On abilities and power again: a reply to Peter Morriss

Abstract

Replying to my article ‘Power to and power over: two distinct concepts of power?’, Peter Morriss offers some arguments against my attempt to reconcile the concept of power to and that of power over. In particular, he questions my interpretation of ‘power’ as necessarily implying social relations. In this reply, I provide further reasons for holding that a relational (as opposed to an ability-based) interpretation of power is the most appropriate to capture the usage of the concept in social and political theorizing.

Keywords:

• power to
• power over
• social power
• ability and ableness
• Peter Morriss

Acknowledgments

I am extremely grateful to Peter Morriss for his inspiring comments on my article, as well as for the conversations we had on this topic on various occasions. I would also like to thank Mark Haugaard, editor of the Journal of Political Power, for giving me the opportunity to write this reply.

Notes

1. Morriss also points out that I do not offer a precise definition of power over. The reason for this is that the aim of my analysis is to investigate at a more abstract level about the differences between the two groups of definitions of power (the ability-based and the relational one), not to engage with a particular definition of the concept.