Introduction

• The chapter defends a radical view of power that is both theoretically and politically significant. It is evaluative, essentially contested (Gallie 1955^6), and empirically applicable.
• The evaluative and contested nature of this view is not a defect. It is operational, allowing for hypotheses that are verifiable and falsifiable.
• Examples of such hypotheses are provided, some argued to be true.
• It addresses methodological issues like limits of behaviorism, the role of values in explanation, and methodological individualism. It also considers theoretical issues like the limits of pluralism, false consciousness, and real interests, and political issues such as urban redevelopment, poverty, race relations, and air pollution.
• The discussion begins with Max Weber’s influence and the pluralist view from the 1960s, criticized by Peter Bachrach and Morton S. Baratz in “The Two Faces of Power” (1962, 1963) and their book Power and Poverty (1970).
• Pluralist views are deemed inadequate. Bachrach and Baratz’s view advances the discussion but remains insufficient, requiring a radical extension.
• The chapter sketches three conceptual maps of power: the one-dimensional view (pluralists’ approach), the two-dimensional view (Bachrach and Baratz’s critique), and the three-dimensional view (proposed for a deeper analysis of power relations).
• Strengths and weaknesses of each perspective are compared, with examples illustrating the superiority of the three-dimensional view.

The One-Dimensional View

• The “pluralist” view of power is commonly associated with thinkers like Dahl, Polsby, and Wolfinger, but the label “pluralist” is misleading. Their aim is to show that power is distributed pluralistically in systems like New Haven or the broader U.S. political system.
• Their concepts and methods are not inherently pluralist; they can yield elitist conclusions in elitist decision-making structures and pluralist conclusions in pluralist structures.
• Dahl’s early definition of power distinguishes between potential power (“A has power to the extent that he can get B to do something”) and actual power (successful attempts by A to influence B). The emphasis is on the exercise of power, contrasting with elitists’ focus on reputations of power.
• In Who Governs?, Dahl’s method involves analyzing decision-making processes by identifying which participants initiated, vetoed, or proposed alternatives and calculating their proportion of successes. This determined the most influential actors.
• Polsby highlights the study of specific outcomes to determine who prevails in community decision-making, emphasizing concrete, observable behavior.
• Pluralist methodology involves operational definitions, empirical evidence, and producing reliable conclusions consistent with scientific standards (Merelman 1968).
• Terms like power and influence are used interchangeably among pluralists, assuming a primitive notion underlying them. While Who Governs? focuses on “influence,” Polsby discusses “power.”
• The pluralists focus on observable behavior in identifying power, emphasizing decision-making as central. Dahl argues that power analysis requires a careful examination of concrete decisions (1958:466).
• Polsby defines power (or influence/control) as the capacity of one actor to affect another, changing the probable pattern of future events, particularly in decision-making situations (1963:3-4).
• Polsby asserts that identifying “who prevails in decision-making” is the best way to determine which individuals or groups hold more power, as direct conflict between actors provides an experimental test of their ability to affect outcomes.
• The pluralists assume that decisions involve actual, observable conflict. Dahl argues that testing the hypothesis of a ruling class requires key political decisions where the preferences of a ruling elite conflict with those of other groups, and the elite’s preferences consistently prevail (1958:466).
• Pluralists focus on key issue-areas, assuming that controversial topics with actual disagreements among groups are essential for identifying power relations. Dahl maintains that observable disagreement is a necessary condition for analyzing power (1958:467).
• While pluralists emphasize conflict, Dahl in Who Governs? recognizes the operation of power or influence without conflict. He suggests that a person’s influence can be assessed by their ability to successfully initiate, veto, or shape policies even in the absence of visible opposition (1961:66).
• This nuanced understanding in Who Governs? contradicts the pluralists’ conceptual framework and methodology, showing that the one-dimensional view of power cannot fully exploit such insights.
• Conflict is crucial for the pluralist view as it serves as an experimental test of power attributions. Without conflict, the exercise of power is assumed to be invisible.
• Conflict arises between preferences, which are assumed to be consciously made, exhibited through actions, and observable in behavior.
• The pluralists equate interests with policy preferences, meaning that a conflict of interests is the same as a conflict of preferences.
• They reject the notion that interests might be unarticulated, unobservable, or that individuals might be mistaken or unaware of their own interests.
• Polsby critiques the idea of “objective interests”, arguing that labeling disagreements or agreements as false consciousness undermines the empirical testability of theories, turning them into metaphysical claims.
• For Polsby, the actual behavior of groups must be considered relevant, even if it differs from the researcher’s expectations. Assigning “real” interests to a class without their agreement undermines the theory’s empirical basis.
• The one-dimensional view of power focuses on behavior in decision-making, observable conflicts of subjective interests, and expressed policy preferences revealed through political participation.

The Two-Dimensional View

• Bachrach and Baratz critique the one-dimensional view, arguing it is restrictive and promotes an overly optimistic pluralist view of American politics.
• They introduce the idea that power has two faces. The first face aligns with the one-dimensional view, where power is exercised in concrete decision-making.
• The second face involves creating or reinforcing social values, political norms, and institutional practices that limit the scope of public debate to non-threatening issues, thereby preventing others from raising issues detrimental to A’s preferences.
• Their central point: power includes the ability to create barriers to the public airing of policy conflicts, whether consciously or unconsciously.
• They cite Schattschneider’s concept of the mobilization of bias, where political organization inherently biases the system to favor some conflicts while suppressing others.
• The mobilization of bias involves a dominant set of values, beliefs, rituals, and procedures that systematically benefit certain groups (often minority elites) at the expense of others. However, the mobilization of bias can also favor a majority, as seen in movements like the opposition to the Vietnam War.
• Two-dimensional power refers to control beyond direct conflict, including agenda-setting and the ability to shape what issues are considered.
• Power is used in two senses:
  • A general sense: all forms of successful control by A over B.
  • A specific sense: compliance through coercion (threat of sanctions).
• To avoid confusion, the first sense is power, and the second is coercion.

• Bachrach and Baratz’s typology of power includes coercion, influence, authority, force, and manipulation.

• Coercion: A secures B’s compliance through threat of deprivation, arising from a conflict over values or actions.

• Influence: A causes B to change action without threats or severe deprivations.

• Authority: B complies because A’s command appears legitimate or reasonable based on B’s values or the process involved.

• Force: A achieves objectives by removing B’s choice between compliance and noncompliance.

• Manipulation: A secures compliance without B recognizing the source or nature of the demand, a subset of force.

• Their critique of the one-dimensional view is anti-behavioral:

  • The focus on initiating, deciding, and vetoing overlooks how power operates by limiting the scope of decisions to safe issues.
  • Power can manifest in nondecisions, where decisions are made to suppress challenges to dominant interests.

• Nondecisions: Observable decisions that suppress or thwart challenges, even if not overt or issue-specific.

  • These decisions may occur without the dominant group’s full awareness of challengers but still reinforce their dominance.
  • Supporting the status quo inherently protects dominant interests.

• Two-dimensional power analysis examines both decision-making and nondecision-making:

  • Decision: A choice among alternative actions.
  • Nondecision: A decision that prevents or suppresses challenges to the values or interests of decision-makers.
  • Nondecisions may keep challenges covert, prevent access to decision-making arenas, or undermine them during the policy process.

• Bachrach and Baratz’s broader boundaries redefine what constitutes a political issue, contrasting with pluralists’ reliance on the political system’s elites to identify such issues.

• For pluralists, an issue exists only when it commands the attention of a significant political stratum, focusing on observable and actual conflicts.

• For Bachrach and Baratz, key issues may be actual or potential, emphasizing demands that challenge the resources or authority of those controlling policy outcomes.

• Observable conflict remains central to both views:

  • Pluralists associate power with overt conflicts in decision-making.
  • Bachrach and Baratz include covert conflicts in nondecision-making but argue that conflict must be present to discern if a decision prevents challenges to the status quo.

• Nondecision-making prevents potential issues from becoming recognized, making covert grievances relevant:

  • Overt grievances: Already expressed and part of the political system.
  • Covert grievances: Not publicly acknowledged but detectable by observers in an aborted form.

• Differences in understanding interests:

  • Pluralists: Interests are policy preferences of citizens within the political system, as exhibited by behavior.
  • Bachrach and Baratz: Interests also include grievances of those excluded or marginalized from the system.

• Despite this expanded focus, both views rely on subjective, articulated, and observable interests and assume nondecision-making is a form of decision-making.

• The two-dimensional view critiques the pluralists’ behavioral focus but stays within the realm of observable conflicts while analyzing how decisions are suppressed, especially those involving sub-political grievances.

The Three-Dimensional View

• The two-dimensional view of power advances by addressing agenda control and exclusion of potential issues from politics.
• It is inadequate on three counts:
  • Behaviorism: Focuses too much on observable behavior, assuming exclusions are conscious decisions. It fails to account for how biases can operate unconsciously or structurally.
  • Methodological individualism: Analyzes power as individual choices, following Weber’s view. However, agenda control often results from collective forces or institutional practices, not individual actions.
  • Collective action and systemic effects: Collective action involves groups’ behavior beyond individual decisions. Systemic effects arise from organizational forms that mobilize biases, independent of individuals’ intent.
• Marx’s insight: History is shaped by human actions but constrained by inherited circumstances, highlighting the collective and systemic nature of power.
• The second inadequacy of the two-dimensional view of power is its association of power solely with observable conflict.
• Bachrach and Baratz’s analysis: Two types of power—manipulation and authority—may not involve observable conflict, yet both are significant forms of power.
• Power and conflict: Power can be exercised without direct conflict by shaping or influencing the desires and beliefs of others.
• Thought control: Power can manifest in more subtle forms, such as through the control of information, mass media, or socialization processes, shaping people’s preferences and desires.
• Dahl’s observations: Political leaders not only respond to preferences but actively shape them. This process of shaping preferences is a form of power that often prevents conflict from arising in the first place.
• Overlooking subtle forms of power: Both Bachrach and Baratz and pluralists fail to recognize that the most effective use of power often prevents conflict from emerging, rather than responding to it directly.
• The third inadequacy of the two-dimensional view of power is its assumption that nondecision-making power only exists when grievances are denied entry into the political process as issues
• If no grievances are found, it is assumed there is genuine consensus on the allocation of values, implying that people without grievances have no interests harmed by power
• Grievances may not always be articulated demands; they can be vague feelings of unease or deprivation, making it difficult to define them clearly
• The most insidious use of power is preventing people from having grievances by shaping their perceptions and preferences, making them accept their role in the existing order as natural, unchangeable, or divinely ordained
• Assuming that the absence of grievances indicates genuine consensus overlooks the possibility of false or manipulated consensus
• The three-dimensional view of power critiques the individualism of the first two views and considers how social forces, institutional practices, and individual decisions contribute to excluding potential issues from politics
• Conflict may not be observable but can exist as a contradiction between the interests of those exercising power and the real interests of those excluded, even if these interests are unexpressed or unconscious
• Identifying these latent interests requires empirically supportable and refutable hypotheses

The Underlying Concept of Power

• One feature shared by the three views of power is their evaluative character, as each arises from and operates within a specific moral and political perspective
• Power is an inherently value-dependent concept, meaning both its definition and use are tied to unacknowledged value-assumptions that predetermine its empirical application
• Power is an essentially contested concept, meaning its proper use is subject to endless disputes among users, and engaging in such disputes is itself a form of politics
• The basic common core of power is that A affects B in some way, but for it to be considered power, the effect must be non-trivial or significant
• The concept of power must answer the question: What counts as a significant manner of affecting another person?
• The three views of power can be seen as alternative interpretations of the underlying concept, where A exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests
• There are alternative ways of conceptualizing power, each with its own criteria of significance
• Talcott Parsons defines power as a mechanism for bringing about changes in the action of individuals or groups within social interactions
• Parsons distinguishes power by its use of authoritative decisions to further collective goals
• Parsons defines power as the capacity to secure the performance of binding obligations by units within a collective organization, where these obligations are legitimized by their collective goals
• Power in this view involves the right of one unit (A) to make decisions that take precedence over another unit (B) in the interest of the effectiveness of the collective operation as a whole
• Parsons’s conceptualization of power ties it to authority, consensus, and the pursuit of collective goals
• Power is dissociated from conflicts of interest, especially from coercion and force
• For Parsons, power depends on the institutionalization of authority and is seen as a medium for mobilizing commitments for effective collective action
• Parsons criticized Wright Mills for interpreting power solely as a means for one group to get what it wants by preventing others from doing so, rather than seeing it as a facility for performing functions in and for society
• Hannah Arendt defines power as the human ability to act in concert rather than individually
• Power belongs to a group, and it remains in existence only as long as the group stays united
• Power is empowered by the people, and the moment the group disappears, the power vanishes
• In representative government, power rests on the consent of the people, who are meant to rule over their governors
• Political institutions are manifestations of power that decay once the people’s living support disappears
• Arendt traces this conception of power to ancient traditions in Athens and Rome, where the republic is based on the rule of law and the power of the people
• Power is consensual and does not require justification, as it is inherent in the existence of political communities
• Power needs legitimacy but derives it from the initial gathering of the people, not from any subsequent action
• Violence is seen as instrumental, a means to an end, and never legitimate in Arendt’s framework
• Power is not a means to an end, but the very condition that enables a group to think and act in terms of means and ends
• The definitions of power by Parsons and Arendt support their respective theoretical frameworks
• Parsons’s linking of power to authoritative decisions and collective goals reinforces his theory of social integration based on value consensus
• By defining power this way, coercion, exploitation, and manipulation are excluded as phenomena of power, removing them from the theoretical landscape
• Giddens argues that Parsons’s conceptualization excludes the fact that authoritative decisions often serve sectional interests and that radical conflicts stem from struggles for power
• Parsons shifts the focus from power as a relationship between individuals or groups to power as a system property, ignoring how power can stem from negotiated orders based on conflict
• Arendt’s conceptualization of power defends her vision of the public realm where people consent and engage nonviolently and rationally, opposed to reducing public affairs to dominion
• Arendt argues that power and violence are opposites, with violence appearing when power is in jeopardy, but it cannot create power
• Arendt’s view is that even in the most despotic forms of government, power is rooted in solidarity rather than coercion
• Both Parsons and Arendt’s views on power are rationally defensible, but the book argues that they are of lesser value than the conceptualization advanced within the text for two reasons
• Parsons’s and Arendt’s definitions of power are revisionary, deviating from traditional understandings of power
• They focus on ‘power to’ rather than ‘power over’, making power about capacity, ability, or facility, not a relationship
• This removes the conflictual aspect of power, which is central to studying power relations and the overcoming or averting of opposition
• These definitions are used to reinforce certain theoretical positions, but the proposed conceptual scheme provides greater clarity, without eliminating crucial aspects of power
• Parsons‘ analogy to credit creation in the economy and Arendt’s view of cooperative activity being power both miss the conflict of interests element, which the proposed scheme addresses by distinguishing influence from power
• Cooperative behavior without conflict is labeled as influence, not power, but can still be expressed using their definitions
• A conceptual map of power and related terms is proposed, differentiating between influence, authority, and power based on the presence of sanctions and conflict of interests
• Rational persuasion is a form of influence but not necessarily power, as it relies on autonomy and reason rather than coercion
• The conceptual tension between causality, autonomy, and reason creates a Kantian antinomy, with no clear resolution due to contradictory conceptual forces at play
• Power can be exercised by A over B even if B’s real interests are served, raising the question of whether such an exercise of power can be legitimate
• Two responses to this dilemma:
  • (1) Short-term power where A has an observable conflict with B’s preferences, but once B recognizes their real interests, the power relation ends—self-annihilating
  • (2) Any exercise of power over B, even if in B’s real interests, violates B’s autonomy, as B has a real interest in their own autonomy
• The first response risks being misused as paternalistic tyranny, while the second can lead to an anarchist defense, treating influence as power
• The proposed view leans towards (1), but with safeguards to avoid paternalism by relying on the empirical basis for identifying real interests
• B’s real interests should be identified by B, through choice under conditions of relative autonomy, independent of A’s power, for instance, through democratic participation

Power and Interests

• Power is defined as A affecting B in a way that contradicts B’s interests
• The concept of interests is inherently evaluative, implying prima facie claims to certain things, and thus involves normative judgments of a moral and political nature
• Different conceptions of interests align with various moral and political positions:
  • Liberal view: Relates interests to actual wants or preferences, as manifested in political participation
  • Reformist view: Acknowledges wants that may be hidden, submerged, or indirectly revealed, considering deeper political and social influences
  • Radical view: Suggests that wants may be shaped by a system that works against one’s true interests, focusing on what people would want if they were fully autonomous
• One-dimensional view of power aligns with the liberal conception of interests
• Two-dimensional view of power aligns with the reformist conception of interests
• Three-dimensional view of power aligns with the radical conception of interests
• Each perspective on power presupposes a normative conception of interests

The Three Views Compared

• One-dimensional view focuses on operational definitions and empirical evidence, revealing how pluralist systems operate, e.g., Dahl’s study on New Haven
• Weaknesses: reproduces the bias of the system being studied by focusing only on successful decision-making, misses the ways power is exercised to limit decision-making to acceptable issues, excluding certain groups, fails to consider failed attempts at political participation or the non-decision-making aspect that can prevent real change, indirect influence may serve elites, not just the electorate, does not uncover hidden biases or unequal power relations within the system
• Two-dimensional view reveals mobilization of bias, showing how certain issues are prevented from entering the political process
• Weaknesses: focuses on individual decisions to block grievances from becoming issues, offering a superficial analysis, lacks a deeper look into how institutional inactivity and structural factors contribute to political exclusion, fails to examine the long-term, subtle mechanisms of exclusion beyond direct decision-making actions
• Three-dimensional view provides a sociological explanation for how political systems prevent demands from becoming political issues or even being made
• Classical objection from pluralists: how to study or explain non-events (what doesn’t happen)
• Polsby’s argument: non-events can be significant, but deciding which non-events matter is difficult without community input; outside observers cannot arbitrarily decide what’s important
• Wolffinger suggests a theory of rational behavior to explain failures to act, but the exercise of power can be hard to distinguish from a wrong theory
• Methodological difficulty does not mean power has not been exercised, identifying power in non-events is possible
• The concept of “exercise of power” is problematic due to individualistic and intentional connotations
• Power can be exercised consciously or unconsciously by individuals, groups, or institutions
• Proposes abandoning these assumptions to talk about the exercise of power in a broader, more inclusive way
• “Exercising power” is problematic because it conceals an ambiguity in understanding how power is exercised and what it actually affects
• Operative sense of power: A’s action may be sufficient to affect B’s behavior, but both A and another actor (A1) can influence B simultaneously, resulting in an overdetermined change where neither can be said to have made a difference
• Effective sense of power: A’s action can make a difference by changing B’s behavior in a way that disrupts the normal course of events
• In the operative sense, the presence of multiple intervening sufficient conditions (such as actions of A and A1) distorts the course of events, but no one action can be said to have made a difference
• In the effective sense, A’s action directly changes B’s behavior and can be attributed to A’s influence
• Successful exercise of power: When A secures B’s compliance, this is the successful exercise of power or control; it can be considered a subset of the effective exercise of power
• Attribution of power involves two claims: that A acts (or fails to act) in a certain way and that B does what he would not otherwise do
• Counterfactual claim: Any attribution of power implies a relevant counterfactual, asserting that B would have behaved differently if A (or A along with other conditions) had not acted in a certain way
• Observable conflict: Conflict between A and B can make the counterfactual assumption easier, as we assume B would have behaved differently if A had not prevailed
• Without observable conflict, indirect grounds must be provided to assert the counterfactual and to justify why B would have thought or acted differently
• Mechanism of power: We must specify how A prevented or caused B to behave differently by acting or failing to act in a certain way
• Crenson’s study in The Un-Politics of Air Pollution examines non-decisionmaking and political inactivity, blending two-dimensional and three-dimensional views of power
• Crenson focuses on why some cities failed to address air pollution, emphasizing lack of political action rather than activity itself
• In the case of Gary and East Chicago, both had similar pollution levels, but East Chicago took action while Gary delayed addressing it
• US Steel‘s dominance in Gary prevented air pollution issues from being raised or acted upon for many years
• US Steel exercised power indirectly, using its reputation rather than direct political intervention to block air pollution efforts
• US Steel’s reputation for power was enough to prevent action in Gary, despite not engaging in direct action
• Even when the issue emerged, US Steel influenced the pollution ordinance without engaging in direct political action, challenging pluralist ideas of power
• Crenson shows power can be exercised from outside observable political behavior, demonstrating power doesn’t always require direct involvement
• Activists in Gary were frustrated by US Steel’s evasiveness, as the company did not take a firm stance, hindering progress on air pollution
• Crenson’s analysis moves from case studies to a comparative analysis of interview data from political leaders in 51 cities
• He finds that industries with a reputation for power tend to suppress the air pollution issue, with industry silence diminishing its political life
• A strong party organization can also inhibit the pollution issue, but may promote it if industry power is high, as parties seek to leverage industrial influence
• Pollution control is identified as a collective good, with concentrated costs for industry and diffuse benefits for society, leading to strong opposition from industry and weak support from political leaders focused on influence
• Crenson challenges pluralist views by showing that political issues are interconnected, where promoting one issue often suppresses others
• He argues that political decision-making is limited by non-decision-making processes, and that pluralism does not guarantee political openness or popular sovereignty
• Crenson’s work extends beyond Bachrach and Baratz’s two-dimensional view by examining non-decision-making, considering institutional power, and showing how demands are prevented from being raised
• He suggests that political institutions and leaders often shape what people care about and how forcefully they articulate those concerns, thus limiting political consciousness and hindering minority opinions from growing into majorities
• Crenson provides empirical evidence showing how institutions like US Steel, through inaction, blocked public interest in pollution control, thus fulfilling the need to justify the counterfactual and identify the power mechanism in action.

Difficulties

• The three-dimensional view of power faces difficulties in justifying the relevant counterfactual and identifying the mechanism of power
• In the case of air pollution in Gary, Indiana, the counterfactual is easier to justify because the citizens’ interest in not being poisoned is uncontroversial and supported by empirical evidence
• However, in other cases, it’s challenging to assume that victims of injustice would always strive for justice and equality without power’s interference, especially with cultural relativity of values
• There is a risk of ethnocentrism in assuming that all people would want the same values, such as rejecting systems like orthodox communism or the caste system
• It’s possible to find indirect evidence that apparent consensus may be imposed rather than genuine, but mixed cases may exist
• Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks offer insight by contrasting thought and action, suggesting that people may appear to affirm a value system because of submission or subordination, even though they may have their own embryonic conception of the world
• This submission leads to a borrowed conception from a dominant group, especially during normal times
• Gramsci suggests that observing behavior in abnormal times, when power dynamics are relaxed, can reveal whether a belief system is genuinely followed or imposed, using religion as an example of how belief systems survive through constant intellectual reinforcement and hierarchy
• The French Revolution illustrates how a violent interruption of the Church’s relations with its followers led to significant losses, pointing to the fragility of imposed power.
• Czech reactions to the 1968 power relaxation provide a contemporary example of how people’s responses to power dynamics can reveal underlying resistance or acquiescence
• Evidence about social mobility is significant in understanding the exercise of power and its impact on people’s behaviors and thought processes
• The caste system in India, often seen as a system of genuine consensus over values, has been challenged by the concept of Sanskritization, where lower castes rise in the hierarchy by adopting Brahminic customs
• The process of Sanskritization includes adopting vegetarianism, teetotalism, and Brahmin rituals, often seen as a route to upward mobility
• Economic betterment and the desire for social recognition drive this process, indicating that caste mobility has always been possible, particularly for those in the middle regions of the hierarchy
• The caste system, often viewed as rigid and unchangeable, actually allows for perceived opportunities for social mobility that are seized by lower castes when possible
• Critics may argue that upward mobility within a hierarchical system implies acceptance of the system, but adopting Brahminic ways is a gap between thought and action, as it challenges the system’s prescribed values
• Evidence from universal suffrage and Untouchable conversions to Islam, Christianity, and Buddhism supports the view that subordinate status is internalized through power, and the desire for escape from discrimination can lead to a rejection of caste hierarchies
• The conversion of Untouchables to religions offering egalitarian principles shows an attempt to escape caste-based discrimination and supports the counterfactual that people may seek alternative pathways if power structures are weakened
• While the evidence is never conclusive, it provides a plausible argument for identifying exercises of power and the alternative actions people may take under different conditions.
• Identifying the process of power in the three-dimensional view poses difficulties, particularly in distinguishing the exercise of power when it’s inaction, unconscious, or collective
• Inaction as an exercise of power refers to situations where failure to act leads to significant consequences, such as the non-appearance of a political issue
• Causal relationships can be established between inaction and non-events, like the inaction of US Steel leading to public silence over air pollution, where the absence of action results in suppressed issues
• Unconsciousness in the exercise of power is complex, as power may be exercised without the agent’s awareness of the real motive, meaning, or consequences of their actions
• Unconsciousness can manifest in several ways:
  • Unaware of the real motive behind one’s action (as in Freudian explanations)
  • Unaware of how others interpret one’s action
  • Unaware of the consequences of one’s action, which raises significant challenges in identifying power
• The difficulty with unconsciousness arises when an agent doesn’t know the consequences of their actions, such as when knowledge is unavailable or not accessible due to technical or factual limitations
• Examples:
  • A drug company may not have known the harmful effects of its product, but could have reasonably discovered them
  • Cigarette companies, before the harmful effects of smoking were known, didn’t consciously exercise power over the public, despite the long-term risks
• The exercise of power may be attributed unconsciously if the agent could have discovered the consequences but failed to, raising further questions about responsibility and the limits of knowledge available to the exerciser
• These issues highlight the complexities of identifying power dynamics, especially when power is not exercised through overt or conscious actions.
• Attributing power to collectivities such as groups, classes, or institutions raises the issue of distinguishing between structural determination and the exercise of power
• The challenge is to identify when social causation should be characterized as an exercise of power, as opposed to being seen as a structural or deterministic force
• This issue is central in the history of Marxist thought, particularly in the debate between determinism and voluntarism
• Post-war French Marxism, particularly Louis Althusser, took an extreme deterministic position, seeing social structures as determining the elements of a society without giving an explanatory role to the human subject
• Althusser argued that Marx’s work conceptualizes the structure of a whole determining its elements, treating society as an objective system governed by laws of its arrangement
• In contrast, thinkers like Sartre, Goldmann, Lukacs, and Korsch (who drew on Hegel) emphasized the importance of the historical subject, arguing that human agency plays a crucial role in explaining social phenomena
• This tension is highlighted in the debate between Nicos Poulantzas and Ralph Miliband over Miliband’s book The State in Capitalist Society
  • Poulantzas criticized Miliband for reducing social classes and the state to interpersonal relations rather than recognizing them as objective structures
  • Poulantzas argued that Miliband’s view neglected the structural nature of social relations, instead focusing on individual actors’ motivations
• Poulantzas’ critique:
  • He believed Miliband misunderstood the role of individuals in social systems, seeing them as the genetic principle of social actions
  • This led Miliband to overlook the objective systems that govern social relations and the class contradictions in society, focusing instead on individual conduct
• The debate reflects two differing approaches in Marxist thought: one emphasizing objective structures (Poulantzas and Althusser) and the other focusing on human agency and interpersonal relations (Miliband and others).
• Miliband responded to Poulantzas by arguing that Poulantzas overemphasizes ‘objective relations,’ which implies that the state’s actions are entirely determined by structural forces, turning those in power into mere functionaries executing policies.
• He criticized this as a form of structural superdeterminism, which negates the possibility of meaningful agency or realistic analysis of the relationship between the state and the system.
• The debate between Poulantzas and Miliband highlights the misleading dichotomy between structural determinism and methodological individualism. Sociological research must examine both objective structures and individual motivations, acknowledging the complex interrelations between them.
• The concept of power involves human agents whose actions or inactions affect others, often contrary to their interests. The assumption is that these agents have relative autonomy and could have acted differently, even within structural constraints.
• In a system of total determinism, power cannot exist, as all actions would be preordained and agency would be nullified.
• Poulantzas defined power as the ability of a social class to realize its objective interests, viewing power as the effect of structural relations between classes. However, this reduces power to structural determinism, obscuring the important distinction between the exercise of power and structural effects.
• Identifying power as an exercise of agency implies that the involved agents could have acted differently, thus attributing responsibility for consequences.
• C. Wright Mills made a distinction between fate and power, seeing fate as events beyond any group’s control, while power is attributed to those in positions capable of initiating changes with broad societal impacts. Mills argued that those in strategic positions should be held accountable for the consequences they create.

Conclusion

• The one-dimensional view of power provides a clear framework for analyzing decision-making power in political actors but tends to adopt the biases inherent in the political system being studied, missing how the political agenda is controlled.
• The two-dimensional view seeks to address these biases by focusing on nondecision-making power and latent conflicts, but it does so too narrowly, lacking a sociological perspective that could broaden the analysis.
• Examining the ways in which latent conflicts are suppressed presents serious but not insurmountable challenges.
• These challenges do not invalidate the three-dimensional view of power, which offers a more comprehensive approach to understanding power dynamics in society.
• A deeper analysis of power relations is both possible and necessary, and while difficult, it is not impossible, contrary to pessimistic views that suggest complexity should discourage effort.