(Re)Conceptualising the third face of power: insights from Bourdieu and Foucault

Abstract

The strength of Lukes’ third face of power is the recognition that agents can be influenced by structures and ideas in ways of which they are unaware. The weakness of Lukes’ position is that his consideration of the third face is under-developed. In this article, we argue that Bourdieu and Foucault’s work offer fruitful ways of exploring this ‘pre-conscious’ dimension. Using Bourdieu’s work, the core of any understanding of the third face is rooted in the relationship between the social field and the habitus, while, for Foucault, the focus is upon the construction of the subject and her preferences in relation to the ongoing production of power. We subsequently explore the differences between their positions.

Keywords:

• power
• Lukes
• Bourdieu
• Foucault
• pre-conscious

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The literature on agency focuses almost exclusively upon reflexivity. For example, the most cited review of the concept of agency in Sociology by Emirbayer and Mische (1998, pp. 970–973) discusses three dimensions of agency: the iterational element, the projective element and the practical-evaluative element. In essence, all of these deal with reflexivity, the first dealing with reflexivity about the past, the second about the future and the third about the present. Similarly, Archer’s (2000, 2003) more recent work focuses on agency, neglecting structure. She identifies 5 types of ‘reflexive’, although the ‘non-reflexives’ are seen as a residual category with few members.

2. It is also worth pointing out here that the pre-conscious is not a positive or negative category and, so, it also satisfies the critical realist idea of moving from analysis to critique.