allen power in things

7/29/2019 Allen Power in Things

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Power in things:Webers

footnotes from the centrech. 1

In Allen, John (2003) Lost Geographies of

Power, Malden, MA: Blackwell.

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Power in Things

POWER AS SOME THING THAT MOVES

In the views of Hindess (1996), Isaac (1987) or Weber (1978), power

is a capacity with a dispositional quality (can be exercised or not)

and inscribed in things, people or organisations

For Hindess, power is conceived as effectiveness: the more powerful

an agent, the more effective in doing its will. Power has therefore aquantitative nature, and the power someone holds can easily be

measured through the extent of his effectiveness

For Isaac, power is an inscribed capacity(in a person, organisation,

etc.), which stems from the durable social relations in which that

agent is involved

In both cases, power is understood solely as domination, as power

over, and as a zero-sum game

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http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Discourses_of_Power.html?id=-n4XN5fXvGcC&redir_esc=yhttp://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Power_and_Marxist_theory.html?id=pIaFAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=yhttp://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Economy_and_Society.html?id=pSdaNuIaUUEC&redir_esc=yhttp://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Economy_and_Society.html?id=pSdaNuIaUUEC&redir_esc=yhttp://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Power_and_Marxist_theory.html?id=pIaFAAAAMAAJ&redir_esc=yhttp://books.google.co.uk/books/about/Discourses_of_Power.html?id=-n4XN5fXvGcC&redir_esc=y


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Power in Things

POWER AS DOMINATION

Power as domination is the most frequent interpretation of

Webers understanding of power:

domination will thus mean the situation in which the manifested will(command) of the ruler or rulers is meant to influence the conduct ofone or more others (the ruled) and actually does influence it in such away that their conduct to a socially relevant degree occurs as if the ruledhad made the content of the command the maxim of their conduct forits very own sake. Looked upon from the other end, this situation will becalled obedience (1978: 946)

But Webers conception of power is richer, and includes for instance

influence (i.e. relation of the City with political parties is not ofdomination, but involves degrees of freedom)

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4/5

Power in Things

POWER AS DOMINATION

There are even different modes of domination, of which command

and obedience is only one of them. Weber considers the latter

extensively because is the most common form in bureaucratic

organisations set up along chains of command and delegation of

authority

However Weber also distinguishes between domination and

authority, the latter conceded on the basis of legitimacy, and

necessary to enforce compliance for long periods of time and across

space

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5/5

Power in Things

THE SPATIAL THINKING IN INSCRIBED UNDERSTANDINGS OF

POWER

Albeit the new emphasis in multi-scalar and multi-node governance

(Rosenau, 1997; Newman, 1999; Jessop, 2000), power still seems to be

inscribed in organisations, though now it is not only the state which

projects power, but a multitude of nodes along different scales

Such a view has been criticised in international relations by Agnew

(1994, 1998, 1999) and Agnew and Cordbridge (1995)

Power in Weber, Isaac and Hindess seems to stem from the centre

and be distributed as if unitary, and intact, the whole of the

organisation putting its weight into it, and causing an effect dependingon the resistance met along the way

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allen power in things

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