Thursday, October 05, 2006
A thought: a potential difficulty?
F & W perhaps have different ways of seeing the same thing, especially in their respective conceptualisation of discipline as a modern expression of power. However, it is more than just a difference in the ‘level’ of their analysis perhaps? W saw the individual that existed disappear in the machine like organisation of discipline (eg in the factory or the army), whereas F sees that the ‘individual’ was artificially produced where s/he did not before exist (through knowledge, examination, analysis). This is quite a key tension, I think, and where they in some way diverge. I will have to see what implications this thought might have for the rest of my work. However they do agree that discipline has integrative effects too.
Self referential, but important
‘…the benefit of bringing the approaches of Weber and Foucault together is that we can develop a more rounded view that takes into account institutional settings whilst understanding the interrelations that circulate within institutions and across its boundaries…
…Political parties, it must be remembered, are specific sites of power’s operation that intersect and interact with other spheres, in the state, the economy and society more generally. By providing an arena for power’s operation, institutional practice can give shape to, or at least influence, the context of the relations which produce power. If institutions are crystallisations of a strategy of power relations, understanding the institutional context of power, and how relations within it operate with and against structures and rules, will surely reveal something of the nature of power itself.’ (from my second chapter, pp.23-24).
…Political parties, it must be remembered, are specific sites of power’s operation that intersect and interact with other spheres, in the state, the economy and society more generally. By providing an arena for power’s operation, institutional practice can give shape to, or at least influence, the context of the relations which produce power. If institutions are crystallisations of a strategy of power relations, understanding the institutional context of power, and how relations within it operate with and against structures and rules, will surely reveal something of the nature of power itself.’ (from my second chapter, pp.23-24).
Some contextual notes that won't mean anything to anybody except me (sorry)
Power contructing and constituting the individual in Foucault (though don’t get too mesmerised by this) – [point is relations of force that exist in the minutiae]
How things happen, rather than why – this is an historical perspective
Herkunft – what does Herkunft have to say about class and the development of parties out of organised communities?
Small small events and their effects (see my Ch. 2 p.8) – even things like drink, sleep, diet, misunderstandings etc can be important.
Enstehung – states of play, not final moments or culminations; continuations of violence via rules (these are not settlements – which, incidentally, is how I have up to now seen stable political regimes…)
History not a handmaiden to philosophy, and neither can it be made one to politics (see my Ch. 2, p.10).
Therefore I cannot examine the development of political parties in the context of the party as it looks now. It has to be as it is at each point, each crystallising moment.
NB - Some interesting parts in Panebianco’s preface to challenge.
Power is not held but it is produced & reproduced in relations – it operates through people and within institutions, although it does not actually reside in either. It produces strategic situations and individual subjectivities. It should not be understood in the terms of an institution, but once understood it can be used to analyse an institution (which is a strategy of power). [Q – what are the particular practices that emerge in political organisations…? That may also have spread & swarmed in some way? Or have spread from elsewhere… in fact probably from the places that F saw disciplinary power emerging from.]
Resistance is part of the process: pluralities, mobile and transitory
The tension between F & W is the level of analysis and this can be used creatively.
In particular F leads us away from the ‘negative’, prohibitive, juridical approach to power that is deep-rooted in the Western tradition and in Weber too. Power is in the latter’s work a restriction, a censor on human action. It is anti-productive.
How things happen, rather than why – this is an historical perspective
Herkunft – what does Herkunft have to say about class and the development of parties out of organised communities?
Small small events and their effects (see my Ch. 2 p.8) – even things like drink, sleep, diet, misunderstandings etc can be important.
Enstehung – states of play, not final moments or culminations; continuations of violence via rules (these are not settlements – which, incidentally, is how I have up to now seen stable political regimes…)
History not a handmaiden to philosophy, and neither can it be made one to politics (see my Ch. 2, p.10).
Therefore I cannot examine the development of political parties in the context of the party as it looks now. It has to be as it is at each point, each crystallising moment.
NB - Some interesting parts in Panebianco’s preface to challenge.
Power is not held but it is produced & reproduced in relations – it operates through people and within institutions, although it does not actually reside in either. It produces strategic situations and individual subjectivities. It should not be understood in the terms of an institution, but once understood it can be used to analyse an institution (which is a strategy of power). [Q – what are the particular practices that emerge in political organisations…? That may also have spread & swarmed in some way? Or have spread from elsewhere… in fact probably from the places that F saw disciplinary power emerging from.]
Resistance is part of the process: pluralities, mobile and transitory
The tension between F & W is the level of analysis and this can be used creatively.
In particular F leads us away from the ‘negative’, prohibitive, juridical approach to power that is deep-rooted in the Western tradition and in Weber too. Power is in the latter’s work a restriction, a censor on human action. It is anti-productive.
Wednesday, October 04, 2006
Mild Panic Sets In After A Procrastinating Summer
OK. I am getting worried now. Since I have started this blog, I seem to have done less and less actual work on the blimming thesis. A great deal of that is because I have spent much of the summer doing up my flat and working on a few songs (more of this another time) amongst other things. Now I have two weeks to get something presentable together to put before my supervisor. I have always needed the pressure of a deadline, but this is ridiculous!
This morning, then, I have set aside to plan how I can get where I need to be in such a short time. Thankfully, I have lots of notes which I wrote last year and then discarded from earlier chapters which will actually be useful for this one, plus the reading I have done in the last couple of months. What I lack at the moment is the creative hook on which to hang all of this and which supports the direction I had started to see for this work. Here goes...
This morning, then, I have set aside to plan how I can get where I need to be in such a short time. Thankfully, I have lots of notes which I wrote last year and then discarded from earlier chapters which will actually be useful for this one, plus the reading I have done in the last couple of months. What I lack at the moment is the creative hook on which to hang all of this and which supports the direction I had started to see for this work. Here goes...
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