Meaning of Power From Political Perspective

 

Politics is universal. Politics goes beyond state/ government; it also attends to consensus, conflict, controversy, collective choice, and power. Power is infused in all pursuits of life.

Predominantly power is exercised by the government and its organs: bureaucracy, police, courts, etc. Heywood in his book said, “Without doubt, students of politics are students of power.” The etymology of power is from a Latin word, ‘potere’ which means ‘to be able.

Many theorists spoke about the centrality of power in politics, to mention a few :

Machiavelli, an Italian philosopher said, “ Politics is a constant power struggle.” Moreover, he spoke of how politics is about the means of acquiring power.

Morgenthau in, Politics Among Nations'' wrote "the main signpost that helps political realism to find its way through the landscape of international politics is the concept of interest defined in terms of power."

In his book, Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes argued that every person wants to wield power in some way and that life is a perpetual desire for power that ultimately results in death. Hobbes and Machiavelli emphasize the acquisition, maintenance, and expansion of it.

Robert Dahl defines political power as “ when A has power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do.”

Three views of power namely, the pluralist view, the elitist view, and the class-perspective are explained below:

Pluralist View:

Pluralism endorsed that power is not exercised by one individual or one group of individuals; it is rather dispersed. Robert Dahl advocates this view. It was developed when Dahl criticized the power elite theory of Mills after conducting a survey in New Haven.

He says, in decision-making, there are many competing groups, lobbies who participate and represent different sections having varied interests. There might be the case that few still are left behind but here the balance mechanism comes into play.

For them, power is about consensus, bargaining and influence. It is more about how to resolve conflicts peacefully and about attaining the goals by overcoming the opposition. It explains power in subjective terms.

Lukes view of the power:

Steven Lukes described power as, “An exercises power over B when A affects B in a manner contrary to B’s interests.” He further mentioned three dimensions of power. He regards pluralists, mostly Dahl's view, to be one-dimensional, it is about making decisions, about overt conflicts.

He considers Bachrach and Baratz's views to be two-dimensional, in which the interests of other people diminish. Here, both overt and covert conflicts are recognized and policy-making can be done through agenda-setting. Though he considers the latter to be better; claims that it is also incomplete.

He then presents the three-dimensional view of power. Here, he presents the worst case which is of people not recognizing their ‘actual’ wants; their wants have been altered according to the one who rules them and they are not aware of it.

Thus, don’t make efforts to defend themselves. He calls this the ‘latent conflict’. This is more than exercising power as domination, meaning, there are unconscious mechanisms(non-coercive) also to do it.

Elite View:

The elite or managerial theory of power was propounded by Mills, Pareto, Michels, Mosca Burnham, etc. This notion denies the pluralist and the Marxist view. It became more pronounced when C.Wright Mills criticized the pluralist view and said that power within the American senate is exercised by only a small group of people called the ‘elites’.

It includes the military, the cabinet, and the corporates. They make public policies that best suit their interests and deny the interests of others. Pareto says that in every society a certain hierarchy is followed and the class on the top constitutes the ‘elite’.

According to Pareto, the nature of power is shaped by the history of society.

Mosca gave sources of power other than a psychological one. He thought of it in terms of bureaucrats, intellectuals, and wealthy people. He believed that elites being a minority are able to organize themselves better and the majority is unable to do so.

Michels gave the famous ‘Iron Law of Oligarchy’. He believes in power elites in terms of organizational skills. His experience in the German Social Democratic Party is a major factor in shaping this idea. Such elites command the resources.

James Burnham in the ‘Managerial Revolution’ spoke about technocrats and the professionals exercising power. The managers will be in the position of exercising power rather than the controllers of the property.

Class View

In Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx and Engels regarded the state as the executive committee which manages the affairs of the bourgeoisie. They relate power to wealth and to class. They understand power through the perspective of class and believe that political power flows from economic power.

Like in a capitalist society, the bourgeoisie wields political power. There have always been two classes: serfs and lords, slaves and masters, and proletariat and bourgeoisie, where one class owns the means of production and the other one labors for it.

The surplus value(production by labor) is acquired by the owning class(bourgeoisie) without force and the working class(the proletariat) is not paid what they deserve. He claims the modes of production form the base and the society’s politics, culture, ideology forms the superstructure. Thus, the economically dominant class shapes society through legal means.

According to Marx, the worldwide proletariat revolution is the only solution to this oppression. But it didn't happen in reality so Antonio Gramsci came up with the idea of ‘hegemony’ to better explain the working of capitalist societies.

Hegemony means control through ideological and moral means. He claims that power in capitalist society is based on both consent and coercion. Coercion today is barely used. The consent is brought about by educational, ideological means.

People agree to the dominant ideology very naturally. Since he gives more prominence to ideology, he refutes that there is only one dominant group, instead of including educational institutions, media, courts to share power.

With the use of bureaucracy, police courts, etc. the ruling class dominates the working class. He also says that, like the role of the church, educational institutions play a major role in ideological domination.

Other views like Feminists, subaltern, and views are also important.

All the above views explain the ways in which power is exercised: by influencing decisions, by agenda-setting, by manipulation, and by ideological control.

Talcott Parsons made a very interesting point, the way money is to economics; power is to politics, in the sense that the way money enhances the ability to secure goods and services; the same way power increases the capability to secure political obligations.

Power is an important tool for analyzing domestic and international politics both. Nonetheless, we should not disregard the fact that because power is most noticeable in politics, all politics is about power.

Written By - Disha Jain