Power, and Where to Look For It
Power is standardly defined after Dahl: A has power over B when A gets B to do something B would not otherwise do. It is relational, not a possession.
Dahl used this to study New Haven. He concluded it was pluralist: different groups prevailed on different issues. No single elite ruled.
Critics asked: Where should we look?
| Face | What it consists of | How you detect it |
|---|---|---|
| First (Dahl) | Prevailing in open decisions | Observe who wins decisions |
| Second (Bachrach and Baratz) | Keeping issues off the agenda | Find grievances that never reach a vote |
| Third (Lukes) | Shaping what people want | Compare expressed and objective interests |
The second face is non-decision-making. Power keeps threatening questions off the agenda entirely. Looking only at open decisions misses it.
The third face shapes preferences. Lukes argues power leads people to want things against their own interests. Critics object that analysts cannot easily declare what another person's "real" interests are.
Consent, Coercion, and Legitimacy
Power rests on two foundations:
- coercion: compliance driven by fear of sanctions.
- consent: compliance because the command is accepted.
No durable regime relies on coercion alone. It is too costly. Gramsci used hegemony to describe rule through civil society, making the order seem like common sense.
Legitimacy versus Legality
- Legality means conforming to written rules.
- Legitimacy is the shared belief that authority is rightful.
They often come apart:
- Legal but not legitimate: Apartheid laws, or rigged elections following local statutes.
- Legitimate but not legal: Principled civil disobedience, or widely supported resistance movements.
Weber identified three pure types of legitimate domination:
- traditional: authority based on long-standing custom.
- charismatic: devotion to the exceptional qualities of an individual leader.
- legal-rational: authority based on impersonal, legally enacted rules.
Common pitfall: Confusing legitimacy with moral approval. Legitimacy is purely descriptive. It measures whether subjects accept rule as rightful, even in regimes an observer finds monstrous.