The basic theme of this chapter is that power is ever-present and everywhere in society.
People are constantly subjected to the effects of power, but to varying degrees they themselves also have powers that they deploy to greater or lesser effect. In this sense power spans both the objective and subjective aspects of social life and it is this spread and diffuseness of power at all levels of society that I want to explore in this chapter.
First, I must immediately enter the proviso that I do not intend or pretend to offer an exhaustive discussion of the topic of power (which would require at least a book-length treatment in itself). My discussion is strictly tailored to the main theme of this book, which is the understanding of social activity and thus I shall omit a great many issues and aspects associated with the topic of power in the sociological literature (see Clegg 1989 for an extensive overview). Secondly, my treatment of power is in accordance with the theory of social domains and, as I have indicated at various places, one of the main themes in this regard is that the nature and form of power varies in respect of the domains and their influence on each other.
In endeavouring to grapple with this issue, I shall refer to and draw into the discussion a more general body of work, including that of Foucault, Giddens and Habermas, for I believe that each has something important to say about the nature of power in modernity.
However, while I borrow much from the work of these authors, it will become apparent as the discussion unfolds that I find it necessary to depart from many of their formulations in order to clarify my own position. The main reason that I focus on these authors is they all throw some light on my main theme of the relation between the subjective and objective aspects of power quite irrespectively of whether their overall position is consonant with the one I am here advocating. I shall begin the discussion by examining some of Foucault’s ideas on the nature of power in modernity since they usefully set out some of the parameters of the topic that I wish to address.
Foucault and the nature of modern power
In Chapter 3 I pointed out the close links that Foucault posits between discourse (knowledge), power and practice. Let me here concentrate on the implications that flow from these connections for an understanding of power. Much of Foucault’s (1977, 1980) work on power is centred on a critique of two “traditional” conceptions of its nature and functions. The first views power as a “commodity” that a person (such as a sovereign) possesses and exercises over a group of subjects who authorize this power. This is a repressive form of power that prohibits, limits and instructs those over whom it holds sway in order to allow power-holders to enact their objectives and requirements. Such a form of power is based on the model of monarchical rule that developed in the Middle
Ages against a background of chronic struggle and competition between feudal lords.
Another influential model of power very similar to this is that developed within Marxism, whereby it is thought that a group such as a social class exercises power through possession of the state apparatus and control over the means of production.
Both these views of power are based on the idea of “possession” (of the commodity of power) and the idea that it is repressive in nature. In this sense power is inherently limiting and prohibitive. In both cases there is a central “source” that produces all the effects of power and distributes them in a hierarchical fashion to a subjugated population.
In Marxism (particularly structural Marxism) this centrality of the source of power is very pronounced and is connected to an all-embracing “grand theory” or “meta-narrative”
that attempts to explain the whole sweep of history and social evolution. Thus in Marxism class domination of the economic base of society with its associated control and ownership of the means of production is thought to determine all the other aspects of society and social life.
Foucault insists that these notions based on “single cause” and repressive views of power are out of date and more appropriate to pre-modern societies. In his historical studies Foucault traced the emergence of newer forms of power during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that were based on fundamentally different principles. In particular he charts the development of “disciplinary power” in which control over subject populations operates through a regime of continuous surveillance and internalized
“self-discipline” rather than the external infliction of punishments—often in the form of public spectacles (as was the case with monarchical rule). For example, Foucault suggests that punishment by torture was replaced by an impersonal system of surveillance which ensured that the focus of this new disciplinary power shifted to the individual’s psychology and capacity for self-control. In prisons in particular (Foucault uses Jeremy Bentham’s ideas about the Panopticon to illustrate this) but also in other organizational forms such as army barracks, asylums and monasteries, individuals perceive themselves to be constantly under surveillance and begin to oversee themselves—to regulate their own behaviour in the light of its assumed accessibility and visibility to those in control.
This system of disciplinary power extends into many other areas of life such as hospitals, schools and factories and involves three typical forms of control of conduct.
First, there is a constant and minute surveillance of the routine activities that take place within the organization. This is also reflected in the architectural design of such places as schools, army barracks and workshops or factories, which allows the spatial distribution of human bodies according to function or rank into isolated locations and spaces. The second form of control hinges around the practice of the “normalizing” judgement that aims to bring into line any violations of the duties and regulations having to do with bodily discipline and conduct in general, by the administering of admonitions and punishments. Thirdly, conduct is controlled through the method of the “examination” that combines the idea of a hierarchical form of observation with the practice of normalizing judgements. The examination puts people under scrutiny (a normalizing “gaze”) and makes it possible to individualize them, and therefore to classify, qualify and/or punish them.
This system of disciplinary control is effected in conjunction with various techniques of bodily training in order to encourage individuals to function on an automatic basis as
“docile bodies”. I have already mentioned the idea of the spatial distribution of bodies
according to rank and function aided by architectural design and this allows individuals to internalize and reaffirm their place within the organization. Also bodily gestures and movements concerned for example, with the use of tools or weapons are strictly defined and regulated in time and space. Forms of training (in the use of weapons, tools, manufacturing procedures or simply in the acquisition of certain kinds of knowledge) are operated in a sequential and cumulative manner in order that they can be planned and organized. Finally, from the point of view of disciplinary control it is necessary to make sure that the activities of trained bodies are tighly co-ordinated and synchronized with those of all the other individuals involved.
The normalization of behaviour and identities achieved by disciplinary techniques relies heavily on individuals’ capacity and willingness to monitor their own behaviour.
This is dovetailed with the organizational use of “examination-like” procedures including the use of dossiers, marking, classification and appraisal systems in schools, prisons, factories, hospitals and other organizations that give individuals some sense of their position within, or progress (or lack of it) through an administered hierarchy. As Poster (1984:103) remarks, this provides a “technology of power” (or means of control) that can be deployed at many different locations in capitalist society. Poster goes on to point out that Foucault fails to note that in the late twentieth century, bureaucracy and the computer have expanded the nature of disciplinary control. Bureaucracy and computers have meant that mechanisms of information processing have extended the boundaries of behaviour-monitoring beyond the limited confines of organizational spaces. Traces of behaviour such as credit card activity, telephone bills, welfare files, income transactions, loan applications and so on can be tracked by computer to give “a surprisingly full picture of an individual’s life”. Thus the “normalized individual” not only exists in massed groups in the workplace, school, the military and so forth as Foucault observes, but also extends to the “isolated” individual at home or in the mundane activities of everyday life (Poster 1984:130).
Foucault identifies another form of power—“bio-power”—that he views as critical to the emergence of modernity. As we have seen, disciplinary power involves some aspects of bodily training and therefore overlaps to some extent with bio-power. However, the distinctive feature of bio-power lies in its specific targeting of the body and its concern with the behaviours and subjective identities of whole populations instead simply of individuals or groupings of them within organizations. In The history of sexuality Foucault (1979, 1986, 1988) charts from the eighteenth century onwards, a growth in governments’ attempts to control birth and death rates, life expectancies, fertility, health and frequency of illness and so on in relation to whole populations. From this point onwards the area of sexuality became the focus of intense discursive scrutiny in an effort to adminster, regulate and define the “normal” (permissible) forms of sexuality, and as a result, to begin to give shape and name to various “deviations” and “perversions”.
In such an effort to control large masses of people there is also an attempt to impose forms of subjectivity—to define permissible or normal feelings, ideas and behaviour as an effect of discourses or bodies of knowledge that legislate “the truth” (particularly scientific truth) about areas of everyday life such as sexuality, health and illness,
“normal” versus antisocial behaviour. In this manner, power is linked with discourse (knowledge) and practice. First, the power to define proper or “normal” behaviour and practice on the basis of various claims to valid knowledge (such as its “truth” or its
scientific nature) is a discursive power dependent upon access to, and proficiency in, specialist areas of knowledge. Secondly, discourses construct forms of identity and subjectivity (feelings, thoughts and attitudes) which in turn feed into “normalized” forms of activity for individuals operating within certain social milieux. Thus the close connections between power, discourse and practice are secured in Foucault’s framework of ideas.
Implications of Foucault’s view of power
Apart from the intrinsic links between discourse, subjectivities and practices, Foucault’s depiction of the newer forms of power is predicated on several related assumptions about the manner in which they operate. Let me examine these and then try to show how certain elements of Foucault’s overall view of power in modernity may be used in conjunction with the theory of social domains. At the same time of course, I shall pinpoint what I take to be the more inadequate aspects of Foucault’s analysis—especially with regard to his attempt (though not necessarily “intentional”) to go beyond the subjective-objective and agency-structure dualisms.
Power: productive or prohibitive?
First, Foucault’s vision of power reverses the idea implicit in more traditional (particularly the sovereign) conceptions—that power is necessarily repressive and prohibitive. Instead, Foucault insists that power should be understood as inherently productive and creative. That is, both disciplinary power and bio-power are based fundamentally on the construction of capacities and skills within people such that they can be held within the scope of the regime, or technology of power and encouraged to operate “normally” therein. In the sense that people identify and act in accord with the regime then their subjectivities are constructed within the parameters “allowed by” the discourses and the practices of the regime. Similarly practices are created out of these capacities and subjectivities and the bodies of knowledge that are associated with and give shape to them. This applies equally to superordinates as to those below them—they are both subject to the powers and discourses that construct the parameters of their identities as well as their positions and functions within the organizational forms they inhabit.
Clearly the idea that power is productive and creative rather than a repressive and prohibitive “device” is an important dimension of power of a certain sort. That is, from the point of view of domain theory, power may assume a number of different guises and possess varying properties and dimensions—in this sense productive and creative types may exist alongside others which tend to emphasize more repressive and prohibitive characteristics. This raises a general difficulty with Foucault. He often speaks as if the newer forms of power have completely displaced the older ones and thus more traditional conceptions of power are now without foundation. This assumption seems to be unwarranted since there seems to be little empirical support for the view that traditional repressive (and “top-down” or “sovereign”) modes of power have completely disappeared. Nor does such an assumption seem logically or theoretically necessary.
There is plenty of room for a multiplicity of forms and conceptions of power so why should it be necessary to view power only in the terms that Foucault proposes in respect of disciplinary and bio-power?
Power as possession and the influence of agency
This leads us to the consideration of a second characteristic of power as Foucault sees it.
For him power inheres in a constantly shifting network of alliances rather than existing as a commodity or property possessed and exercised by a person or a group. This suggests that power is an intrinsically relational phenomenon and therefore it cannot be viewed as a substance or capacity that people exercise and deploy according to their objectives and intentions. (Among other attributes this distinguishes Foucault’s “relational” view of power from that offered from a symbolic interactionist perspective—see Luckenbill 1979.) Of course, this position has to do with the poststructuralist abandonment or
“decentring” of the subject that it inherits unquestioningly from structuralism. I say
“unquestioningly” since although poststructuralists of all shades have been heavily critical of almost the whole legacy of structuralist thought, the question of the position of the subject and agency in poststructuralist theory has been the glaring exception to this rule.
Since the poststructuralist movement was developed, among other things, to rid critical social analysis of the severe limitations imposed by various versions of structuralism (including structural Marxism) it is indeed very surprising that the abandonment of the subject (which includes humanism and a general concern with intentional human agency) was retained as a viable premise of the new body of poststructuralist theory. I say this since one of the most obvious weaknesses of poststructuralist thought is its inability to deal with the subject and agency, especially as they are portrayed in humanist schools of thought such as symbolic interactionism and phenomenology. While some writers have grudgingly acknowledged the limitations of poststructuralism in this respect (see Barret 1991) there is very little in the way of progress on this issue. It may be that the poststructuralist enterprise is inherently limited in the sense that it is incapable of making a conceptual and epistemological leap in this regard. Certainly this would follow from its commitment to a form of social analysis that abandons the dualism entailed in the agency-structure or macro-micro distinctions. All this is directly applicable to Foucault’s work in so far as his notion of a synthetic unity of power-discourse (knowledge)-practice is pitched at a level somewhere between structuralism and systems theory on the one hand, and humanist theories of the subject on the other.
However, I would argue that the only way forward, as Habermas has shown with his attachment to a systems perspective, is to attempt some rapprochement with genuinely humanist strands of social thought exemplified in the work of G.H.Mead and other symbolic interactionists including Blumer and Goffman—although I would argue that Goffman’s work cannot be so easily pigeon-holed. With respect to the question of power therefore, Foucault’s approach is inadequate in so far as it rejects the idea of a subject partly independent of social construction in discourse and the associated idea that intentions and agency have decisive consequences for social processes. From the point of view of the framework that I am elaborating, I see no real reason why the Foucauldian
conception of power as a network of shifting alliances, strategies and tactics should not exist alongside conceptions that emphasize the exercise of power by human agents and the notion that there are subjective aspects of power that they possess. This is possible within the terms of domain theory since, like Habermas’s work, it is not hampered by a dogmatic exclusion of the possibilities that dualism holds for social analysis. Indeed as I mentioned in Chapter 3, the theory of domains actually holds to an even more complex and manifold ontology (in the form of the domains) than is implied in simple dualism.
In particular there has to be room in a comprehensive understanding of power for the idea that the domain of self-identity and psychobiography is one in which various dimensions of power are located. Clearly certain people are “powerful” in a variety of ways, for example, in the sense of having physical power or possessing persuasive or dominant personalities or as some aspect of their personal style. Also charismatic qualities are based on the unique personality and physical attributes of a person and may lead to the acquisition of authority and leadership over others. Weber (1964) has described the characteristics of charismatic authority as the foundation for forms of social domination and in this respect we can clearly discern the overlap between personally possessed powers and their connection with social settings and contexts. Thus the importance of personal powers for an understanding of power in the social arena should not be underestimated in the way that is implied by Foucauldian or poststructuralist analyses in general.
Apart from its inscription in self-identities and personalities, power is exercised and individualized in a slightly different manner—as a result of its implication in social agency in a more general sense. As Giddens (1984) has noted, to be a social agent requires not only that a person has objectives and intentions that lock him or her into a social world of reciprocal ties and obligations, but also that the person is capable of
“making a difference” in that world. That is, to be a social agent is to be someone who possesses a “transformative” capacity In Giddens’s terms, this ability to transform the social environment or to make a difference is absolutely central to his larger vision of social analysis that is avowedly against objectivist approaches in all guises (structuralism,
“making a difference” in that world. That is, to be a social agent is to be someone who possesses a “transformative” capacity In Giddens’s terms, this ability to transform the social environment or to make a difference is absolutely central to his larger vision of social analysis that is avowedly against objectivist approaches in all guises (structuralism,