Reflections upon empowerment/domination, social change and the four dimensions of power

This issue of the Journal of Political Power opens with one of the classic conundrums of political power, which was stated so convincingly by Robert Michels, in Political Parties, already back in 1911 (Michels 1915): the primary weapon of the weak in the struggle with the strong is an organization; yet the creation of professional organizations entails bureaucratization which, in turn, initiates a tendency towards oligarchy, and domination of the rank and file who created the organization in the first place. As observed by Danny Rye, in the first article of this issue, organization is both a means of empowerment and a vehicle for domination, which has huge implications for empowerment and institutional social change.

Following the trend of integration of perspectives, initiated by Lukes when he formulated the idea of dimensions of power (Lukes 1974), Rye argues for a contextual synergy of the various approaches to the phenomenon of political power. Power is not a singular entity, but a collection of elements, which include both empowerment and domination, and they often occur simultaneously.

A central element of Rye’s contribution concerns the way in which power-over often contributes to power-to, rather than being antithetical, as is often assumed. For instance, if we take a healthy teacher/student or parent/child relationship, the former exercises power over the latter, in a manner that, in the long term, in the fourth (ontological) dimension of power, empowers the student/child. The less powerful become constituted as beings-in-the-world, who gain capacity for action, which includes autonomy from the person who exercises power over them. Similarly, the power-over of organizations can create autonomy, although it is equally possible that organizations, intended for emancipation, wind up as an iron cage, of endless constraints, or as an oligarchy, characterized by dominating power-over.

The complex nature of empowerment/domination entails that processes which are often perceived of as dominating can, in the right circumstances, be turned around to become emancipating. An excellent instance of such a process is examined by Ralph V. Tafon and Fred P. Saunders in this issue. They study the resistance of local indigenous communities to exploitation by large logging companies. In their analysis they show how Nguti villagers reclaimed spaces of negotiation. That is, they resist the two-dimensional power of logging companies, who try to set the agenda. They effect this opposition to domination by staging a series of traditional rituals and dances that tap into the multiple-overlapping power structures of the village. In a novel show of allegiance, village youth, male elders and women, come together to reclaim power from the logging companies. Many of the resources that they used include gender norms and sacred rituals that were re-fashioned in innovative ways, to claim empowerment and overcome two-dimensional domination.

This use of traditional practices challenges any prior assumptions that sociologists may have that tradition is necessarily conservative, in the sense of being non-innovative, because restraining norms can also be simultaneously emancipatory. Interestingly, it also provides a new twist to Lukes’ (1974) characterization of three-dimensional power as false consciousness because the secret of the villager’s success was their capacity to tap into what non-traditional observers might consider ‘false’ forms of habitus beliefs – gender norms and sacred rituals. In the context of their society these practices showed remarkable emancipatory potential. That said, it has to be acknowledged that these norms also had a dominating aspect. For instance, there was an inbuilt structural bias towards the elders not fully respecting the autonomy of the youth. While the two groups acted collectively at many times, at others there was a re-assertion of unequal power, the manifestation of which was inimical to the achievement of their shared goals. So, one- and two-dimensional power could be exercised successfully by building upon a traditional three-dimensional (religious rituals) and four-dimensional power (gender subject positions); yet, the latter forms of power were simultaneously capable of limiting the emancipatory potential of Nguti interventions.

The capacity of the Nguti people to mobilize depended upon their capacity to draw upon their collective social knowledge. As observed by Sadiya Akram, Guy Emerson, and David Marsh, in the third article of this issue, the key to making sense of the significance of the third dimension of power lies in a kind of collective pre-consciousness of social actors. When social actors attain social competence, following Foucault, they become socially constructed, as beings-in-the-world, who have a pre-discursive predisposition for certain strategies of action. This structuring of their being-in-world does not take place behind their backs. Rather, as argued by Bourdieu (1990), it constitutes an emergent characteristic of historically sedimented experience, which is mobilized in the contexts of social action. This is why tradition is both conservative, as rooted in past history, yet innovative, as in allowing for new modes of action, and indeed emancipation. As social actors find themselves in new situations, in different fields, they learn the rules of the game of the new field, and simultaneously bring with them, as part of their pre-consciousness, certain predispositions that serve as cognitive conceptual tools to empower them.

I would argue that when we use the time-relative terms above, this actually misrepresents what is going on because we are implicitly framing our analysis relative to the distinctions of past, present and future, which are separate entities, to characterize something that is entirely fluid. I would argue that the being-in-the-world who acts is drawing upon their preconscious knowledge of the past, together with their perception of the present, to shape a future, in a manner where the past is flowing into the future through social action. Again, the perception of singular actors, or individuals, misrepresents reality, as the being-in-the-world of social actors is transformed by the social action. Consequently, there are no singular subjects who act. Rather, social subjects are beings-in-the-world-flowing-from-past-into-future through action. All is movement and fluid. Social life is like a river, constantly moving, in which there are also multiple points of resistance, like rocks in the current, which shape the conditions of possibility of the surface water but are, also, in the long term, reformed by that flow of water.

Not all acts of structuration are successful. For the singular actor, there are others out there who carry local systems of knowledge that constrain the conditions of possibility. Nguti youth could be innovative in their resistance, but within certain conditions of possibility – for instance, they could not ignore respect for their elders. This transformation continually shapes the capacities of social actors, rendering the fourth dimension of power a fluid process of both empowerment and domination. As observed by Foucault and Butler (Butler 1997), the latter is often self-imposed. However, that self-imposition is not, necessarily, self-domination all the way down, as it has emancipatory, power enhancing, elements entwined within it, which constitute part of the attraction of self-subjectification. Being a certain kind of social subject empowers within specific fields of power relations, which brings us back to the central point of Rye’s paper: capacity building and domination are intertwined, rather than separate processes.

This has significant normative implications that are analysed by Daniel Savery in this issue. Savery’s starting point is the republican view of freedom as non-domination, which states that A dominates B, and therefore renders B unfree, to the extent that A has the power to interfere with B in an arbitrary manner (Pettit 2012, p. 50). The paradigm case of republican un-freedom is the master/slave relationship in which the slave has to obtain the permission of the master for whatever the slave wishes to do. Even if the master is kind (and always gives permission to the slave) this constitutes arbitrary domination, because the potentiality of domination exists. To represent this metaphorically, Pettit uses a hypothetical eyeball test, which constitutes a thought experiment similar in normative function to Rawls’ use of a hypothetical veil of ignorance test for justice (Rawls 2001). The Pettit eyeball test of domination is whether or not the less powerful actor can look the more powerful in the eye without fear or deference. A slave who knows that she is dependent upon the goodwill of her master, even if the latter is a kind master, will not be able to pass the eyeball test because the slave’s knowledge of their differential powers means that the former will always wish to please the latter. Consequently, the eyeball of the slave will have a propensity to be deferential relative to the eyeball of the master.

In Pettit’s work the eyeball test is conceived in agent-centred terms. Indeed, as readers of this Journal will be aware, Pettit largely endorses Dahls’ one-dimensional view of power (Pettit 2008). However, following Bourdieu, Savery argues that the ontological dispositions of actors influence their capacity to pass the eyeball test. If the being-in-the-world of social actors is shaped in such a manner that they have an ontological predisposition to ingratiate themselves with others, by showing undue deference, then they are subject to domination. To take an example from Bourdieu (1990), in Kabyle society women are socialized to avert their gaze when talking to men because of what is locally perceived to be ‘respect’. Such an ontological predisposition means that women in that society are vulnerable to subjection through to arbitrary domination by men. Even if Kabyle men chose not to use their inherent structural advantage (a theoretical possibility but empirically unlikely hypothetical) through the exercise of one- and two-dimensional power, the women’s knowledge (three-dimensional power) that men are pleased by this display of subjection places the women in an ontologically (four-dimensional) unequal relationship to men. The socialization of women into a being-in-the-world in which it constitutes part of their habitus (and strategy within their field) to avert their gaze entails domination, which is incompatible with republican values, irrespective of any agent-centred, episodic, action by men. This is a classic instance where we can see the normative inadequacy of looking at power simply in the first or second dimensions. Rather we must also examine the third and fourth dimensions of power, which entails a willingness to critique other cultures with different habitus. In this context it should be noted that Savery is more radical, or classically enlightenment liberal (in the sense of interpreting rights/justice as transcending culture) than Pettit, who argues that the eyeball should take account of local culture, suggesting culturally relativity (see Pettit 2012, p. 85).

Following Savery, if we take seriously the implication of the other dimensions of power, I would argue that this suggests a strongly secular state, in which state-funded education cannot be subject to control by any of the three monotheistic faiths. For instance, (as I see it) with only a few exceptions, all three monotheistic faiths emphasize obedience and deference, symbolically represented by the various abject positions taken up in prayer. The latter constitute a form of fourth-dimensional power aimed at creating obedience to religious beliefs which are, as argued by Durkheim (1915/2008), representations of social norms made sacred. In this manner local norms are placed beyond argumentation in a will to power that structurally disadvantages anyone who wishes to critique the existing order of things (see Haugaard 2012).

In this issue Helena Flam examines the scandal of clerical sexual abuse in the USA. She begins with a discussion of the bureaucratic structuring of the Roman Catholic Church according to principles of charismatic domination. In Weber’s work (1978), charismatic domination is largely interpreted in terms of the attributes of the leader. However, charismatic domination also reflects the beliefs of the observing, less powerful actors, who project charismatic qualities upon the leader. Leaders are not powerful (as an intrinsic quality): they are made powerful in an interactive process with the less powerful. In this process, the social ontology (fourth dimension of power) of both observer and observed is crucial. Prior to the 1980s, the performance of sacred rituals, which conferred divine attributes upon the clergy, created a collective charismatic power. However, these attributes were premised upon a compatible subject performance. In the case of the Catholic Church, the performance of clergy became increasingly infelicitous, as they used their powers for the purposes of asking for sexual favours. Simultaneously, their membership increasingly questioned authority becoming quasi-republican in their habitus, which entailed a metaphorical willingness to look the clergy in the eye, and not avert their gaze when commanded to do so. Consequently, the structuring practices of the Catholic Church became perceived of as increasingly anachronistic, hence infelicitous, relative to the collective consciousness. This shift in interpretative horizons resulted in a policy change within the Catholic Church: it moved from attempted two-dimensional denial, whereby clerical abuse was portrayed a non-issue (to be buried at all costs) to a more open dialogic, broadly republican structuring of interaction.

Social change is inextricably tied to shifting power relations. In this issue Nick Hardy theorizes how there are many levels of power and contingency that feed into each other in order to constitute social change. Building upon the work of Foucault and Sayer, Hardy uses the concept of dispositif to designate that complex area between structural determination, or subjectless strategies, and the situatedness of agents, within complex discursive and extra-discursive social relations. I would argue that the concept dispositif (in part) refers to an agent’s strategy within the conditions of possibility. To echo Akram, Emerson and Marsh, the strategies of the actions of social actors within fields, represent certain possibilities, yet also constraints, which the actors are implicitly aware of at a pre-discursive, habitus, level.

As we saw with the example of the Roman Catholic Church, the charismatic authority of the church presupposed a specific constitution of social subjects who considered certain exercises of one- and two-dimensional power felicitous. The latter shapes the conditions of possibility of any specific episodic act of agency. At one time there was a certain dispositif that made it possible to remove clerical sexual abuse from the agenda, yet at a second point in time these conditions of possibility were absent as any attempt to do so (for instance, by moving offending clergy from one parish to another) would be considered infelicitous relative to the new habitus and ontology.

The episodic two-dimensional exercise of power was premised upon certain dispositions and conditions of possibility of that time. However, as a consequence of infelicitous performance on the part of the powerful, and the shifting subject positions of the less powerful, the conditions of possibility for making clerical abuse a non-issue disappeared. This shift in the conditions of possibility in itself both reflected a shift in the fourth dimension of power, and contributed to that shift. In other words, there was doubling back of contingency to shape the conditions of possibility of dispositif through the constitution of power in its four dimensions. Two-dimensional power presupposes four-dimensional power. Furthermore, this change also entailed a paradigm shift, whereby the abuse became visible (three-dimensional power).

In a curious way, the neo-feudal institutions of the Catholic Church were a kind of past living on in the twentieth century made possible by charismatic sacralization. However, there was a limit to how long this could go on, relative to the habitus of US society, which had been a republic for so long and, as observed by de Tocqueville nearly two hundred years ago (Tocqueville 1835/2003), these institutions are rooted in a civil society, which entails a habitus, or taken-for-granted second nature social knowledge or civil culture.

This issue of the Journal culminates with a fascinating case study of Cambodia, as an instance of institutional change, by Miguel Cunha, Arménio Rego, Álvaro Silva and Stewart Clegg. On the surface it appears that, during a relatively short period (1970–1989), this state experienced significant change, through a succession of different political regimes, which included: the end of feudal monarchy, a corrupt nationalist republic, a communist genocidal dictatorship, a Vietnamese protectorate and, finally a return to a constitutional monarchy with effective executive power in the hands of a powerful prime minister. However, through careful analysis, Cunha et al. demonstrate that there is a constant, deep structuring, which underlies all these regimes. In all of these apparently different regimes there are remarkable continuities: the state is essentially a kleptocracy (elites use state power to despoil the nation); there are no human rights, as all nationals are a means to an end, thus not citizens in the republican sense; all ideology is dogmatic and absolute, dissenting opinion being equated to sedition and; finally, violence is the norm of relations between the state and its citizens. In interpreting this continuity, within change, we can draw an analogy with Gramsci’s contrast between changes that are truly anti-hegemonic, and ones that reproduce the dominant hegemony (Gramsci 1973). This is similar to Foucault’s distinction between deep conflict and superficial conflict (see Haugaard 1997). With violence a group can, of course, change the personnel at the top, even the institutions of state, and the official legitimating ideology. With regard to the latter, the apparent contradiction of the egalitarian ideology of communism resulting in severe abjection is resolved by using the ideology as an empty signifier, which serves a ritualistic reifying function. The apparent change of the instruments of power is very different from a genuine social change premised upon a change of habitus, or shift in taken-for-granted social knowledge. The latter entails a shift of three- and four-dimensional power. Just as Americans came to consider the charismatic feudal institutions of the Catholic Church an anathema, so too the people of Cambodia find the ideas of democratic citizenship outside their conditions of possibility. Even if there were the intention to be truly egalitarian, the shaping of the social ontology of a people (the fourth dimension of power) renders truly egalitarian one- and two-dimensional exercises of power beyond the conditions of possibility.

In a traditional society in which honour and respect entail that the less powerful avert their gaze from the powerful, an institutional regime change, through one-dimensional coercion, is not suddenly going to usher in a new egalitarian society, in which everyone passes the eyeball test. That is the case even if an egalitarian three-dimensional ideology is used for obligatory passage points (Clegg 1989). In fact, communist rituals reify actions as legitimate, in much the same manner as religious rituals make sacred, but do not necessarily change dispositions of the faithful when the ritual constitutes a mechanical performance. Consequently, it remains a constant that the less powerful have an ontological predisposition to avert their gaze from the powerful (metaphorically speaking), even after the institutional regime change. The result is the apparent paradox of one set of inequalities replacing another, one system of abject domination ousting another, yet the latter using the legitimating rituals of (supposed) equality and speaking on behalf of the so-called ‘common people’, ‘proletariat’, ‘peasants’ and so on. In substance, the regime change constitutes only an episodic contingency (reflecting the particular contingent desires and policies of Pol Pot or other leaders), which takes place within a continuity that is shaped by the conditions of possibility of three- and (especially) four-dimensional power.

In this sense social change is made up of different temporalities, each of which shape conditions of possibility. If I can add another analogy, the weather: along the Irish Atlantic shore our winter is punctuated by many local storms that (to those uninitiated in meteorology) appear as independent weather contingencies. In fact, the intensity and direction of the storms reflect the movements of depressions along the jet stream, which in turn are linked to macro-forces, such as contrasts of global temperatures, including the El Nino effect and so on. In this metaphor the local storms represent the one- and two-dimensional exercises of power, while the jet-streams and global temperatures, reflect the three- and four-dimensional aspects of power, which shape the conditions of possibility and work on longer time frame.

In conclusion, these papers draw together the interconnectedness of the four types of power, which has both huge normative and empirical implications. Normatively it means, as argued by Savery, that any egalitarian modality of measure (whether Pettit’s eyeball test or Rawls’ original position) must be calibrated along all four dimensions of power for compliance to the normative criteria in question. It is normatively unsatisfactory to argue that the eyeball test or original position should only be measured along the first two dimensions of power.

Empirically, it is totally futile to attempt to institutionalize the first two dimensions of power, while ignoring other dimensions. The use by Nguti villagers of all four dimensions of power was part of their success. In reverse logic, true egalitarianism was outside the conditions of possibility for Cambodians because institutional regime change was limited to coercive one- and two-dimensional power, with a smattering of ritualized three-dimensional ideology. Similarly, I would argue, the attempt to set up democratic institution in Iraq was doomed to failure, as long as it was limited to the first two dimensions of power. We might wish for democracy in Iraq, but this cannot be institutionalized in a meaningful way by one-dimensional coercion, as it is outside the conditions of possibility, without a link to existing Iraqi three- and four-dimensional power. In general, I would argue that any policy of regime change that is initiated from the outside should be approached with extreme caution for these reasons. Further, any indigenous promises of sudden transition from tyranny to democracy, by would-be local revolutionaries or social protest movements, should be treated with some scepticism. This is the case even if those proposing democratic change seem sincere, because they are constrained by the conditions of possibility, of local, longer time frame, three- and four-dimensional power. Of course, these ‘slower’ powers can be changed, and are subject to agency, but the paradox is that the agents that are required to shape these changes are themselves, as social beings-in-the-world, products of that deep power. Of course (not to be fatalistic) real change is possible but we must not ignore the deeper dimensions of power and it should be understood that the time frame of these dimensions of power becomes slower the further down the dimensions of power one goes. While one- and two-dimensional power can be relatively quick, three-dimensional power is slower, and four-dimensional power is the slowest of all.

Mark Haugaard
National University of Ireland, Galway