Modalities of power- state and power 1: Defining,

historicising & theorising the state

Power and the State 1

Defining the State and the Question of Power: Authority
and Legitimacy

Question of power is very much a question of the state

and its unique power/role.

State = contested entity

Has wide effects, can mobilise populations and defence,
can regulate monitor and police those within its borders,
intervene in economy, regulate flow of info in public
sphere, ubiqutous and pervasive influence in modern
societies.

What is political power?

“power is arguably the single most organising concept
in social and political theory” (Terence Ball)

-Power & political concepts: freedom (from something or

to do something), equality, justice, democracy.
-Defining power:
1. Power-to (positive connotation); capacity & ability to
do something- usual sense of power.
2. Power-over (negative connotation); domination (over
a group or individual), social relationship where one
party is in control. Explores dynamics of power that
seem to last and manifest in our institutions.

The political dimensions of Power

3 Dimensions:
1. Power as decision-making
Politicians, power to make & implement decisions.
Focused on who actually gets what they want in a
situation.
Problem: Focuses only on context of power and its
outcomes, ignores informal and unofficial context of
power and the way which power might be more
pervasive.

2. Power as agenda setting

‘Non-decision’, power to determine what is discussed or
known before decision making is arrived at. Less
divisible form of power, decision making and outcomes
are not the only way we measure things; we have to
think and identify ways to understand to agenda setting
itself creates conditions of power in our societies.
Problem: take what we want as stable and define power
by our ability to get what we want.

3. Power as preference manipulation

Power influences shapes and determines belief and
desires of people in general. Subordinate groups might
have internalised how they should behave before we get
to any overtly political form (decision-making, etc.).
Obscure way of describing how some benefit from
certain ideas in our society, while others don’t.
Problem: Assumes there are objective interests. Relies
on capacity of social scientists to know what people
interests are, places them in a strong position of power,
places there theories under onus of knowing what is
good for everyone (being neutral).
4. Power as Constitutive?
Rejects notion of real interests, power is not repressive it
is productive, power is ubiquitous, power is interactive.
Summary:
“Extremely crudely, one might say that the liberal takes
people as they are and applies want-regarding principles
to them, relating their interests to what they actually
want or prefer, to their policy preferences as manifested
by their political participation. The reformist, seeing
and deploring that not everyone’s wants are given equal
weight by the political system, also relates their
interests to what they want or prefer, but allows that this
may be revealed in more indirect and subpolitical ways
- in the form of deflected, submerged or concealed
wants and preferences. The radical, however, maintains
that people’s wants may themselves be a product of a
system which works against their interests, and, in such
cases, relates the latter to what they would want and
prefer, were they able to make the choice.” (Stephen
Lukes Power a Radical View) The Political Dimensions
of
VS
Foucault:
“We must cease once and for all to describe the effects
of power in negative terms: it ‘excludes’, it ‘represses’,
it ‘censors’, it ‘masks’, it ‘conceals’. In fact, power
produces; it produces reality; it produces domains of
objects and rituals of truth. The individual and the
knowledge that may be gained of him belong to this
production.”
Power and Authority
Normative dimension to concert of power: power and
authority are in a relation.
Authority is concerned with rightness of action, about
obeying in a voluntary way, ‘right’ to rule.
Seem to assume each other but also negate each other.
Eg.
Power implies constraint, force, subordination,
dependence.
Authority implies consent, morality, will, autonomy.

Do those who have power create authority, or the other

way round?

The State I: Institutions

The State includes:
-Government
-Civil Service
-Police & Military
-Hospitals, Schools, Universities

The state is interchanged with

-Gov (temporary, partisan, whereas states are
impersonal & politically neutral.)
-Nations (States tend to create nations, nations are
social groups)
-Civil Society (non state aspect of the world which has
different sets of relationships to state)

The State II: Definition & Essence

A Basic Definition:
“…a state is a human community that (successfully)
claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical
force within a given territory.” (Max Weber)
States get to use force, force is what defines
states, they are coercive and potentially violent,
use this to get what they want.

“State-power is in the last analysis coercive power.”

(Raymond Geuss)
Essence of the state is to coerce.

“political power is always coercive power backed up by

the government’s use of sanctions, for government
alone has the authority to use force in upholding its
laws.” (John Rawls)

^^ Broad state of agreement that states are

defined by free and coercion.

The State III: Ontology

Etymology: Status (Latin) meaning stature or
standing
Force vs Will
Legitimacy: lex (Latin) meaning law or lawful
Modern Condition: Disagreement
Sovereignty

“as when there is controversy in an account, the parties

must by their own accord, set up for right Reason, the
Reason of some Arbitrator, or Judge, to whose sentence
they will both stand, or their controversie must either
come to blowes, or be undecided, for want of a right
Reason constituted by Nature.” (Thomas Hobbes)

The Nature of the State

1. Contractual View
State is a voluntary association of humans,
Creates normative argues of what state should
look like. States are there to enforce agreements
and fair conditions.
2. State as Arbiter/Night-watchmen
Metaphor- idea of a very minimal state; highlights
its neutrality, its goals is to intervene and minimise
conflict so neutral body that arises to end conflict
and so nouns rights are violated.
3. State as Organism
Collectivity of many parts with many roles, it has
direction, intentions and a leader; many people
with many roles.
4. State as Oppressor
State is a partial institution defined by its use of
force to pursue interests of some but not others.