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Power & Ideology: SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society

Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

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58 views

Power & Ideology: SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society

Power can be understood in different ways: 1) As domination or repression through direct authority and influence. 2) As agenda-setting by preventing issues from being politicized or discussed. 3) As ideological manipulation that shapes perceptions to accept existing inequalities. However, power is also productive, linked to the production of knowledge and social meanings. It operates through language and discourse rather than being solely repressive. Empowerment involves everyday resistance within these power relations rather than just taking over resources. Foucault analyzed how power operates through scientific disciplines and governs subjects.

Uploaded by

rozamodeau
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Power & Ideology

SOC1400: Understanding Contemporary Society


Lecture 8
This Lecture
Topic: Power

•  Weber: power vs. domination

•  Steven Lukes’ concept of power

•  Michel Foucault’s concept of power

•  Relationship to ideology (or language, ‘discourse’)


Structures, Relations…
•  Class and work, economic •  State and political institutions,
relations social movements

•  Gender relations, patriarchy •  International relations, wars, etc

•  Racialised relations •  …

•  Family relationships (youth, age, •  Hierarchies


traditions, socialisation)
•  The direct exercise of power
•  Language and culture from one side or the other

•  Interpersonal relationships •  How does this power operate?


Power
•  Can you see it?

•  Can you feel it?

•  Can you know it’s operating? How?

•  What concepts of power are there?

•  Why are there different concepts? !


Weber on Power
•  Power ‘of men to realize their
own will’ ‘even against the
resistance of others‘

•  Coercive power vs legitimate


authority

•  Modern society is primarily


dominated on rational- legal
grounds (the law, the state,
bureaucracy)

•  Legitimate domination also


functions on traditional grounds
and charismatic grounds.
Steven Lukes (1941–) 


•  Professor of Politics and
Sociology at NYU

•  Power: a radical view


(1972, 2005)

•  Three Faces/Dimensions
of Power:
One-dimensional View
•  Robert Dahl (1957) ‘A has
power over B to the extent
that he can get B to do
something that B would not
otherwise do.’

•  Close to Max Weber’s view


on power, focusing on
individuals realising their
wills

•  Observable. Direct conflicts

•  Content of decision-making
Two-dimensional View
•  Controversial issues are
prevented from being
made visible

•  Power is exercised by
keeping some issues out of
politics altogether, which
prevents oppositional social
groups from pursuing their
interests.

•  Agenda-setting / Process of
decision-making
Three-dimensional View
•  Karl Marx (1818 – 1883) and
other Marxist theorists
•  The shaping of perceptions,
preferences and desires
•  Acceptance of the existing
order even if it goes against
one’s immediate interests,
because
•  No visible alternative
•  Naturalisation of existing
order
•  Ideology
Power & Ideology
•  Ideology: a system of ideas and
ideals, especially one which forms
the basis of economic or political
theory and policy.

•  Marx: Important factor in the


reproduction of capitalist class
domination

•  Economically powerful are able to


control the dominant ideas
circulating in society, legitimising
their own privileged position.

•  Ideologies can be proven


scientifically to be not valid.
Power as Repressive

•  All three dimensions of power have a conception


of power rooted in an understanding of power as
a form of domination or oppression. !

•  But is power only domination?


Michel Foucault (1926 –1984)
French Philosopher and Social Theorist 


•  Power is not simply


repressive, it produces
social relations

•  Power runs through


society and it is
connected to knowledge
and language

•  Where there is power


there is resistance
Power & Knowledge
•  The production of
knowledge is connected to
power
•  Scientific disciplines
(re)produce power relations
by producing what comes
to be established as
objective knowledge.
•  Examples: Eugenics,
historical definitions of
mental illness, Eurocentric
conceptions of the world
Power & Discourse

•  Alternative concept to ideology,


and critical of it: not a matter of
‘false ideas’ – includes scientific
ideas

•  Focuses not on truth or falsity


but on how language is used
and meaning and subjectivity
produced as part of power
relations and scientific and
governmental practices
Empowerment / Resistance

•  Marxist view: Class consciousness, class struggle,


taking over material resources

•  Foucauldian view: ‘Micropolitics’, ‘mobile and


transitory points of resistance’, resistance internal
to power relations
Stuart Hall (1932–2014)

Jamaican-born sociologist, 

co-founder of British Cultural Studies
•  Synthesised Marxist and
Foucauldian views on
power, ideology and
discourse
•  Theorised class and
racialised power
relationships through
studying language and
representation in culture
and media (past & present)
•  Your reading this & next
week
Summary
•  Power as domination or repression
•  Power as command, authority, influence
•  Power as agenda-setting
•  Power as ideological manipulation

•  Power as productive
•  Linked to the production of knowledge
•  Linked to the production of meaning and subjectivity

•  Empowerment as
•  takeover of power
•  everyday acts of resistance
Readings
•  Giddens & Sutton, Essential Concepts in Sociology, ‘Power’ 412–418
also see ‘Ideology’ and ‘Discourse’
•  Hall, S. (2011) ‘The West and the Rest: Discourse and Power’. In Hall,
S. (Ed.) Formations of Modernity. Chapter 6 in the book, focus on
291-295. On MyLearning (same Chapter for the following week)

•  Questions:
•  What is power?
•  How is it exercised and by whom?
•  What kind of different situations can we understand through different
understandings of power?
•  How does language play a role in the exercise of power? Think of an
example.

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