Divided by a Common Language? Conceptualising Power

Abstract

That political scientists remain divided by the common language of power is perhaps testimony to the centrality of the concept to political analysis. Indeed, for many, political analysis can be defined quite simply as the analysis of the nature, exercise and distribution of power (Dahl 1963; Duverger 1964/66; Lasswell 1936/50; M. Weber 1919/46; and, for a more recent view, Goodin and Klingemann 1996). For those who adopt such a view the definition of power serves to circumscribe the parameters of political analysis. Given this, it is perhaps unremarkable that the concept of power has attracted quite so much attention, contention and controversy. How is power distributed? Is it repressive or constitutive? Is it best conceptualised in purely structural terms or as a capacity of agents? Or, indeed, is it better conceived as a resource conferred upon actors by the context in which they find themselves? Is the identification of a power relation an analytical or a normative exercise? Is the identification of an inequality of power itself sufficient to imply a normative critique of those identified as possessing ‘power over’? Can power be exercised responsibly? Can the powerful be held to account? Should power be counterposed to freedom and autonomy? Is a liberation from relations of power possible and/or desirable? These and other fundamental questions continue to divide political analysts, as we shall see. They form the subject of this chapter.