Perspectives on power

Abstract

There are many contrasting and seemingly incompatible concepts of power: the three dimensions of power, subjective and objective power, power‐to and power‐over, power as ability, power as influence, etc. I will argue that the best way to understand the unity of these notions of power is to consider power from the internal perspective of an agent deliberating about how to exercise power. But not all internal perspectives on power are equally illuminating: the conceptually richest perspective on power is the internal perspective of morally conscientious agents who seek to exercise power responsibly. Our analysis of power ought to track the distinctions and considerations of those who deliberate responsibly about the exercise of power. This internal and practical perspective on power will illuminate many theoretical puzzles about power.

Keywords:

• power
• social theory
• soft power
• Peter Morriss
• H.L.A. Hart

Acknowledgments

I am indebted to the trenchant criticisms of Mark S. Stein, Graeme Garrard, and William Wohlforth and to the tireless research and editorial acumen of my research assistants, Lauren Rocco, Janet Smith, and Jen Schuster. But I owe special debts to Michelle Clarke, who persuaded me that the political and practical analysis of power must include both power‐as‐ability and power‐as‐influence, and to Peter Morriss, who offered a wide range of helpful criticisms and saved me from much confusion.

Notes

1. ‘Politics: Broadly, the ways in which people gain, use, and lose power’ (Calhoun 2002, emphasis in original).

2. Michelle Clarke rightly points out that in the course of exercising various powers, role models also inevitably exercise a great deal of influence, intentional or not. Thus, in a practical sense, a person’s ‘power’ includes both his abilities and the range of his influence.

3. Hart (1994, p. 255).

4. ‘It is true that for this purpose the descriptive legal theorist must understand what it is to adopt the internal point of view and in that limited sense he must be able to put himself in the place of an insider; but this is not to accept the law or share or endorse the insider’s internal point of view’ Hart (1994, p. 242, emphasis in original).

5. Finnis describes practically reasonable persons as ‘consistent; attentive to all aspects of human opportunity and flourishing, and aware of their limited commensurability; concerned to remedy deficiencies and breakdowns, and aware of their roots in the various aspects of human personality and in the economic and other material conditions of social interaction.’ (1980, p. 15).

6. Dahl (1957) quoted in Lukes (2005, p. 16).

7. ‘The closest equivalent to the power relation is the causal relation.’ Dahl (1986, p. 46).

8. Polsby (1963) quoted in Lukes (2005, pp. 17–18).

9. Lukes (2005, p. 27).

10. ‘The absolutely basic common core to, or primitive notion lying behind, all talk of power is the notion that A in some way affects B’ Lukes, (2005, p. 30). Lukes revised his analysis of power from affects to effects in his 2005 revision of this 1975 book; see Lukes (2005, pp. 63–65).

11. For Weber, see Lukes 1986, p. 39. For Russell, see Wrong 1995, p. x.

12. Following Ryle (1950), Morriss describes a class of dispositional concepts which include capacities. Kenny (1989, p. 84), however, distinguishes capacities (such as power) from dispositions proper; he describes a disposition as halfway between a capacity and an action. Ayers (1968, Chap. 6) also argues that personal powers are capacities but not dispositions.

13. Hobbes, who denied the distinction between potentiality and actuality, reduces power to resources: ‘The power of a Man (to take it Universally) is his present means, to obtain some future apparent Good.’ (Lev. Chap. 10). For a penetrating criticism of these and other kinds of reductionism, see Ayers (1968, pp. 60–68) and Kenny (1975, pp. 10–11 and 124–125).

14. ‘Hence, you can affect, but not effect, a person; and you can effect, but not affect, a state of affairs that does not now exist.’ Morriss (1987, pp. 29–30).

15. Peter Morriss rightly points out that this list is far from exhaustive; he usefully adds ‘by competition.’

16. I do not mean to deny that social life also has a rich array of intrinsic and common goods.

17. Abilities are not competitive but ableness sometimes is, because opportunities might be scarce.

18. Of course, a powerful group could create a social and political environment in which the formation of certain beliefs is likely, as with an established church or communist regime. So there are indirect ways to shape customary belief.

19. See Bergstrom et al. (2004) and Fallon and Rozin (1985).