On another subject, I have been thinking again today about power, as I am wont to do.
A major point of departure between the two theoretical mentors I have chosen is the fact that whilst Weber’s ideas of power are inextricably tied up with ideas of (political) ‘legitimacy’, Foucault specifically rejects such notions. However, the idea of ‘legitimacy’, if not the fact of it, offers us useful ways of thinking about power in a formal political context. Weber himself details how different ‘types’ of legitimate authority are appropriate in different times and places (charismatic, traditional, legal-rational) and serve as a means of reinforcing modes of power. Thus, if the dominant mode of power is the production of a series of force relations in tension with each other, the idea of ‘legitimacy’ might be seen as an additional instrument of power, a technique by which power extends its reach. Process, procedure is a potent expression of power in modernity and it is in these techniques that legitimacy in ‘civilised’ societies is claimed: from democracy, rule of law, due process etc etc to particular cultural rules of engagement. It is another channel through which individuals may become produced as subjects.
Not sure if that makes sense at the moment. May have to come back to it, but there’s a germ of an idea in there.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
On Philosophical Objections
A number of people have said to me that the argument against the government's foolish ID cards scheme cannot be won on a philosophical basis. We ought to oppose them on the basis that they will not achieve the things claimed and that they will be, at best, an expensive folly. This is probably true, but my objection is philosophical. Regardless of what the latest proclaimed 'benefit' is (which changes more often than John Reid changes jobs), the ID card scheme - or more specifically the National Identity Register [NIR] (which is the real objectionable part of this scheme) - is designed so that the state can link all our information, track our movements, habits etc. and, more importantly, effectively sanction our right to an identity. On what level should this be objected to if not 'philosophically'? The state and various authorities already know plenty about us, but at least we notionally have some kind of choice at the present. The NIR appears only to be a small step to some, but to me it appears a giant leap towards an insidious 'soft' authoritarianism.
Henry Porter might be accused of ranting about this over-much (and often is) but his article in today's Guardian is a good summary of almost every objection to this evil folly, from the philosophical to the financial.
Philosophically, he says:
"In a free country I believe that every human being has the right to define him or herself independently and without reference to the government of the time. This, I believe, is particularly important in a multicultural society such as ours. The ID card and NIR require and will bring about a kind of psychological conformity, which is utterly at odds with a culture that has thrived on individualism, defiance and the freedom to go your own way."
Spot on. What's more he is right about useful idiots like David Goodhart ('philosophically' in favour - see his recent Prospect article), who seem to become more and more authoritarian in their outlook every day. For the rest of Porter's Guardian article, click here.
Henry Porter might be accused of ranting about this over-much (and often is) but his article in today's Guardian is a good summary of almost every objection to this evil folly, from the philosophical to the financial.
Philosophically, he says:
"In a free country I believe that every human being has the right to define him or herself independently and without reference to the government of the time. This, I believe, is particularly important in a multicultural society such as ours. The ID card and NIR require and will bring about a kind of psychological conformity, which is utterly at odds with a culture that has thrived on individualism, defiance and the freedom to go your own way."
Spot on. What's more he is right about useful idiots like David Goodhart ('philosophically' in favour - see his recent Prospect article), who seem to become more and more authoritarian in their outlook every day. For the rest of Porter's Guardian article, click here.
Sunday, July 09, 2006
Some Theoretical Developments
For the last few days, I have been allowing my thoughts to settle a bit. The aim has been to allow my mind to untangle some of the ideas I have expressed on these pages, and to begin to shape them into a more systematic theory that can be put to good use in the study of political organisations. It’s not completely there, but I think I have something a bit more coherent.
So my theory, the basis of my methodology for the rest of my thesis, might be described as follows:
1. Power becomes apparent in action. Although it does not exclusively belong in individuals, it is expressed in the actions, interactions and relations between people and networks.
2. Institutions are ‘crystallisations’ of power’s effects. Series of action can congeal into practice and become regularised. Further, regularised practice can harden into procedure & process and forms the basis of social organisation. This development forms a context for future action, which may further congeal into new practices and processes. These ideas enable us to conceive of Foucauldian power as an anonymous and independent relations of force giving form to the rational organisation that Weber describes. Bureaucratic organisation, which becomes harder and harder to escape, and perhaps impossible to undo (with increasing layers of hardened practice), can be seen as coming into being through the development of practices and processes in this way.
3. Modes of organisation and forms of power have developed through concrete, specific and contingent events, rather than historical imperative or ontological necessity. My focus is on how the banal and the every-day, the chance event or the unforseen can be revealed as being of crucial importance in the development of modern forms of political organisation.
4. I do not make the assumption that the political organisation can itself explain power. We will learn more about both power and political institutions by averting our eyes from the formal structures of the latter and focus on the operation of the former, especially beneath the surface of the institutional crystallisations referred to. Even within these ossified structures micro-level relations, actions and interactions reinforce, challenge or cut-through rules and structures. It is my belief, for example, that organisations change practice and process formally only in response to developments that have already occurred ‘beneath the surface’. At times actual relations and practices may reinforce formalised rules and procedures, but at times they may also be fundamentally opposed to the latter. These are, however, aspects of organisational life that might be necessary to its functioning despite its formal appearance.
5. Also operative are the relations that run over the boundaries of the institution itself, reinforcing, altering or undermining existing practices, processes. They are part of the operation of power on the political representative and leader. For example, round-the-clock news media, the introduction of management and training techniques, interactive communications technology all bring about a greater degree of control of the detailed aspects of individual politicians behaviour: speech, dress, gesture, cultural ‘positioning’ etc. Such forms of discipline might be visible in the familiar repetition of performances in media interviews, or in codes and guidelines issued by parties to their members.
This is looking better I think. I am constantly concerned not to get led astray by tempting tangential arguments, especially ontological ones. Working with the material I am, this is hard to resist! More honing to do!
So my theory, the basis of my methodology for the rest of my thesis, might be described as follows:
1. Power becomes apparent in action. Although it does not exclusively belong in individuals, it is expressed in the actions, interactions and relations between people and networks.
2. Institutions are ‘crystallisations’ of power’s effects. Series of action can congeal into practice and become regularised. Further, regularised practice can harden into procedure & process and forms the basis of social organisation. This development forms a context for future action, which may further congeal into new practices and processes. These ideas enable us to conceive of Foucauldian power as an anonymous and independent relations of force giving form to the rational organisation that Weber describes. Bureaucratic organisation, which becomes harder and harder to escape, and perhaps impossible to undo (with increasing layers of hardened practice), can be seen as coming into being through the development of practices and processes in this way.
3. Modes of organisation and forms of power have developed through concrete, specific and contingent events, rather than historical imperative or ontological necessity. My focus is on how the banal and the every-day, the chance event or the unforseen can be revealed as being of crucial importance in the development of modern forms of political organisation.
4. I do not make the assumption that the political organisation can itself explain power. We will learn more about both power and political institutions by averting our eyes from the formal structures of the latter and focus on the operation of the former, especially beneath the surface of the institutional crystallisations referred to. Even within these ossified structures micro-level relations, actions and interactions reinforce, challenge or cut-through rules and structures. It is my belief, for example, that organisations change practice and process formally only in response to developments that have already occurred ‘beneath the surface’. At times actual relations and practices may reinforce formalised rules and procedures, but at times they may also be fundamentally opposed to the latter. These are, however, aspects of organisational life that might be necessary to its functioning despite its formal appearance.
5. Also operative are the relations that run over the boundaries of the institution itself, reinforcing, altering or undermining existing practices, processes. They are part of the operation of power on the political representative and leader. For example, round-the-clock news media, the introduction of management and training techniques, interactive communications technology all bring about a greater degree of control of the detailed aspects of individual politicians behaviour: speech, dress, gesture, cultural ‘positioning’ etc. Such forms of discipline might be visible in the familiar repetition of performances in media interviews, or in codes and guidelines issued by parties to their members.
This is looking better I think. I am constantly concerned not to get led astray by tempting tangential arguments, especially ontological ones. Working with the material I am, this is hard to resist! More honing to do!
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Using Foucault
Foucault once said the following:
'I would like my books to be a kind of tool-box which others can rummage through to find a tool which they can use however they wish in their own area... I would like [my work] to be useful to an educator, a warden, a magistrate, a conscientious objector. I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers.'[1]
My supervisor also warned me not to get 'hypnotised' by him and I like the quote above because he himself seems to sanction that view. He exhorts us here to take what we will and use it well.
This is exactly how I intend to approach him. It is not for me, nor is it especially useful to me, to ‘go all the way’ with Foucault. I don’t want to get entangled in the broad anti-humanist and post-structuralist controversies of which some of his work was a part. Therefore I need to be very clear about what I am going to take from Foucault and how I am going to use it.
On perhaps a simplistic level Foucault is fleshing out the anatomy of power, the detail that Weber misses because of his focus on structures and institutions.
He develops a (kind of) phenomenology of everyday life – although, crucially, he is not especially interested in how it is directly experienced by the individual, but in how it bears upon the subject that is subjected.
On the other hand, Foucault appears to miss the continuing importance of institutions in the evolution of power.
[1] Michel Foucault, (1974) 'Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir' in Dits et Ecrits, t. II. (Paris: Gallimard), 1994, pp. 523-4. Sourced here.
'I would like my books to be a kind of tool-box which others can rummage through to find a tool which they can use however they wish in their own area... I would like [my work] to be useful to an educator, a warden, a magistrate, a conscientious objector. I don't write for an audience, I write for users, not readers.'[1]
My supervisor also warned me not to get 'hypnotised' by him and I like the quote above because he himself seems to sanction that view. He exhorts us here to take what we will and use it well.
This is exactly how I intend to approach him. It is not for me, nor is it especially useful to me, to ‘go all the way’ with Foucault. I don’t want to get entangled in the broad anti-humanist and post-structuralist controversies of which some of his work was a part. Therefore I need to be very clear about what I am going to take from Foucault and how I am going to use it.
On perhaps a simplistic level Foucault is fleshing out the anatomy of power, the detail that Weber misses because of his focus on structures and institutions.
He develops a (kind of) phenomenology of everyday life – although, crucially, he is not especially interested in how it is directly experienced by the individual, but in how it bears upon the subject that is subjected.
On the other hand, Foucault appears to miss the continuing importance of institutions in the evolution of power.
[1] Michel Foucault, (1974) 'Prisons et asiles dans le mécanisme du pouvoir' in Dits et Ecrits, t. II. (Paris: Gallimard), 1994, pp. 523-4. Sourced here.
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Raw Power Continued
Power comes into evidence through actions, reactions and interactions. It exists in relations that might be described as ‘relations of force’.
Organisation is a particular structure of relations and of actions, reactions and interactions that grow in response to contingencies and concrete events.
By following Foucault’s dictum to ‘cut off the king’s head’, whilst at the time applying that approach to the study of formal political settings, we can investigate how power works at the micro-level in the interactions and relations that exist within the political party and its processes.
I wish to bring these ideas together with an understanding of power in a Weberian sense as something that, even if it begins with individuals, gathers an inevitable structural logic as ‘relations’ become organisation and process and as the organisation grows. Using this, we can develop an understanding of how an institution acts as a kind of regulator and distributor of power through its structures and how that intersects with the relations within it (and that run across it). It also enables us look at the impact of the intersections between different institutions. For example the political party intersects with the state bureaucracy, the media, powerful lobby groups etc. Relations are formed across these and are the basis for struggles of power.
They both recognised how rationality in organised relations is a particular development of modernity. Weber couched his ideas in structural legitimacy of domination, Foucault in force relations at the micro-level. The latter, however, neglects institutional effects.
I will combine them both by attempting to understand power in the concrete institutional setting of a political party. I will attempt to understand the workings of power within it, the development of organisation and process within it from the ‘ground up’: from the point of view of a micro-physics of power.
Weber and Foucault both recognised disciplinary power as a characteristically modern form, how it structures and manipulates the very gestures of the body. For Weber this disturbs and undermines the individual, goes against his ‘natural rhythm’[1]. For Foucault, however, this creates the individual and shapes his/her ‘soul’. Here, power is very closely and intimately related to knowledge. Knowledge, through documentation, observation and examination, provides a means through which power can be expressed and give substance to its operation – the application of knowledge through relations of force brings the results of power to light.
Foucault allows us to conceive of power as an independent force, Weber allows us to see its structural logic at work within institutions, with the important proviso that institutions are, in essence, ‘solely the resultants and modes of organisation of the particular acts of individual persons’[2]. Bureaucratic institutions are repositries of knowledge (through documentation, record-keeping, efficient procedure), with a ‘memory’. Foucault, however, forces us down a level to see power operating at ground-level. In terms of understanding institutional contexts, we can therefore examine how actions become practice, how practice becomes rules which structure further action. We can also, with the benefit of Foucauldian analysis, see how the everyday, seemingly banal, accidental, minor interactions and relations work beneath rules and structures as such and reinforce political discipline.
There is much more to untangle here. More soon.
[1] See ‘The Meaning of Discipline’ in Gerth & Wright Mills, ed (1948) – From Max Weber (London: RKP), 253-264
[2] Max Weber (1978) – Economy and Society (University of California Press), p.13
Organisation is a particular structure of relations and of actions, reactions and interactions that grow in response to contingencies and concrete events.
By following Foucault’s dictum to ‘cut off the king’s head’, whilst at the time applying that approach to the study of formal political settings, we can investigate how power works at the micro-level in the interactions and relations that exist within the political party and its processes.
I wish to bring these ideas together with an understanding of power in a Weberian sense as something that, even if it begins with individuals, gathers an inevitable structural logic as ‘relations’ become organisation and process and as the organisation grows. Using this, we can develop an understanding of how an institution acts as a kind of regulator and distributor of power through its structures and how that intersects with the relations within it (and that run across it). It also enables us look at the impact of the intersections between different institutions. For example the political party intersects with the state bureaucracy, the media, powerful lobby groups etc. Relations are formed across these and are the basis for struggles of power.
They both recognised how rationality in organised relations is a particular development of modernity. Weber couched his ideas in structural legitimacy of domination, Foucault in force relations at the micro-level. The latter, however, neglects institutional effects.
I will combine them both by attempting to understand power in the concrete institutional setting of a political party. I will attempt to understand the workings of power within it, the development of organisation and process within it from the ‘ground up’: from the point of view of a micro-physics of power.
Weber and Foucault both recognised disciplinary power as a characteristically modern form, how it structures and manipulates the very gestures of the body. For Weber this disturbs and undermines the individual, goes against his ‘natural rhythm’[1]. For Foucault, however, this creates the individual and shapes his/her ‘soul’. Here, power is very closely and intimately related to knowledge. Knowledge, through documentation, observation and examination, provides a means through which power can be expressed and give substance to its operation – the application of knowledge through relations of force brings the results of power to light.
Foucault allows us to conceive of power as an independent force, Weber allows us to see its structural logic at work within institutions, with the important proviso that institutions are, in essence, ‘solely the resultants and modes of organisation of the particular acts of individual persons’[2]. Bureaucratic institutions are repositries of knowledge (through documentation, record-keeping, efficient procedure), with a ‘memory’. Foucault, however, forces us down a level to see power operating at ground-level. In terms of understanding institutional contexts, we can therefore examine how actions become practice, how practice becomes rules which structure further action. We can also, with the benefit of Foucauldian analysis, see how the everyday, seemingly banal, accidental, minor interactions and relations work beneath rules and structures as such and reinforce political discipline.
There is much more to untangle here. More soon.
[1] See ‘The Meaning of Discipline’ in Gerth & Wright Mills, ed (1948) – From Max Weber (London: RKP), 253-264
[2] Max Weber (1978) – Economy and Society (University of California Press), p.13
Raw Power
What is power? Why should we try to pin this idea down, why is it so important? Perhaps we cannot nail it down as such. But why we should we imagine it?
I am confused by the concept of power
Power doesn’t have substance, it is not a physical entity
Power is (a) word
This makes it very difficult to generalise about it. It might have many different meanings.
As a noun it might be the ability to do something or act in a particular way; or it might be a capacity or ability to direct or influence others or the course of events.
It might be attached to a person, an organisation, a political or social entity, a state, a supernatural being or force, (a) god. It might refer to physical strength or mechanical or electrical energy.
How can it be attached to all of these things and mean the same thing? Is it polysemic or simply contested?
It is used to describe, in nature, a force, a potential to affect and disturb
It is a capacity contained in nature
It has, through science and engineering been harnessed by human beings
It is also used to describe very human ideas: the power of speech, the power of thought. These are powers, but do they represent power? Perhaps they do, but not in the sense that I am trying to convey. These capacities as the ability to do something are best described as potentia (the power of things in nature). I am more interested in potestas, that is being in the power of another, which Lukes (2005) sees as sub-concept of the former. Potestas refers to the ability to direct or influence others.
The immediate implication of potestas is that power is possessed by one person over another. I am not, however, certain that power is possessed in this way.
Power is at work in an interplay, in an action and reaction: in a conversation, in the back and forth between two people words, gestures, a glance, a flick of the eyebrows, tone of voice.
Power is at work in the spaces I inhabit and in the networks of which I am a part. Through networks, spaces, relations I am shaped and my actions, reactions and interactions are contextualised and shaped. They are seen, compared, measured. They are honed and defined.
In this view, I cannot take power and keep it to myself. It works through my relations with people and things, through the accumulation of knowledge and in the way I orient myself to people and things. Power is not an encompassing force as such and it is not located within boundaries. It is ‘produced from one relation to the next’ as Foucault might put it.
It comes from practice, however, that may occur in a specific place at a specific time. It is likely to be an action upon an action, a response to a chance event that grows into an imperative, a congealing of that action into a practice. Practice becomes procedure and process which may spread beyond its boundaries as one network of relations and forces comes into contact with another.
This is all highly abstract, as much Foucauldian influenced theory is wont to be. How can I begin to make this useful?
What Foucault seeks to do is to track the processes by which compliance is secured voluntarily. How power works in ‘hidden’ and subtle ways such that one becomes subject to it without having felt physically coerced.
These ideas need to be removed from abstraction in some way and applied. Weber can help us to do this because he couches his concerns about the growing anonymity of power, about its tendency in modern, rational society to become restrictive and all-pervasive, in the specific analysis of forms of organisation. It is clear to me that Foucault must have read and been influenced by Weber whilst developing some of his ideas about modern power. When one reads Weber on discipline (see ‘The Meaning if Discipline’ in the Gerth & Wright Mills edited book From Max Weber), it leaps out of the page. There is I believe, despite a number of almost schismatic differences between the two theorists, a creative tension that can point us towards some exciting new insights.
The question thus becomes, how to bring them together?
I am confused by the concept of power
Power doesn’t have substance, it is not a physical entity
Power is (a) word
This makes it very difficult to generalise about it. It might have many different meanings.
As a noun it might be the ability to do something or act in a particular way; or it might be a capacity or ability to direct or influence others or the course of events.
It might be attached to a person, an organisation, a political or social entity, a state, a supernatural being or force, (a) god. It might refer to physical strength or mechanical or electrical energy.
How can it be attached to all of these things and mean the same thing? Is it polysemic or simply contested?
It is used to describe, in nature, a force, a potential to affect and disturb
It is a capacity contained in nature
It has, through science and engineering been harnessed by human beings
It is also used to describe very human ideas: the power of speech, the power of thought. These are powers, but do they represent power? Perhaps they do, but not in the sense that I am trying to convey. These capacities as the ability to do something are best described as potentia (the power of things in nature). I am more interested in potestas, that is being in the power of another, which Lukes (2005) sees as sub-concept of the former. Potestas refers to the ability to direct or influence others.
The immediate implication of potestas is that power is possessed by one person over another. I am not, however, certain that power is possessed in this way.
Power is at work in an interplay, in an action and reaction: in a conversation, in the back and forth between two people words, gestures, a glance, a flick of the eyebrows, tone of voice.
Power is at work in the spaces I inhabit and in the networks of which I am a part. Through networks, spaces, relations I am shaped and my actions, reactions and interactions are contextualised and shaped. They are seen, compared, measured. They are honed and defined.
In this view, I cannot take power and keep it to myself. It works through my relations with people and things, through the accumulation of knowledge and in the way I orient myself to people and things. Power is not an encompassing force as such and it is not located within boundaries. It is ‘produced from one relation to the next’ as Foucault might put it.
It comes from practice, however, that may occur in a specific place at a specific time. It is likely to be an action upon an action, a response to a chance event that grows into an imperative, a congealing of that action into a practice. Practice becomes procedure and process which may spread beyond its boundaries as one network of relations and forces comes into contact with another.
This is all highly abstract, as much Foucauldian influenced theory is wont to be. How can I begin to make this useful?
What Foucault seeks to do is to track the processes by which compliance is secured voluntarily. How power works in ‘hidden’ and subtle ways such that one becomes subject to it without having felt physically coerced.
These ideas need to be removed from abstraction in some way and applied. Weber can help us to do this because he couches his concerns about the growing anonymity of power, about its tendency in modern, rational society to become restrictive and all-pervasive, in the specific analysis of forms of organisation. It is clear to me that Foucault must have read and been influenced by Weber whilst developing some of his ideas about modern power. When one reads Weber on discipline (see ‘The Meaning if Discipline’ in the Gerth & Wright Mills edited book From Max Weber), it leaps out of the page. There is I believe, despite a number of almost schismatic differences between the two theorists, a creative tension that can point us towards some exciting new insights.
The question thus becomes, how to bring them together?
Monday, July 03, 2006
Brain Dead Days
All day I have been trying to make myself sit and think. Sometimes it seems almost impossible to relax. I pick up the guitar, twiddle around on that, cook some dinner, scoot around the internet looking at nothing in particular, try to get this blog set up properly...
It all feels pretty random so far. I have written two chapters on Weber and Foucault and now I am trying to synthesise their work into some kind of workable methodology of power that I can use to study political parties. I am sure that it is possible but I am at that familiar point where I don't know quite where to draw all the strings together.
It is too late in the day now and I am brain-dead. This is an all too familiar feeling and a constant peril if you have to work for a living as well as undertake research at this level. There's always that little fear nagging away that inspiration will never quite come.
Of course, inspiration takes quite a lot of hard work, and I can scarcely be accused of that today. Time to turn the brain off and revisit things tomorrow.
It all feels pretty random so far. I have written two chapters on Weber and Foucault and now I am trying to synthesise their work into some kind of workable methodology of power that I can use to study political parties. I am sure that it is possible but I am at that familiar point where I don't know quite where to draw all the strings together.
It is too late in the day now and I am brain-dead. This is an all too familiar feeling and a constant peril if you have to work for a living as well as undertake research at this level. There's always that little fear nagging away that inspiration will never quite come.
Of course, inspiration takes quite a lot of hard work, and I can scarcely be accused of that today. Time to turn the brain off and revisit things tomorrow.
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