referred to as the ‘fourth face of power’ (Digeser, 1992).

Foucault’s definition br...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 What is power?
• 2 Structures of power
• 3 Individual power
• 4 Exercising power
• 5 Strategy
• 6 Collective power
• Index