What is it? What does it mean to have 'power?' 

We talked about one definition as 'the ability to get someone to do something he/she wouldn't have otherwise done.' Another way of thinking of it is the ability to exert one's will (think about the example of a patriarchal household where the man controls land, labor and capital, and perhaps exerts a fair amount of control over women's reproduction and sexuality).

e.g., think of power structure in the classroom. Professors have power because:    

• they have a formal position within the university structure-it's their affiliation with the university that is their main source of power, authority; how or whether they choose to use it may be more a result of individual discretion; In other words, I may have resources not available to you that give me more power in our school relationship; At the same time, you can clearly exercise power as well--questions in class, creating classroom disruptions, petitioning the Dean with a problem, turning in assignments (which triggers my need to grade ...), etc. Some might call that, as political scientist James Scott did, the 'weapons of the weak,' but students as a collective group can be a force.
• there is also a hierarchy (pecking order) among faculty--that is, all faculty are not equal, some have more influence within the university, and among their own faculty: tenure/non-tenure distinction is important (e.g., untenured Harvard instructors feel pressured to give high grades because of their insecure position; tenured faculty are more likely to gain the support of the university in conflicts with students, or at least not have to worry about losing their jobs);

Pluralist versus structural views of power

A pluralist view of power says that, for instance, all groups in a conflict are brought to the table and hash out an agreement amongst themselves. Democracy is rooted in the idea that society is comprised of different groups that can all have a public voice in government, and that when we watch the process, we see how it works. If you go to a city council meeting, you can tell who has the power by how votes on issues come out. Because different issues will lead to different voting blocs, it seems that power is not unitary or monolithic, but shifting and contingent. A more sophisticated view would be a 'second face' or 'two dimensional' view of power. Maybe not all of the 'players' are at the table. Maybe the most powerful people don't have to be there? Do we really think George W. Bush is running the country? He's never been considered much of an 'intellectual heavyweight.' Do we know who the key decision makers are? Perhaps Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Grover Norquist, etc. And quite possibly, many of the powerless don't show up either. They've not been invited to participate in deliberations about public issues. Only 50% of eligible Americans even bother to vote in most elections. Why? Possibly because many feel disenfranchised, disempowered. The 'two dimensional' view of power says that we can still observe conflict and power being exercised, but it's not so easy as just watching what happens in a debate and counting up the points. Some decisions are made by people who don't have to show up at the meetings. A development 'professional' who tours villages trying to get ideas for a project might be limited to two hours/village. Who will he/she see in those two hours? The chief? The important elders? How many women? How many less well-off will be way too busy working to provide input? Will they even know that a car with some officials passed through the village?

A 'second face' view says that, yes, there may be some sort of process where groups get together and debate--for instance, republicans and democrats in Congress debate legislative bills--and end up with some sort of compromise that reflects multiple interests, and that we can watch the whole thing on C-Span (if we can stay awake ...). But what we don't see is that those representatives in Congress may be getting thousands of dollars from private industry to buy commercial time for their campaigns, may be taking fact-finding trips to Bermuda, funded by Monsanto, to study the problems of beach erosion, may be sponsoring legislation that was for all intents and purposes drafted by corporate lawyers (this is sort of like getting your term papers off the Web, except that it's our democracy instead of a class). The collapse of the energy trading firm Enron is a recent, infamous example of this. Enron and other utilities and energy trading companies, who had billions to gain from favorable policies (for instance supporting expanded oil and gas drilling on public lands, lax standards on automobile fuel efficiency and air pollution from power plants), and who contributed millions to the Bush Campaign, had easy access to the Department of Energy and Vice President Dick Cheney, who was heading up the energy policy task force. Environmental groups never met directly with either the Department of Energy or Cheney. More broadly, if we look at world events, the Persian Gulf War, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the last year's attempted coup in Venezuela, Iraq, it becomes clear that large oil companies' power is global, and influences how U.S. Foreign Policy gets formulated.

There is a 'third dimension' of power, or its 'third face.' We may not always be able to see power being exercised. It may be so ingrained, that it is the structure of society or the culture through which power is exercised, and individuals are pretty interchangeable, at least in terms of their positions in the social structure. For instance, knowing what you know about FGM, you might think that women would be opposed to this procedure in most parts of Africa. Many in fact support it. Mothers may want their daughters to go through the procedure, as they did, because that's the way it's done, or because otherwise they won't be able to 'find a husband.' The structure may be patriarchy. The notion is that the structure is so powerful, people may actually do things, or think in ways that seem to run against their real interests. Why would poor people vote for a politician that was working to cut welfare programs and provide tax cuts for the wealthiest classes? Perhaps allusions to patriotism, to religion, to pride in the American way, or complete distraction from key economic issues by focusing on flag-burning, school prayer, same sex marriage, etc., avoids the debate entirely.

Which perspective on power do you think does a better job of explaining women's condition in many parts of the developing world, and why? Can you provide an example that illustrates?

this discussion is drawn from Steven Lukes' book on power.

return to top

Karl Marx's theory is structural--it suggests that class struggle occurs in societies, and it is centered around those who own the means of production (land, labor, capital), the capitalists, and the workers, whose labor is exploited to fuel the capitalist economic system. To understand power structures in a society, said Marx, find out who owns the property. Everything else flows from the economics--governing structures, the constitution and laws we choose to enforce, etc.

In its ultimate form (so theorists say), people may not even be aware that society works against their interests--they don't even know what their interests are. What is the American Dream? Is it contentment, spirituality, neighborhood and community, and civility for all citizens? Or is it having lots of stuff--the cars, the house (the debt ...), the electronic goodies, the trappings of wealth, etc? We're told our patriotic duty is to continue to shop . . . From a structural perspective, who benefits from this view? Yes, we get our DVD players, but these are table scraps. What about Ghandi's definition of development as 'the realization of the human potential?' The Pink Floyd song goes 

'welcome my son, welcome to the machine . . .
what did you dream? It's all right, we told you what to dream.
You dreamed of a big star; he played a mean guitar.
He always ate in the steak bar . . . 
and loved to ride in his jag-yuar . . .
so welcome . . . to the machine . . . '

So . . . what does this mean for women? How are women in developing countries affected by structural power? Check this out if you want a graphic U.S. example of how men can use violence to control women. With respect to female circumcision, how can we explain why some women are for, some opposed? Could this be a case where women aren't even aware of their real interests, or are we being culturally insensitive? Or is it possible that the prevailing culture of patriarchy so shapes women's identities that circumcision becomes a way to gain status and avoid stigmatization? If it is so culturally ingrained, how is it that it ended so quickly in the case reported by Gerry Mackie in Senegal? 

Sociologist Max Weber's work helps to understand how patriarchy and culture can exert a strong influence over women. See the discussion of Weber, authority and legitimacy. 

Steven Lukes. 1974. Power: A radical view. NY: Macmillan.