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Power: Interpersonal, Organizational, and Global Dimensions Monday, 14 November 2005 TOPIC: Power institutionalized, concluded; transformations in authority in modern world Regarding the film from last class: The position of O is shaped not by the personal characteristics of O or of particular Xs (desires, wants, needs, intentions, wills) but simply by the structure of the situation, the arrangement, the fact that there are few Os and many Xs. We are moving to an understanding of power as something that is not located solely in transactions among individuals but may arise from the structure of situations. That there is one O and many Xs is a structured situation which makes random little comments by Xs – what would normally be unimportant – quite important because they accumulate and come to mean what it is to be an O, etc. STEPHEN LUKES In Power: A Radical View, Lukes offers a set of steps to understand the power that might be enacted in a transaction in a group and power that lies in situations beyond any individual’s control. He calls these dimensions of power:  one-dimensional – (similar to Wrong’s definition) the capacity of one actor to do something affecting another that changes the pattern for future events  two-dimensional – power is exercised when A participates in making decisions that affect B (A doesn’t interact with B, but A’s decisions affect B). Also exercised when A devotes energies to creating/reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of actions to issues of no importance to A. – A sets up an agenda so what B can do has no effect on A (limits effects of B back on A) – this view of power is described by Bachrach & Baratz – very important for politics: If the American political system pays no attention to pensions and health care, whose interests are served and whose are not served? What is not on the agenda of politics? Examples: – healthcare got on in 1992 and radically fell off after Clinton’s effort to do something about universal healthcare. In 2003, Bush saw the rise in interest in healthcare again, got Congress to pass the new drug benefit bill. When it came time for 2004, the Republicans could say they were addressing an issue. But universal healthcare was not on the table! This is what Lukes means: limit the decisions to issues not of interest to the power holder. – Paul Krugman compared health care systems in US, Canada, and Europe. Explored the old argument was that the US provided better care even if it wasn’t universal – but the data now shows that this is wrong. Routine medical care in US does not have better outcomes – only special high end, elective surgery does. Shows that Veteran's Hospitals have recently undergone major improvements; claims that the VA care is better because of all the ways it is not like our standard model. It is universal, full life, well and ill care, no bureaucracy screening service options, negotiate for low price drugs… 11/14/05, page 1 of 6 three-dimensional – power as consequence of collective forces and social arrangements (“structure”). The biases that are embedded in social systems – particular persons have benefited or been disadvantaged – is consequence of not only of individually chosen acts (“intentions”) but also of socially/culturally patterned behavior of groups and institutions. ANTHONY GIDDENS Resources treated as structural elements of social systems (e.g. age, income, education, organizational position) are drawn upon by actors in the instantiation of interaction. The power relations sustained in the regularized practices constituting social systems can be considered and reproduced relations of autonomy and dependence in interaction (cf. Simmel). Domination refers to structured (patterned) asymmetries of resources drawn upon and reconstituted in such power relations. Domination...is used in the sense of ‘permitting dominion over’, dominions concerning the swa actors have over others, and over the material world they inhabit. This echoes what Carolyn Heilbrun was talking about – age, organizational position may have less relevance in market for public intellectuals than for scholars (e.g. your network with publishers is far more important if you’re a public intellectuals than if you were a scholars) domination = pattern of asymmetry in the resources available Consider alternative practices of hiring in order to illustrate this structured inequality (lots of research done on this issue). 1) calling friends (need network of associates) 2) sending letters to number of departments, schools 3) putting advertisement in public media – differences result in different people getting a job – e.g. experiment in which all variables remained constant except “parenting” – women with kids got the least number of callbacks, men with kids got the most! “a family to support.” the lesson: even when you have an open system, we have cultural biases. another experiment where name varies, with less minority-sounding names getting more callbacks. – media ads only appeared in last 30-40 years: we take for granted the fact that because we are at MIT we have a better chance of getting a job because of our social capital, a network! Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman: • social capital = network • human capital = skill and education • cultural capital = knowledge of the symbol system, status, and hierarchies Authority is the ability to order/forbid and to command, including different types of command (Dennis Wrong) – coercive (with force), induced (with incentive), legitimate (shared norms or position in organization), competent (knowledge/expertise), charisma (based on kind of love, personality of leader, please the leader). We will now explore this concept of authority further... 11/14/05, page 2 of 6Authority in the modern world, or the disenchantment of life Each form of power draws on different resources: structural positions, personal qualities. Isn’t there something more we can say? Is it just a variety of type? Is there some larger pattern in history and social life so that some forms of power are more prevalent than others in different types and in different societies? There are larger historical patterns in forms of power... Recall that our forms of power, in addition to Luke’s three analytic dimensions, there are


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