Slight Return

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.